Wild to lose him so relatively young. He was such a fixture of the 90s Top 40 Country Music I grew up on.
I can still remember the chorus to “Should’ve Been A Cowboy”… and my memory for lyrics is shit, so that’s saying something.
I thought there was a line about wearing sex shoes, which always made me wonder what sex shoes were. Upon looking at the lyrics it was actually “Wearing my six-shooter”
I still love the opening: 🎶 I bet you never heard ol' Marshal Dillon say, 'Miss Kitty, have you ever thought of running away, settling down, would you marry me?' 🎶
Whats hillarious is I hate country music, but my parents love it and played it in the 90's nonstop. I know every word to entire toby and reba and vince gill albums against my will lol.
That's me but my grandparents. I have a weird relationship with that music since I personally do not care for it and generally go out of my way to avoid it, but the only time I ever heard it was while staying with my grandparents so I associate it with hanging out at their house when I was a kid. They're gone now and its weird to have music that I don't like at all but at the same time don't *really* mind having come on somewhere because it reminds me of family.
Same here kind of. I grew up in an area where country was king. I rebelled and embraced rap music, and eventually moved on to jam bands. But danm if I don’t know a lot of 80’s and 90’s country music.
I haven't listened to any new country in decades at this point, but 90s country was the background of my early life, and I still love it. Reba is even my go-to for karaoke! 😄
Same! I have no idea if I know any current country songs… maybe I’ve heard them in the background of places or maybe not, I don’t know, I don’t seek them out, but 90’s and even very early 2000’s country is in my heart forever. I hear those songs and immediately think of the friends I was sitting on the front porch with and the things we were laughing about, or a magical date I went on, or doing something mischievous and testing life out to see what we can get away with, etc.
I had the same experience, except my parents loved Broadway shows, so the albums were the original cast recordings of My Fair Lady, Carousel, South Pacific and Oklahoma! Yuk. Was talked into going to see Hamilton a few years ago by my wife, and it was the first Broadway musical I actually liked.
I hadn’t thought about that song in years until the other day when my husband randomly started singing it. Then it was stuck in my head for the entire day. So weird. RIP Toby Keith
That’s getting into the “separate the artist/creator from the art.” I’m still not sure where I land on that, and it will be different for every artist in question.
I do know I couldn’t stand the hyper-nationalistic stuff he started doing after 9/11. And I haven’t looked into his history to know if maybe he was a decent enough guy at the start, and then got caught in the nationalist/pre-MAGA right wing stuff.
Can’t say I’ll miss him… it’s just wild to have a part of my childhood gone so relatively young.
In 5th grade a boy wrote me a note that was just the lyrics to How Do You Like Me Now (he thought this was a romantic gesture even though the song is the opposite). I said "this is a Toby Keith song", and he said "oh I didn't think you would know that" lol
Thank you for reminding me of this song! With my cousins we would put on talent shows for our grandparents (as you do) and I just vaguely remember the line dance we came up with for this song. Hilarious.
That’s some pure uncut levels of cringe right there. I bet that dude still wakes up in the middle of the night in cold sweats going *”Why in the fuck did I do that?”*
Definitely seems like he’s a big prick in that song when you listen as an adult hahah
“remember how your kids heard you cry down the hall as your husband was out cheating hahaha you fuckin loser”
TBF this was around the time he became a prick in real life too. I’m sad to see him go but he also was a large contributor in pushing country to this extreme nationalist genre. It always irked me because he had such great music before that. Then every single country song was waving a flag and drinking American beer… very ultra patriotic. He didn’t deserve to go out like this at all, very sad despite my feelings about his choices around that time.
Well 9/11 played a part in that too but he has the most obnoxious 9/11 song. Compare The Angry American to Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning.
My aunt had a pretty devastating divorce and that song was her anthem and it literally was the only song I ever knew from him. I'm almost 40 now and I still can remember how much it helped her through such a dark a dark time.
Right? I mean, for all his faults, I still can't help but like his music because it was a huge part of the soundtrack of my youth. During HS in Texas, there wasn't a single party that didn't have his music playing. Especially during that weird early 2000s rap/country overlap (like that Tim McGraw x Nelly song). *I Love This Bar* could've easily faded into *99 Problems* at our parties. Then there was Bubba Sparxxx lol.
At the risk of oversimplifying it, Toby's legacy is complicated, yes; but, I think the context of the time matters. Kids might look at him today and see him through today's values. Everyone & everything changed on 9/11, and not always for the better. Almost everyone was on ultra-nationalism (even non-Americans), and we were hyped up on retribution. Toby Keith just put those feelings to song. Yeah, it was shitty what happened with the Dixie Chicks, but from what I've read, he regretted it.
So RIP Toby, probably sticking boots in asses for eternity.
