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Toby Keith

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5 Oct, 2012

Hope On The Rocks

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Keith releases his single, Hope On The Rocks, from his album with the same name.

Years ago, the first house I lived in, there was a couple a little bit older than me that were married and lived three houses down.They’d work, and on Fridays and Saturdays they’d have a big barbecue and play cards and drink beer. Once in a while, I’d go down there.

Eventually the couple split up and he lost touch with them:

I thought of all the people who come and go in your life, who don’t give you a two-week notice when they’re gone. And unless you’re really close to them, you just forget about them. I started thinking of that, and how my dad would go to the café every morning in town. He had his buddies he sat with …. and then just one day, they end up not showing up. You might ask what happened to them, but it’s not really a big loss to you, because it was just trivial chatter: football games, I like your new truck, how’s it going?

Toby Keith - Hope On The Rocks

30 Jul, 2012

I Like Girls That Drink Beer

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Keith releases his single, I Like Girls That Drink Beer, from his album, Hope On The Rocks. Keith:

Ninety-nine percent of the women at the country club where I play golf, if they order an adult beverage will order something frozen or with an umbrella in it. I play with one of my best friends and his wife, and we’ll be in there watching someone order vodka with a splash of orange juice and 7up with a twist of this or that. And my friend’s wife will just, go, ‘Two Coronas.’ So we got to calling her ‘Beer Drinking Shari.’ Her face got red and I went, ‘No, no. I like girls that drink beer.’ And then I thought, well that sounds like a song title.

Toby Keith - I Like Girls That Drink Beer

Oct 2011

Red Solo Cup

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Keith releases his single, Red Solo Cup, from his album, Clancy’s Tavern.

The song is basically a bunch of frat party people getting hammered, drinking out of a red Solo cup and all the stupid stuff they do. They actually praise the red Solo cup for all the important things and usages that it has. You’re going to find it really stupid but you’ll be singing it the next day when you wake up.

Toby Keith - Red Solo Cup (Unedited Version)

13 Jun, 2011

Made In America

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Keith releases his single, Made In America, from his album, Clancy’s Tavern.

It’s not really political statement, but it’s just about a couple that raised this boy who’s in the song and it just talks about all of the ways they support their country and how patriotic they are with the way they live every day.

Toby Keith - Made In America (Official Music Video)

27 Sep, 2010

Bullets In The Gun

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Keith releases his single, Bullets In The Gun, from his album with the same name.

When we started writing this idea, which I’d had for a while, we thought we would do five or six verses and just tag the last line of each verse with ‘bullets in the gun.’ But then we came up with that fantastic chorus, which is just so strong. Growing up in Oklahoma, playing shows in New Mexico and Texas and being around the real cowboy thing, I’ve always been a huge fan of the Wild West. We’ve modernized it here – the guy’s not riding a horse, he’s riding a motorcycle. He’s lost and lonely and riding around trying to find his place in the world. And when he finds it, she’s a renegade just like him. He’s got that cold place in his soul, that missing piece. And she’s holding it. They’re soul mates. He really doesn’t commit the robbery, but he loves her so much he lets her do it. She’s tired of being treated bad, so that’s her jailbreak. She gets out. The cards are on the table and the bullets in the gun is Wild Bill Hickok. There’s no more gambling, no more bluffing; it’s do or die and we’re settling it. I never thought it could be a single, but with the response we’ve gotten from radio, it looks like it’s going to be.

Toby Keith - Bullets In The Gun

28 Jun, 2010

Trailerhood

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Keith releases his single, Trailerhood, from his album, Bullets In The Gun.

I was riding my motorcycle and had a couple of dudes with me. We were in an old neighborhood out in the country where I used to live. And there’s a trailer park out there. Somebody said, ‘Hey, let’s go eat.’ We’re starting to turn around and I realize they’ve put railroad tracks in and blocked the street I wanted to take. So I was going to say, ‘Let’s go in the trailer park’ or, ‘Let’s go in this neighborhood and turn around.’ But instead I said, ‘Let’s go in this trailerhood.’ And one of the guys said, ‘The old trailerhood, huh?’
I lived in one for a couple of years when I was 19 after I moved off my parents’ farm. It was a real nice, gated trailer park with a pool. I had a lot of fun. There were always guys drinking beer, always a poker game and kids playing ball in the streets. Everybody in my area is a Dallas Cowboys fan, so they’re always getting together to watch the games. Then you just go white trash on it with the tattoos, farmer tans, NASCAR and rodeo. Everyone knows trailer parks take a beating from tornadoes, so when you talk to people in L.A. they want to know how someone could live in one. What they don’t understand is that tornadoes are exciting. Unless it’s bulls-eyed right for you, everybody is outside watching them go by. So I brought all these thoughts together and wrote it by myself over Christmas break. I told the guys when we cut it that I wanted to be real original and organic with it; the bass drum going and the bass right there in a simple, marching band kind of feel.

Toby Keith - Trailerhood

26 Oct, 2009

Cryin’ For Me (Wayman’s Song)

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Keith releases his single, Cryin’ For Me (Wayman’s Song), featuring; Arthur Thompson, Marcus Miller and Dave Coz, from his album, American Ride. Keith wrote the song as a tribute to his friend, Wayman Tisdale who passed away.

