thedrifter
07-05-05, 10:09 AM
Courtesty of Mark aka The Fontman
Music Preview: Toby Keith might not be for the war, but he's behind our soldiers
Thursday, June 30, 2005
By Ed Masley, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Toby Keith is tearing up the country charts this very minute with a smile-inducing sing-along that hangs its chorus on the line "I ain't as good as I once was/But I'm as good once as I ever was."
As charming as the song's self-deprecating take on aging is, though, there's no evidence that Keith is slowing down on the career front -- not with that song well along the road to No. 1 on the country singles chart and "Honky Tonk University" about to spend a sixth straight week at No. 1 on Billboard's country album chart.
Keith and co-writer Scotty Emerick knew they'd written something special with "As Good As I Once Was," a song that's pretty much as good as Keith has ever been.
"The second Scott and I were done," says Keith, "I said, 'This is an absolute, can't-miss smash. It hits my core fan right in the grill.' "
The chorus is something his dad used to say, much like the chorus of "Go With Her," a track that first appeared on last year's "Greatest Hits 2."
As the star recalls the inspiration for "Go With Her," "My dad had some friends that divorced in their late 60s and my dad was worried about the guy starting over again at his age. I said, 'I can't believe you're this worried about somebody else gettin' a divorce. You're barely friends with the guy. Why you frettin' so much?' And he said, 'I don't know what I'd do if your mama left me. I guess I'd just pack up and go with her.' So I wrote a song about a guy telling his son, 'If she leaves you, do what I did when your mama left me, son. Pack up your things and go with her.' "
One song that's destined to follow "As Good As I Once Was" right up the country singles chart is "She Ain't Hooked on Me No More," an aching duet with the legendary Merle Haggard. Much like bringing Willie Nelson in to duet on "Beer for My Horses," he says, "That's not as much to satisfy my fans as it is to just satisfy me. I got in a position where I could go do some things for myself, and I wanted to write and record a song with Hag and write and record a song with Willie. And it's great to hear those voices back on country radio after all these years. For me to be the vehicle we used to get their voices on the radio was a great opportunity. But it was just selfish. I did it for me."
So does he ever worry, having rounded 40 in 2001, that one day in the not-too-distant future he might be replaced on country radio, like Haggard and Nelson and so many others before him?
There's a slight pause, then he answers, "I think it probably will happen someday. But you know what? Your star just shines as bright as it shines. To reach the masses, you have to be on radio. And at some point, if your music's not what their listeners are listening to, they'll play whoever it is. That doesn't mean you have to quit making music."
It's been years since he captured the mood of the country while painting a patriotic target on his chest for angry leftists with "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)." But even though the single fueling sales of Keith's new album couldn't be further removed from the notion of stomping the anti-American element, Keith has yet to shake his image in the mainstream media as something of a right-wing hawk.
And he's not pleased with that portrayal
"I never had any agenda there," he says. "But I get painted with a real broad red, white and blue brush. I have a real simple process. When I get 12 or 15 songs written, I go in and record 'em and that's my album. After 9/11, a few days out, I wrote an angry song that was political. That one song about wanting to put a boot in their ass is obviously political. But 'American Soldier' was just a tribute to the veterans who served our country. And I don't have anything like that on this record. But I didn't move on or pre-plan it. I just didn't write about it this year."
So where does he stand, then, on the war?
"I completely supported the Afghanistan thing 100 percent," he says. "You've got a guy dealing guns and crack in your neighborhood by your kids' school, you call the police. You want 'em to go in, bust it up and get the bad guy, right? Well, when somebody flies planes into buildings, the armed forces may be the police to go do it, but you still want 'em to go get the bad guy. So all of a sudden, because of my song, which is 100 percent all about 9/11 -- it has nothing to do with the Iraq War -- I get lumped into that anyway, but that's part of the baggage you've gotta deal with. It comes with the territory."
He never supported the war in Iraq, he says, although a recent trip to Europe may have changed his mind.