Everyone wasn’t hyped up on nationalism, at least not the kind Toby and country musicians displayed, which was based on xenophobia and bigotry. The man had a song about killing Muslims for fucksake
Hyped on retribution, and yes not everyone, but the feeling was certainly widespread, especially for those of us in the military-adjacent community (who Keith wrote *Angry American* for). I def do understand what you're saying. Now that I'm an emotionally mature, empathetic adult, I wouldn't voluntarily listen (even nostalgically) to his post 9/11 songs again. And if he had come out with that music today, like Aldean's "Try that in a small town", I would've hated it as much as I hate modern bro-country. I can't even nostalgia-listen to 2000s party staple *Save a Horse* now because of John Rich. And that song is not near as controversial as *Angry American*. So, I completely agree that his songs were not acceptable by any standard, but there's more nuance & context to this topic than can be examined in a mid-workday reddit comment.
A large percentage of Americans felt anger in response to 9/11. That’s a logical response. Singers like Toby Keith are allowed to have natural logical human responses to things, too. But yeah. Try to paint it as some sort of race war incitement.
Pretty sure no one is going to believe me but...
I used to live next door to him in OKC when I was but a wee lad and he was starting out. I would play with his daughters and we had a shared swing set that, if I remember the story correctly, he hung a deer from after a recent hunting trip. Apparently I went outside the next morning, saw it, and screamed bloody murder.
After my baby sister was born, his wife Trish and two daughters, Shelly and Crystal, came up for a visit and to meet her
RIP Toby. I'm going to miss you.
Just outside of Moore. It was a trailer park that was like, barely inside OKC city limits. There was like a Pratts grocery store down a gravel road from the park. After both of our families had houses in Moore, I remember going over to theirs from ours multiple times.
Edit: funny enough, the trailer park is still there. My wife and I ran across it when we were taking a trip to OKC.
That’s so cool! I know where you are talking about.
Edit1: I found an article about Pratts: https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/1986/04/13/pratts-in-moore-innovative-supermarket/62729680007/.
I miss Pratt's and the Kit's Chinese restaurant that was by it. And now I miss Toby. The Moore alum we talked about the most when I was in highschool. RIP fellow Lion.
His songs take me back to the carefree and fun part of my life I was so privileged have the luxury to experience. Everyone in the honkytonk was happy when one of his songs came on.
I’m about to run down to Mom’s to do some chores for her, now I’m looking forward to listening to him all afternoon now. I’m sure I’ll cry but if no one sees me, did I really 🤷♂️.
I assume his illness was kept under wraps for the most part? I don't remember hearing anything about it and this seems to have come out of nowhere. Or that rock I live under for most of my life kept that info from me. I'm not at all a fan, but cancer is a bitch that can go fuck itself.
Holy shit if you showed me that photo before I saw the news I would've assumed that was just some random guy. It looks nothing like him to me.
I hope he wasn't in much pain lately.
Toby Keith came to Afghanistan and gave us a show on FOB Sharana. It was a shitty little outpost on the border with Pakistan.
Did he boil my blood with racist and xenophobia? Yes. Asshole? Yes.
But he did put his money where his mouth is, and flew his ass to a fucking warzone.
You nailed it, he also came to my post of 100 troops and stayed around a long time to meet everyone. He was a racist xenophobic war exploiter, but he also really cared about the troops and went to places others would not. I don't agree with anything he stood for, but I appreciate him taking the time out to sing to 100 people in a tent. I hope his family is OK through all this. Oh and he was hella baked when he arrived, and that was hilarious to us military folks.
He tried and basically succeeded in ending the Dixie Chicks careers after they spoke up about George Bush and the wars etc. The band got death threats and basically lost their careers. He was a Trump supporter and apiece of shit human being but still… fuck cancer.
Yeah, him getting cancer sucks, and I'm sad for his family. But I also can't help but remember how he would display doctored photos of Saddam Hussein with the Dixie Chicks on the jumbotrons at his concerts for his fans to rage at. Toby Keith was one of the originators of fake-rage-for-profit in this country. That was a poor decision on his part. That being said, RIP.
This is far too low here. People who are deceased can still be absolute pieces of shit. I’ll be breaking out some old Dixie Chicks hits today and feeling good knowing the better humans are still with us.
It’s so weird seeing all these super-positive comments about a dude Reddit 99.99% of the time hated on before right now.
Shit, I should die. It does wonders for your popularity.
Yeah. I remember how embarrassing it felt to be an American post-911 with his whole “we’ll put a boot in your ass, it’s the American way!” schtick. I was an expat at the time and it just confirmed what many non-Americans thought about us—racist, arrogant, aggressively foolish.
One night at the bar watching football with my crew, and we couldn’t believe it when we saw Toby and his band sitting at the tables behind us. We introduced ourselves and bought a round for the crew, chatted them up for awhile, and stepped outside to smoke blunts with his tour manager ( Toby politely declined saying he only smoked with Willie )
The manager got our crew front row seats at the show one state over about a month out from that night, along with meet and greet passes. When we saw him at that show for the meet and greet, he remembered us right away and hanging with us in that RI bar. Great night, great memory
RIP TK, how do they like ya now
It’s interesting seeing the love in these comments for his music. Personally, I feel like Toby ushered in the shit state that country music has become. RIP though; definitely made a huge impact for better or worse.