I reeled around there for two days in a stupor. He was a great guy with a charismatic smile, and the closest thing to Jesus I’ve ever met. There’s a line in the song that says, ‘You showed me how to live.’ He was a perfect, perfect human. I got up Sunday morning, realized I was just going to have to face it all – couldn’t believe that he was gone. We had gotten really, really close. I was the first one he would call when he would come out of surgery. He passed away on May 15. Anyway, I got up Sunday morning, called his cell phone to hear his voice one more time, I grabbed my guitar and sat down and wrote this song, and went in and put it on the album.

Toby Keith - Cryin' For Me (Wayman's Song) ft. Arthur Thompson, Marcus Miller, Dave Koz

28 Jul, 2009

American Ride

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Keith releases his single, American Ride, from his album with the same name.The single represents life in the current times.

All it does is give you an entire list, a laundry list of all the things you see on TV, from Y2K, to Sars to Swine flu, to aliens coming across the border. From what’s going on on American Idol to what’s going on in the reality shows to Michael Jackson dying, just on and on, but I love my American Ride kind of thing.

Toby Keith - American Ride (Official Music Video)

26 Jun, 2007

Love Me If You Can

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Keith releases his single, Love Me If You Can, from his album, Big Dog Daddy.

Very few times do I record a song I don’t write. I can probably count on both hands the number of times I’ve done that in my whole career. This song wasn’t written for me, but it sounds like I wrote it for myself. Every word Craig wrote tells it like it is for me. There are a lot of homeless people out there who are lazy, drunk or hooked on drugs, but there are some who might just be down on their luck. So I may feel like the homeless should just get up and go to work, but I won’t stop giving money to charitable organizations that help people on the street. I do sometimes think war is necessary, but if we could push the big red peace button and make it all end I think every single one of us would

Toby Keith - Love Me If You Can

13 Feb, 2007

High Maintenance Woman

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Keith releases his single, High Maintenance Woman, from his album, Big Dog Daddy.

My manager T.K. met his ex-wife years ago when she was the head cheese at an apartment complex in Nashville. They had a basketball goal outside for the residents and T.K. would shoot baskets with the complex’s maintenance man Curt while waiting for Betty to get off work. Curt eventually asked T.K. how he could get into the music business and, long story short, he’s now one of the head guys at my booking agency Monterey Peninsula Artists. The three of us were at dinner one night and got to talking about Betty, who was just a country girl back at the apartment complex, but is kind of a high maintenance chick now. Likes her Dolce & Gabbana. T.K. said something about having known her for 20-some years, and Curt mentioned he’d known her a lot longer since they’d worked together before T.K. was in the picture. I asked Curt if he ever dated Betty and he said, ‘No, she was too high maintenance for the maintenance man’.

Toby Keith - High Maintenance Woman

5 Sep, 2005

Big Blue Note

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Keith releases his single, Big Blue Note, from his album, Honkytonk University.

I’ve never written anything quite like it. It’s just one of those things that happens to you as a songwriter. You’re going to write enough of them that one’s going to end up psychedelic or something. It went where it went. It’s a great “dear john” letter song. The title came out somewhere and it’s kind of a recitation. The last verse just ties it all together. He folds that note up into a paper airplane and says if it don’t come back he’ll accept the fact that she’s gone. I like to say on those that we happened to be the only writers up that night when that one floated by.

Toby Keith - Big Blue Note

9 May, 2005

As Good As I Once Was

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Keith releases his single, As Good As I Once Was, from his album, Honkytonk University.

Probably my favorite song on the album. If I hadn’t come out of the box with Honkytonk U, I’d have come with this one. It didn’t matter what order, they were going to be singles one and two. I can always tell when I’ve got a special one as soon as I get done. My dad used to say this line some. The first verse is about being with a woman, two is about fighting, and three is saying don’t sell me short because I’ll surprise you.

Toby Keith - As Good As I Once Was

8 Feb, 2005

Honkytonk U

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Keith releases his single, Honkytonk U, from his album, Honkytonk University.

I want my kids to go to OU, and I’m tight with some of the people there. Over the holidays somebody asked me if I went there and I said no. They asked what school I went to and I said I graduated from the school of hard knocks. I went to Honkytonk U. It just sounded like a title. I went and wrote a mini bio. It just fell out. I’d written it in my head, so when I picked the guitar up and started playing it sounded like old school Waylon. I thought, man I haven’t heard anything close to this in 25 years. I played it for my producer James Stroud and he said let’s go get some of the guys that used to record on Waylon’s albums and bring them in. So we did.

Toby Keith - Honkytonk U (Extended) (Official Music Video)

22 Mar, 2004

Whiskey Girl

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Keith releases his single, Whiskey Girl, from his album, Shock’n Y’all. Frequent collaborator, Scotty Emerick:

She’s just the epitome of a redneck girl who ain’t into wine and beer or tequila. It’s not strong enough for her. She didn’t do anything but sip on whiskey … We wanted to make her sound like a really good-looking gal who’s also kind of rough — but not some slobbering binge drinker!

Toby Keith - Whiskey Girl (Official Music Video)