"I go to Europe and stay with General [James L.] Jones, who's been moved from a four-star general commandant of the Marine Corps to the position that Eisenhower, Alexander Haig, Wesley Clark and eight or nine other people have held and that is the leader of SHAPE, our allied forces of Europe. So after my concert in Brussels for a bunch of the soldiers about to be deployed and their families at this base, the general took me over to a little VIP meeting, and I met with all the commanders representing Spain and France and all the other countries in this alliance ... and this is a great piece of news. All these other leaders, they are all in agreeance on us being in there. We've all shared the same information. They all agree, and some of them, even to the point of using the word embarrassed, said, 'We agree with what y'all are doing but politically, our country won't let us involve ourselves.' So here you've got all this information and you're the leader of the French army and I'm Gen. Jones and you bring me this intel saying 'We agree, this guy has got to go; he's bad for the world,' and it's sad that the United States will have to go carry it out, but his country won't let their military participate in something that their military completely agrees with. So it's some of those things there that make it hard for me to argue with us being in there, even though I don't agree with this war and it looks like a complete disaster."
France's military leader, in particular, was nervous about shaking hands with The Angry American.
"He knew I was a gung-ho patriot," says Keith. "He heard my set. He's obviously bilingual, and he heard 'Angry American' and 'American Soldier' and all my support for the troops and at the end of the show he felt like 'How is he going to feel about meeting somebody from France?' with as bad a name as France has got in our country. And I was going, 'Nah, man, I'll shake your hand.' And he goes, 'I support.' You'll never hear that on CNN."
It may seem kind of weird that Keith would have that kind of access to the world's military leaders. But even those who get their news from CNN would have to grant him this much: the troops couldn't ask for a bigger supporter, one who puts his body where his big old mouth is, playing more than 60 USO dates overseas. And he does more than play a show.
"I convoy with them," Keith explains. "When we go to Baghdad, we don't just land in the green zone and sing. We get out in Indian country, in the Wild Wild West. There ain't no use me goin' over there and just standing in Baghdad and telling the soldiers to come to me. I go to them. If you're not on a Blackhawk helicopter, jumping from Mosul to Tikrit to Fallujah to Taji and then back on an airplane to go to Afghanistan to do Kandahar and Kabul, if you're not going to the remote areas ... I don't want to just play to the behind-the-scenes guys. I want to look in the eyes and shake the hands of the guys [that are] going on patrol every night."
One other point he'd like to make -- emphatically, in fact -- is that he's never taken any money for his USO work.
continued..........
Music Preview: Toby Keith might not be for the war, but he's behind our soldiers
Thursday, June 30, 2005
By Ed Masley, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Toby Keith is tearing up the country charts this very minute with a smile-inducing sing-along that hangs its chorus on the line "I ain't as good as I once was/But I'm as good once as I ever was."
As charming as the song's self-deprecating take on aging is, though, there's no evidence that Keith is slowing down on the career front -- not with that song well along the road to No. 1 on the country singles chart and "Honky Tonk University" about to spend a sixth straight week at No. 1 on Billboard's country album chart.
Keith and co-writer Scotty Emerick knew they'd written something special with "As Good As I Once Was," a song that's pretty much as good as Keith has ever been.
"The second Scott and I were done," says Keith, "I said, 'This is an absolute, can't-miss smash. It hits my core fan right in the grill.' "
The chorus is something his dad used to say, much like the chorus of "Go With Her," a track that first appeared on last year's "Greatest Hits 2."
As the star recalls the inspiration for "Go With Her," "My dad had some friends that divorced in their late 60s and my dad was worried about the guy starting over again at his age. I said, 'I can't believe you're this worried about somebody else gettin' a divorce. You're barely friends with the guy. Why you frettin' so much?' And he said, 'I don't know what I'd do if your mama left me. I guess I'd just pack up and go with her.' So I wrote a song about a guy telling his son, 'If she leaves you, do what I did when your mama left me, son. Pack up your things and go with her.' "
One song that's destined to follow "As Good As I Once Was" right up the country singles chart is "She Ain't Hooked on Me No More," an aching duet with the legendary Merle Haggard. Much like bringing Willie Nelson in to duet on "Beer for My Horses," he says, "That's not as much to satisfy my fans as it is to just satisfy me. I got in a position where I could go do some things for myself, and I wanted to write and record a song with Hag and write and record a song with Willie. And it's great to hear those voices back on country radio after all these years. For me to be the vehicle we used to get their voices on the radio was a great opportunity. But it was just selfish. I did it for me."