I do feel like he ushered in a lot of shit music, but somehow I like a lot of his music. Mainly his songs from when he was younger and just starting out though.
It’s strange. His earlier stuff was standard country but the amount of people saying songs like “I Love this Bar” are the only country songs they like is weird when it’s like the most generic country song ever. I mean I like it but it’s far from what I think of as good country music.
See him and Brad Paisley felt like they were just on top of the world for that time, Trace Adkins and Big and Rich feel like the opening of the dam for all the new shit that started coming out. Big and Rich then Luke Bryan and the guy from the Voice who's with Gwen Stefani now. Toby and Brad and Kenny feel like they were just on top of the world. No point to this comment, I just wanted to ramble.
Uh-uh Blake Shelton had his moment in the sun as a very legit country singer. He sold out exactly like his wife did, but his contribution to country music is beyond respectable. He gave up his mullet and it was all vain LA-reality TV-shit from there…
Now Big and Rich- and their lil’ pet Cowboy Troy- gave us that mess they called ‘Hick Hop’ and mainstream Nashville has been on some BS ever since.
It’s kind of wild to think about how modern country music is at the top of the pop charts, and has been for this whole decade. The average american listens to *a lot* of pop-country in 2024. I don’t have much memory of Toby Keith’s music, but his influence and legacy is obvious.
It sucks that even people with access to the best health care end up eventually dying from this fucking disease. Doesn’t look good for the rest of us! RIP.
I hated everything he stood for. Sure he was the self appointed Red, White and Toby(culture war) king but it was pretty callous to talk about dead Iraqis saying we "put a boot up your ass."
And the families of killed Afghans probably didn’t appreciate him singing: "Man, we lit up your world like the Fourth of July."
But it’s really what happened after he released Courtesy of the Red, White, & Blue (The Angry American). First, he criticized Peter Jennings for asking
him to soften the lyrics for national Tv, pointing out that Jennings was born in Canada: "I find it interesting that he's not from the U.S." Then came the Dixie Chicks, which included Keith releasing a poorly doctored picture of lead singer Natalie Maines with Saddam Hussein. Classy,
And his FDC (Fuck the Dixie Chicks) shirt, which prompted Darkest Hour to announce the equally petty but pretty funny “Fuck Toby Keith, He’s Destroying America” tour.
Achieved nothing, allowed China to quietly grow its influence. “Putting boots up asses” is not the wisest way for a country to conduct its geopolitics. Who knew?
I won a signed copy of Unleashed at some radio station event thing at a local car dealership that my mom dragged me to when I was a little kid. I don’t even like his music but I still have that CD around because of the warm memories attached to it. Anyway, fuck cancer
That really sucks. I really liked him and I was just listening to his music the other day. He was one of the only county singers that I could legit enjoy listening to.
Rest in Peace, and thank you for the music.
That's so sad. He did some interviews days ago and he had hope for the future although he looked shocking frail from what he used to be. I hope he rests easy now. He was my first concert my parents took me to see in Buffalo.
Seeing photos of him so skinny was hard for me. I watched my dad go from healthy to this very frail and thin man and just kept slipping until he was gone.
Horribly terrifying to watch your parents get sick and pass. I lost my mom when I was 18 and my dad at 34.
Mom was in her 50s and dad 60s
Red solo cup was my wedding song. We had red solo cup wine glasses at our head table. I'm going to bust those out and fill them up with beer after work.
1. Fuck Cancer. I don't care who you are, save 1 person, but that sucks that he and his family went through that.
2. Fuck Toby Keith. He was a xenophobic, racist, misogynistic piece of garbage that stoked the flames of hated towards Arab Americans and anyone of Muslim decent.
RIP Toby Keith ❤️
I just lost my dad a month ago and he loved Toby Keith and all the wonderful 90's country artists like Brooks and Dunn, Alan Jackson and the Judd's.
I like to think my dad and all those passed before him are getting to enjoy an awesome concert in their heaven from Toby now.
Fuck cancer. RIP cowboy ❤️
We saw him perform at the Rodeo about ten years ago. He was pretty sloshed and didn’t look like he had been taking care of himself. The atmosphere was also a bit uncomfortable due to some of the statements that were made. I hope his family is doing okay. It’s usually pretty hard to lose someone who is still relatively young for today’s standards.
First and only country song that references either Palestine or Turkmenistan...
Hell, it may be one of the few songs in English to reference Turkmenistan other than a certain song from Borat...
By all accounts he seemed like a truly detestable human being, representing the worst of American ignorance and jingoism… but the dude could write a damn good country song.
> but the dude could write a damn good country song
You need to listen to more actual C&W if you think his crap was good. His music straight up sucked.
