The Liberal Toby Keith

Bragg is too articulate to be the left's Toby Keith though. I'd say the knee-jerk quality of American Idiot makes Green Day "like" Keith but I don't know.

Me, I find Toby Keith revolting, but I imagine Joe and Jean Voter in Omaha find the "dude" in Le Tigre equally revolting.

Any celebrations of lynching out the liberal side? Ass kickings? Maybe like a Rage Against the Machine thing?

wait so why should protest songs' success hinge on their level of "subtlety"? condensing any political protest message into a 3-min song is probably not going to do justice to all the nuances, and lots of the best protest songs are totally unsubtle - i mean, "masters of war" really beats you over the head, but that doesnt make it bad, does it?

Mmm, I don't know about "many". Before the invasion actually happened, something close to 60 percent of the country thought it shouldn't be done without U.N. approval. I have a hard time believing there were a lot of Democrats in the other 40 percent. (After the invasion, sure, lots of people dutifully said they "supported" it, but that's not quite the same thing.)

What puzzles me is why I don't consider gangsta songs, love songs, hate songs, you-broke-my-heart-so-fuck-you-bitch songs, to be just as simpleminded and destructive. But I don't. Jay-Z saying, "You little shit I got money stacks bigger than you," or David Thomas going, "I'll be ten feet tall/And you'll be nothing at all," seem fine to me, profound even. "She hurt my eyes open, that's no lie/Tables turned, now her turn to cry." My explanation is that the latter stuff, the love song/hate song/boy-kisses-girl, boy-kills-boy song are selected from life, from within the romance cycle, the life cycle, but don't pretend to represent it all. There's a rich world backing up those lyrics: they arise from a whole stream of life, they're received back into a whole stream of life. Whereas political songs feel like a reduction, most of them.

I believe this. I'm sure I'm right. But if someone disagreed, said, "No, the political songs are from a world of richness, and the silly love songs reduce everything to simplicity," I wouldn't have an argument that would convince him otherwise. It isn't as if there's a way to prove that "Tables turned, now her to cry" is complex while "You that never done nothin' but build to destroy" is simpleminded.

By the way, "Masters of War" does reach me, in its extremity, though it works as a punk-rock tantrum hiding behind a protest-song veneer: "I hope that you die, and your death'll come soon/I will follow your casket, on a pale afternoon/And I'll watch while you're lowered down to your death bed/And I'll stand on your grave 'til I'm sure that you're dead." There is a truth here; but the truth is about Dylan, not about war profiteers.

Whereas political songs feel like a reduction, most of them.

Yeah, that's the problem isn't it? I was trying to think of exceptions, but there aren't many. The Clash were way more convincing bitching about their record company than American foreign policy. And you're right about Dylan, his best protest songs work for the same reason all his other best fuck-you songs work, because he's really good at saying fuck you.

wait so why should protest songs' success hinge on their level of "subtlety"? condensing any political protest message into a 3-min song is probably not going to do justice to all the nuances, and lots of the best protest songs are totally unsubtle - i mean, "masters of war" really beats you over the head, but that doesnt make it bad, does it?

But Masters of War doesn't name drop anybody in particular or deal with any one crisis from 1963. It's about war in general and it's dated well. The Price of Oil sort of feels like Bragg took liberal talking points from late 2002 and put them to some mediocre music. If it was a better tune maybe I'd look past it.

Lmao at all this oh let's understand Toby's depths, this fuckin shitbag is either a fucking cynical opportunitist piece of shit or facist toady, or both.....I see he's already trotting out the well I don't REALLY support Trump stuff. I swear ILX is so weirdly credulous of bullshit new country it's bizarre as a blind spot

just like gene and roy

Hi!

I guess M@tt means me and my credulousness.

Which makes no sense because the ones who admitted to liking Keith said he hadn't written a good song in years.

Let's turn our ire to that fucker Ray Charles, playing at Reagan's second inaugural.

Alfred you don't even have a post in this thread until "Hi"

Ray Charles called my boss from a former job a cunt when she worked in concert promotion, she said he was the worst person she dealt with in 20 years in doing concerts

I thought you were referring to the OTHER Keith thread revived yesterday

No Blount & kogan et al pondering the fascinating subtleties and contradictions of Toby's politics

But seriously man my former boss hated Ray Charles that was one of these convos where it was like well that took a turn

Toby Keith has been honoured with four prizes at the Academy of Country Music awards. Toby Keith , Classic Or Dud?

alfred i greatly enjoy and respect your writing on your blog which i read often so sorry for any hard feelings :)

now i should probably unplug for this great day in american history

it's all good!

buy me a shot

i will fax you a beer

"Fax Me a Beer" was one of Toby's early hits 'before I learned about this Internet.'

red solo cup is a pretty funny song though right

"Courtesy of the Red White and Blue (The Slightly Annoyed, Conflicted American)"

you have all missed out on a true american country classic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5TPclRhQ6s

Well here we are smack in the middle of the 90's high tech age
We got lasers, cds, microchips, and fat free fat these days
Well that's all fine but I got a mind that's changing to fast for me
'Cause what I thought was new last month this month is history
I got a brand new vcr, it's got 29, 000 functions
And I can't make the damn thing work so there goes Petticoat Junction
That's when I got the best idea I think I had in years
I think I'll be cool and invent the tool that'll fax me a beer

Would you all please fax me a beer
This invention is gonna set the whole world on it's ear
Yeah, makin' old whiskey that was riskey but this is all in the clear
Sit back, relax, and punch ol' fax and I'll fax you a beer

Japan and Germany they got nothing on us you see
Why this is the latest and good ol' American high technology
And when this hits the marketplace Uncle Sam will rule the world
Well hold on cause I'm working on a machine that'll faxa real live girl

Would you all please fax me a beer
This invention is gonna set the whole world on it's ear
The old office code will never quite bet the same
When it come cold and clear
Sit back, relax, and punch ol' fax and I'll fax you a beer

Would you like me to fax me a beer
This invention is gonna set the whole world on it's ear
The old office code will never be the same
When it comes out cold and clear
Sit back, relax, and punch ol' fax and I'll fax you a beer
Sit back and drank and give thanks to Hank and I'll fax you a beer

And thus we learn.

I got a brand new vcr, it's got 29, 000 functions
And I can't make the damn thing work so there goes Petticoat Junction

we all been there bocephus

I swear ILX is so weirdly credulous of bullshit new country it's bizarre as a blind spot

― blonde redheads have more fun (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

only bullshit new country by male artists. nobody thought raelynn had any hidden depths when she released "God Made Girls." no one thought meghan trainor (a nashville songwriter, so she counts) had any hidden depths when she first came out.

(you could argue maren morris, brandy clark, kacey musgraves but they tend to align more with music writers' politics from the start, or at least don't overtly misalign, so so there's no need for the political handwringing. similarly, miranda lambert gets this exact thing -- she has tons of conservative dog-whistles in her discography, so did taylor swift when she was country -- but neither is new.)

Yep.

Part of what makes the new Lambert her best to my ears is how she's set aside the catty dismissals of other women (for the most part) while sacrificing none of her verve or imagination.

https://twitter.com/gregpinelo/status/823202007800573954

Only a small crowd was there at the Lincoln Memorial for he and 3 Doors Down and others (but the Prez will likely tell you a million were there)

it's probably cos everybody else released it wasn't 2003