So does he ever worry, having rounded 40 in 2001, that one day in the not-too-distant future he might be replaced on country radio, like Haggard and Nelson and so many others before him?
There's a slight pause, then he answers, "I think it probably will happen someday. But you know what? Your star just shines as bright as it shines. To reach the masses, you have to be on radio. And at some point, if your music's not what their listeners are listening to, they'll play whoever it is. That doesn't mean you have to quit making music."
It's been years since he captured the mood of the country while painting a patriotic target on his chest for angry leftists with "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)." But even though the single fueling sales of Keith's new album couldn't be further removed from the notion of stomping the anti-American element, Keith has yet to shake his image in the mainstream media as something of a right-wing hawk.
And he's not pleased with that portrayal
"I never had any agenda there," he says. "But I get painted with a real broad red, white and blue brush. I have a real simple process. When I get 12 or 15 songs written, I go in and record 'em and that's my album. After 9/11, a few days out, I wrote an angry song that was political. That one song about wanting to put a boot in their ass is obviously political. But 'American Soldier' was just a tribute to the veterans who served our country. And I don't have anything like that on this record. But I didn't move on or pre-plan it. I just didn't write about it this year."
So where does he stand, then, on the war?
"I completely supported the Afghanistan thing 100 percent," he says. "You've got a guy dealing guns and crack in your neighborhood by your kids' school, you call the police. You want 'em to go in, bust it up and get the bad guy, right? Well, when somebody flies planes into buildings, the armed forces may be the police to go do it, but you still want 'em to go get the bad guy. So all of a sudden, because of my song, which is 100 percent all about 9/11 -- it has nothing to do with the Iraq War -- I get lumped into that anyway, but that's part of the baggage you've gotta deal with. It comes with the territory."
He never supported the war in Iraq, he says, although a recent trip to Europe may have changed his mind.
"I go to Europe and stay with General [James L.] Jones, who's been moved from a four-star general commandant of the Marine Corps to the position that Eisenhower, Alexander Haig, Wesley Clark and eight or nine other people have held and that is the leader of SHAPE, our allied forces of Europe. So after my concert in Brussels for a bunch of the soldiers about to be deployed and their families at this base, the general took me over to a little VIP meeting, and I met with all the commanders representing Spain and France and all the other countries in this alliance ... and this is a great piece of news. All these other leaders, they are all in agreeance on us being in there. We've all shared the same information. They all agree, and some of them, even to the point of using the word embarrassed, said, 'We agree with what y'all are doing but politically, our country won't let us involve ourselves.' So here you've got all this information and you're the leader of the French army and I'm Gen. Jones and you bring me this intel saying 'We agree, this guy has got to go; he's bad for the world,' and it's sad that the United States will have to go carry it out, but his country won't let their military participate in something that their military completely agrees with. So it's some of those things there that make it hard for me to argue with us being in there, even though I don't agree with this war and it looks like a complete disaster."
France's military leader, in particular, was nervous about shaking hands with The Angry American.
"He knew I was a gung-ho patriot," says Keith. "He heard my set. He's obviously bilingual, and he heard 'Angry American' and 'American Soldier' and all my support for the troops and at the end of the show he felt like 'How is he going to feel about meeting somebody from France?' with as bad a name as France has got in our country. And I was going, 'Nah, man, I'll shake your hand.' And he goes, 'I support.' You'll never hear that on CNN."
It may seem kind of weird that Keith would have that kind of access to the world's military leaders. But even those who get their news from CNN would have to grant him this much: the troops couldn't ask for a bigger supporter, one who puts his body where his big old mouth is, playing more than 60 USO dates overseas. And he does more than play a show.
"I convoy with them," Keith explains. "When we go to Baghdad, we don't just land in the green zone and sing. We get out in Indian country, in the Wild Wild West. There ain't no use me goin' over there and just standing in Baghdad and telling the soldiers to come to me. I go to them. If you're not on a Blackhawk helicopter, jumping from Mosul to Tikrit to Fallujah to Taji and then back on an airplane to go to Afghanistan to do Kandahar and Kabul, if you're not going to the remote areas ... I don't want to just play to the behind-the-scenes guys. I want to look in the eyes and shake the hands of the guys [that are] going on patrol every night."
One other point he'd like to make -- emphatically, in fact -- is that he's never taken any money for his USO work.
continued..........