Damn it, really enjoyed some of his songs. Should’ve been a cowboy, Red Solo cup, My list…
He did an interview this last week in OKC, he looked like cancer was taking a toll. Fuck cancer
Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uiey8FX6oFM
Part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_XPoegXYyE&list=PL6cNEEeCc7cjWjsbXeUHDiW9GmojfMovD&index=2
Thought he was a POS in life, still think he’s a POS in death. Condolences to his family but I’m not gonna pretend like I suddenly think he was a great person now that he’s gone.
Holy shit…. I remember when my father got to sing Red Solo Cup and i think one or two other songs with Toby on stage because he won a karaoke contest i think hosted by a local radio station or whatever. I sadly didn’t get to go because i was in Basic Training at the time, but he showed me the pictures of him and Toby onstage together, as well as a pic of him, Toby and my late Stepmom DUR-UUUUNK as fuck hahaha. Course, my father had been a country rock singer for over 40 years at this point so the Karaoke contest was kiiiinda in his favor lmao. Damn this hits hard, yo. Fuck Cancer.
I really dislike the term, 'battling' when referring to cancer diagnoses. You don't battle it - it eats you alive. If you do recover, it's down to the doctors and drugs, not your conquest of cancer.
Your stance is to judge & classify an entire group of people for the bad actions of a few, while saying it’s reprehensible to judge & classify an entire group of people for the bad actions of a few? Got it. Makes sense.
If there’s a Heaven, Toby can look forward to an eternity of being snubbed by Hank, Johnny, and the other real players.
He wasn’t fit to empty their ashtrays.
I remember I had his 35 biggest hits album in my early 20s, I'd roll down the windows and turn his music up loud, singing to every song. I'm definitely going to miss him.
Wild to lose him so relatively young. He was such a fixture of the 90s Top 40 Country Music I grew up on. I can still remember the chorus to “Should’ve Been A Cowboy”… and my memory for lyrics is shit, so that’s saying something.
I shoulda learned to rope & ride
I thought there was a line about wearing sex shoes, which always made me wonder what sex shoes were. Upon looking at the lyrics it was actually “Wearing my six-shooter”
Every shoe is a sex show if you try hard enough.
Maybe if you like feet enough this is true
SO DID I
Wearing your sex shoes riding your pony on a cattle drive 🤣
I still love the opening: 🎶 I bet you never heard ol' Marshal Dillon say, 'Miss Kitty, have you ever thought of running away, settling down, would you marry me?' 🎶
She’d have said yes in a New York minute
They never tied the knot, his heart wasn't in it
Whats hillarious is I hate country music, but my parents love it and played it in the 90's nonstop. I know every word to entire toby and reba and vince gill albums against my will lol.
That's me but my grandparents. I have a weird relationship with that music since I personally do not care for it and generally go out of my way to avoid it, but the only time I ever heard it was while staying with my grandparents so I associate it with hanging out at their house when I was a kid. They're gone now and its weird to have music that I don't like at all but at the same time don't *really* mind having come on somewhere because it reminds me of family.
Same Tobey Keith just hits different. My mom loved him so I have soft spot for him and big and rich
Same here kind of. I grew up in an area where country was king. I rebelled and embraced rap music, and eventually moved on to jam bands. But danm if I don’t know a lot of 80’s and 90’s country music.
Same! raised on country and oldies, then in fourth grade I heard Snoop Dogg Doggystyle for the first time and it was like a religous awakening.
Absolutely same.
I haven't listened to any new country in decades at this point, but 90s country was the background of my early life, and I still love it. Reba is even my go-to for karaoke! 😄
Same! I have no idea if I know any current country songs… maybe I’ve heard them in the background of places or maybe not, I don’t know, I don’t seek them out, but 90’s and even very early 2000’s country is in my heart forever. I hear those songs and immediately think of the friends I was sitting on the front porch with and the things we were laughing about, or a magical date I went on, or doing something mischievous and testing life out to see what we can get away with, etc.
I had the same experience, except my parents loved Broadway shows, so the albums were the original cast recordings of My Fair Lady, Carousel, South Pacific and Oklahoma! Yuk. Was talked into going to see Hamilton a few years ago by my wife, and it was the first Broadway musical I actually liked.
Patty Loveless, Trisha Yearwood, Patsy Womack for me ugh
His music back then always delighted me. Light and amusing.
He just stole a kiss as he rode away
🎶 Wearin my sex shoe, riding my pony…. 🎶
I’d be wearing my six shooter, riding my pony on a cattle drive
Stealing the young girls hearts, just like Gene and Roy. Singing those camp fire songs, oh I should have been a cowboy.
Wearin’ my six shooter riden’ my pony on a cattle drive
I still love “I Love this Bar.” Gets stuck in my head regularly. Especially when I frequent a bar 😅
First country song I ever liked
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:( this and “beer for my horses” was my fav
That song has been running through my head all week, and I had no idea he was sick RIP The 90’s were such a great time for music, across many genres
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They were saying on the radio this morning that Should've Been a Cowboy was the most played song of the 90s with 3 million plays.
I hadn’t thought about that song in years until the other day when my husband randomly started singing it. Then it was stuck in my head for the entire day. So weird. RIP Toby Keith
He was an asshole. Won't miss his ass at all.
That’s getting into the “separate the artist/creator from the art.” I’m still not sure where I land on that, and it will be different for every artist in question. I do know I couldn’t stand the hyper-nationalistic stuff he started doing after 9/11. And I haven’t looked into his history to know if maybe he was a decent enough guy at the start, and then got caught in the nationalist/pre-MAGA right wing stuff. Can’t say I’ll miss him… it’s just wild to have a part of my childhood gone so relatively young.
In 5th grade a boy wrote me a note that was just the lyrics to How Do You Like Me Now (he thought this was a romantic gesture even though the song is the opposite). I said "this is a Toby Keith song", and he said "oh I didn't think you would know that" lol
Thank you for reminding me of this song! With my cousins we would put on talent shows for our grandparents (as you do) and I just vaguely remember the line dance we came up with for this song. Hilarious.
That’s some pure uncut levels of cringe right there. I bet that dude still wakes up in the middle of the night in cold sweats going *”Why in the fuck did I do that?”*
Lmao I should ask him if he remembers 😆
Dear god no, the only way hes still clinging to life is in the hope that you maybe forgot about it!
Definitely seems like he’s a big prick in that song when you listen as an adult hahah “remember how your kids heard you cry down the hall as your husband was out cheating hahaha you fuckin loser”
TBF this was around the time he became a prick in real life too. I’m sad to see him go but he also was a large contributor in pushing country to this extreme nationalist genre. It always irked me because he had such great music before that. Then every single country song was waving a flag and drinking American beer… very ultra patriotic. He didn’t deserve to go out like this at all, very sad despite my feelings about his choices around that time.
Well 9/11 played a part in that too but he has the most obnoxious 9/11 song. Compare The Angry American to Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning.
When I was in 5th grade I listened to this song every day
My aunt had a pretty devastating divorce and that song was her anthem and it literally was the only song I ever knew from him. I'm almost 40 now and I still can remember how much it helped her through such a dark a dark time.
Not the news I was expecting to hear right before I went to bed. I think I speak for absolutely everyone when I say **fuck cancer**
Fuck cancer
FUCK cancer!
Fuck Cancer
He left behind a solid legacy. I Wanna Talk About Me is still a totally fun bop. RIP
Same with I love this bar and ain’t much fun and even red solo cup.
Whiskey for my men, beer for my horses is a fun collab with Willie Nelson too.
Right? I mean, for all his faults, I still can't help but like his music because it was a huge part of the soundtrack of my youth. During HS in Texas, there wasn't a single party that didn't have his music playing. Especially during that weird early 2000s rap/country overlap (like that Tim McGraw x Nelly song). *I Love This Bar* could've easily faded into *99 Problems* at our parties. Then there was Bubba Sparxxx lol. At the risk of oversimplifying it, Toby's legacy is complicated, yes; but, I think the context of the time matters. Kids might look at him today and see him through today's values. Everyone & everything changed on 9/11, and not always for the better. Almost everyone was on ultra-nationalism (even non-Americans), and we were hyped up on retribution. Toby Keith just put those feelings to song. Yeah, it was shitty what happened with the Dixie Chicks, but from what I've read, he regretted it. So RIP Toby, probably sticking boots in asses for eternity.
Everyone wasn’t hyped up on nationalism, at least not the kind Toby and country musicians displayed, which was based on xenophobia and bigotry. The man had a song about killing Muslims for fucksake
Hyped on retribution, and yes not everyone, but the feeling was certainly widespread, especially for those of us in the military-adjacent community (who Keith wrote *Angry American* for). I def do understand what you're saying. Now that I'm an emotionally mature, empathetic adult, I wouldn't voluntarily listen (even nostalgically) to his post 9/11 songs again. And if he had come out with that music today, like Aldean's "Try that in a small town", I would've hated it as much as I hate modern bro-country. I can't even nostalgia-listen to 2000s party staple *Save a Horse* now because of John Rich. And that song is not near as controversial as *Angry American*. So, I completely agree that his songs were not acceptable by any standard, but there's more nuance & context to this topic than can be examined in a mid-workday reddit comment.
Don’t sugar coat it. Dude inflamed racial divide in this nation when 9/11 occurred.
A large percentage of Americans felt anger in response to 9/11. That’s a logical response. Singers like Toby Keith are allowed to have natural logical human responses to things, too. But yeah. Try to paint it as some sort of race war incitement.
As a non American this was the only song of his I’ve ever heard, my whole family love it.
This sentiment might be the only thing everyone on Reddit agrees with: Fuck cancer, indeed
Pretty sure no one is going to believe me but... I used to live next door to him in OKC when I was but a wee lad and he was starting out. I would play with his daughters and we had a shared swing set that, if I remember the story correctly, he hung a deer from after a recent hunting trip. Apparently I went outside the next morning, saw it, and screamed bloody murder. After my baby sister was born, his wife Trish and two daughters, Shelly and Crystal, came up for a visit and to meet her RIP Toby. I'm going to miss you.
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my friend and i took a sweet picture with him at the big 12 baseball playoffs. the man was having a damn good time
As someone who grew up in Moore OK, I 100% believe this story. He was a good dude.
That’s wild. Was this in Moore?
Just outside of Moore. It was a trailer park that was like, barely inside OKC city limits. There was like a Pratts grocery store down a gravel road from the park. After both of our families had houses in Moore, I remember going over to theirs from ours multiple times. Edit: funny enough, the trailer park is still there. My wife and I ran across it when we were taking a trip to OKC.
That’s so cool! I know where you are talking about. Edit1: I found an article about Pratts: https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/1986/04/13/pratts-in-moore-innovative-supermarket/62729680007/.
I miss Pratt's and the Kit's Chinese restaurant that was by it. And now I miss Toby. The Moore alum we talked about the most when I was in highschool. RIP fellow Lion.
I miss many parts of Moore. Things changed when the new high school came in.
His songs take me back to the carefree and fun part of my life I was so privileged have the luxury to experience. Everyone in the honkytonk was happy when one of his songs came on.
Fuck, he's the only country music star I like. I'm listening to "How do you like me now"
I’m about to run down to Mom’s to do some chores for her, now I’m looking forward to listening to him all afternoon now. I’m sure I’ll cry but if no one sees me, did I really 🤷♂️.
Whiskey for my man and beer for my horses!
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Freedom isn't free :(
It’s uh hefty fuckin’ fee
I assume his illness was kept under wraps for the most part? I don't remember hearing anything about it and this seems to have come out of nowhere. Or that rock I live under for most of my life kept that info from me. I'm not at all a fan, but cancer is a bitch that can go fuck itself.
He announced his diagnosis a few years ago. He commented last year that his prognosis was good as well but we see how that turned out.
Stomqch cancer may as well be pancreatic cancer, the mortality rates are pretty close.
Absolutely
It strikes young as well. Father passed away at 39 from it. He was in remission for 2 years and suddenly got ill and died in a matter of 3 days.
It’s a terrible experience
Also likely his body gave out from cancer treatments too
If you look at his instagram you can pretty much tell he had cancer.
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Holy shit if you showed me that photo before I saw the news I would've assumed that was just some random guy. It looks nothing like him to me. I hope he wasn't in much pain lately.
Sadly he likely was. Stomach cancer is brutal. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone no matter my personal feelings.
Wow.. first time seeing a recent picture. Looks nothing like him. RIP.
It’s the rock you’re living under. He’s been public about his cancer since 2022.
Ahh gotcha. I kinda figured that's what it was. Thanks!
Boot in yer ass guy?
Toby Keith came to Afghanistan and gave us a show on FOB Sharana. It was a shitty little outpost on the border with Pakistan. Did he boil my blood with racist and xenophobia? Yes. Asshole? Yes. But he did put his money where his mouth is, and flew his ass to a fucking warzone.
You nailed it, he also came to my post of 100 troops and stayed around a long time to meet everyone. He was a racist xenophobic war exploiter, but he also really cared about the troops and went to places others would not. I don't agree with anything he stood for, but I appreciate him taking the time out to sing to 100 people in a tent. I hope his family is OK through all this. Oh and he was hella baked when he arrived, and that was hilarious to us military folks.
Awww we're going to talk about you 💔
Willie outlives another.
I've never been a fan of his music, but it's always rough to hear cancer took another person before their time. Fuck cancer.
He tried and basically succeeded in ending the Dixie Chicks careers after they spoke up about George Bush and the wars etc. The band got death threats and basically lost their careers. He was a Trump supporter and apiece of shit human being but still… fuck cancer.
Yeah, him getting cancer sucks, and I'm sad for his family. But I also can't help but remember how he would display doctored photos of Saddam Hussein with the Dixie Chicks on the jumbotrons at his concerts for his fans to rage at. Toby Keith was one of the originators of fake-rage-for-profit in this country. That was a poor decision on his part. That being said, RIP.
This is far too low here. People who are deceased can still be absolute pieces of shit. I’ll be breaking out some old Dixie Chicks hits today and feeling good knowing the better humans are still with us.
*The Chicks. Because Dixie is racist now
It’s so weird seeing all these super-positive comments about a dude Reddit 99.99% of the time hated on before right now. Shit, I should die. It does wonders for your popularity.
Yeah. I remember how embarrassing it felt to be an American post-911 with his whole “we’ll put a boot in your ass, it’s the American way!” schtick. I was an expat at the time and it just confirmed what many non-Americans thought about us—racist, arrogant, aggressively foolish.
All that is true. But i love this bar still bangs
One night at the bar watching football with my crew, and we couldn’t believe it when we saw Toby and his band sitting at the tables behind us. We introduced ourselves and bought a round for the crew, chatted them up for awhile, and stepped outside to smoke blunts with his tour manager ( Toby politely declined saying he only smoked with Willie ) The manager got our crew front row seats at the show one state over about a month out from that night, along with meet and greet passes. When we saw him at that show for the meet and greet, he remembered us right away and hanging with us in that RI bar. Great night, great memory RIP TK, how do they like ya now
It’s interesting seeing the love in these comments for his music. Personally, I feel like Toby ushered in the shit state that country music has become. RIP though; definitely made a huge impact for better or worse.
I do feel like he ushered in a lot of shit music, but somehow I like a lot of his music. Mainly his songs from when he was younger and just starting out though.
It’s strange. His earlier stuff was standard country but the amount of people saying songs like “I Love this Bar” are the only country songs they like is weird when it’s like the most generic country song ever. I mean I like it but it’s far from what I think of as good country music.
His pre-9/11 music was great. His post 9/12 music ushered in the end of country
See him and Brad Paisley felt like they were just on top of the world for that time, Trace Adkins and Big and Rich feel like the opening of the dam for all the new shit that started coming out. Big and Rich then Luke Bryan and the guy from the Voice who's with Gwen Stefani now. Toby and Brad and Kenny feel like they were just on top of the world. No point to this comment, I just wanted to ramble.
Uh-uh Blake Shelton had his moment in the sun as a very legit country singer. He sold out exactly like his wife did, but his contribution to country music is beyond respectable. He gave up his mullet and it was all vain LA-reality TV-shit from there… Now Big and Rich- and their lil’ pet Cowboy Troy- gave us that mess they called ‘Hick Hop’ and mainstream Nashville has been on some BS ever since.
Trace Adkins used to go on Bill Maher and is just like comically stupid but sweet so everyone was nice to him.
Agreed.
Definitely some of the first “bro” country.
He was the Sarah Palin of Country Music.
And so it goes. I guess all that hate ate him from the inside out. You are correct. He was one of the worst offenders
It’s kind of wild to think about how modern country music is at the top of the pop charts, and has been for this whole decade. The average american listens to *a lot* of pop-country in 2024. I don’t have much memory of Toby Keith’s music, but his influence and legacy is obvious.
Nah you’ve got it wrong. Toby Keith was one of the last remnants of that 90s golden era country.
I think both of you might be right.
He’s similar to Blake Shelton in that he went from 90s country to bro-adjacent country
He played for us over seas. He took a helicopter to play for the guys out on OP’s. No one else that I remember ever did that. Sad day.
It sucks that even people with access to the best health care end up eventually dying from this fucking disease. Doesn’t look good for the rest of us! RIP.
Stomach cancer prognosis is never good. Numbers wise it has one of the highest mortality rates
Always as good as he once was. RIP, Cowboy.
I guess he didn’t put a boot up cancer’s ass.
It’s the American way :(
Laughs in Natalie Maines.
I met Toby at a state fair. He was a personable dude, RIP
Sucker punch from somewhere in the back
He’s putting a boot up God’s ass now.
Weird. I really liked his music once. Dreamwalking and I Should Have Been a Cowboy are great songs. It uh… went down hill considerably from there.
Strangely the more it went downhill the more money he made.
definition of grifting
I hated everything he stood for. Sure he was the self appointed Red, White and Toby(culture war) king but it was pretty callous to talk about dead Iraqis saying we "put a boot up your ass." And the families of killed Afghans probably didn’t appreciate him singing: "Man, we lit up your world like the Fourth of July." But it’s really what happened after he released Courtesy of the Red, White, & Blue (The Angry American). First, he criticized Peter Jennings for asking him to soften the lyrics for national Tv, pointing out that Jennings was born in Canada: "I find it interesting that he's not from the U.S." Then came the Dixie Chicks, which included Keith releasing a poorly doctored picture of lead singer Natalie Maines with Saddam Hussein. Classy,
And his FDC (Fuck the Dixie Chicks) shirt, which prompted Darkest Hour to announce the equally petty but pretty funny “Fuck Toby Keith, He’s Destroying America” tour.
Achieved nothing, allowed China to quietly grow its influence. “Putting boots up asses” is not the wisest way for a country to conduct its geopolitics. Who knew?
Cancer sucks, but he was also a pretty sucky dude.
It was kinda funny when he labeled his restaurants gun-free zones and the Right Wing^(TM) lost their shit
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Fuck you Cancer
I won a signed copy of Unleashed at some radio station event thing at a local car dealership that my mom dragged me to when I was a little kid. I don’t even like his music but I still have that CD around because of the warm memories attached to it. Anyway, fuck cancer
When I was stationed in Hawaii, he did a free concert for us at Pearl Harbor.
That really sucks. I really liked him and I was just listening to his music the other day. He was one of the only county singers that I could legit enjoy listening to. Rest in Peace, and thank you for the music.
This guy embodied all things MAGA before MAGA was a thing.
It was called the Tea Party back then.
Tea Party formed a decade after his hateful ass was banging the Nationalist war drum
Stomach cancer is a brutal brutal level of suffering regardless of what type of human being he was.
That's so sad. He did some interviews days ago and he had hope for the future although he looked shocking frail from what he used to be. I hope he rests easy now. He was my first concert my parents took me to see in Buffalo.
Seeing photos of him so skinny was hard for me. I watched my dad go from healthy to this very frail and thin man and just kept slipping until he was gone. Horribly terrifying to watch your parents get sick and pass. I lost my mom when I was 18 and my dad at 34. Mom was in her 50s and dad 60s
RIP Toby. Love Red Solo Cup ❤️👏👏👏👏
Red solo cup was my wedding song. We had red solo cup wine glasses at our head table. I'm going to bust those out and fill them up with beer after work.
1. Fuck Cancer. I don't care who you are, save 1 person, but that sucks that he and his family went through that. 2. Fuck Toby Keith. He was a xenophobic, racist, misogynistic piece of garbage that stoked the flames of hated towards Arab Americans and anyone of Muslim decent.
RIP Toby Keith ❤️ I just lost my dad a month ago and he loved Toby Keith and all the wonderful 90's country artists like Brooks and Dunn, Alan Jackson and the Judd's. I like to think my dad and all those passed before him are getting to enjoy an awesome concert in their heaven from Toby now. Fuck cancer. RIP cowboy ❤️
He should have prayed harder.
We saw him perform at the Rodeo about ten years ago. He was pretty sloshed and didn’t look like he had been taking care of himself. The atmosphere was also a bit uncomfortable due to some of the statements that were made. I hope his family is doing okay. It’s usually pretty hard to lose someone who is still relatively young for today’s standards.
That’s horrible! Now who’s gonna get beer for the horses?
He wrote some shitty songs https://sites.dwrl.utexas.edu/countrymusic/music/the-taliban-son/
First and only country song that references either Palestine or Turkmenistan... Hell, it may be one of the few songs in English to reference Turkmenistan other than a certain song from Borat...
Nah funny ass song and fuck the taliban
By all accounts he seemed like a truly detestable human being, representing the worst of American ignorance and jingoism… but the dude could write a damn good country song.
> but the dude could write a damn good country song You need to listen to more actual C&W if you think his crap was good. His music straight up sucked.
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Damn it, really enjoyed some of his songs. Should’ve been a cowboy, Red Solo cup, My list… He did an interview this last week in OKC, he looked like cancer was taking a toll. Fuck cancer Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uiey8FX6oFM Part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_XPoegXYyE&list=PL6cNEEeCc7cjWjsbXeUHDiW9GmojfMovD&index=2
Fuck, that was hard to see.
Thought he was a POS in life, still think he’s a POS in death. Condolences to his family but I’m not gonna pretend like I suddenly think he was a great person now that he’s gone.
Holy shit…. I remember when my father got to sing Red Solo Cup and i think one or two other songs with Toby on stage because he won a karaoke contest i think hosted by a local radio station or whatever. I sadly didn’t get to go because i was in Basic Training at the time, but he showed me the pictures of him and Toby onstage together, as well as a pic of him, Toby and my late Stepmom DUR-UUUUNK as fuck hahaha. Course, my father had been a country rock singer for over 40 years at this point so the Karaoke contest was kiiiinda in his favor lmao. Damn this hits hard, yo. Fuck Cancer.
I really dislike the term, 'battling' when referring to cancer diagnoses. You don't battle it - it eats you alive. If you do recover, it's down to the doctors and drugs, not your conquest of cancer.
It is a battle because of you give in you die faster.
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Your stance is to judge & classify an entire group of people for the bad actions of a few, while saying it’s reprehensible to judge & classify an entire group of people for the bad actions of a few? Got it. Makes sense.
Talk about toxic ideologies…
Right. Yeesh..
If there’s a Heaven, Toby can look forward to an eternity of being snubbed by Hank, Johnny, and the other real players. He wasn’t fit to empty their ashtrays.
Made a lot of money off the 9/11 fervor.
Rest in Peace Infinite Money Glitch Man.
Had no idea he was sick :(
Does that blue moon ever shine on you. Love that song. My heart is broken, I loved Toby Keith.
Thoughts and prayers...something something
I can still remember listening to " Who's Your Daddy" and "Whiskey Girl" when I was in HS. He was a legend!
Red Solo Cup and Beer For My Horses a classic. RIP.
America! We’ll put a boot in your ass!
Hate will get you an early death
I remember I had his 35 biggest hits album in my early 20s, I'd roll down the windows and turn his music up loud, singing to every song. I'm definitely going to miss him.
Where were you when they built the ladder to heaven ?
That’s Alan Jackson
I legitimately did not know that
You're confusing the other long haired blonde guy who exploited 911.
RIP Toby Keith. FUCK CANCER
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Fuck this guy, good riddance