Toby Kieth has a few songs that I hate to love…I’ll admit that. I was just as happy as the next country fan when he entered the genre…at first.
Then Toby and I drifted apart…rapidly. His conservative patriotism propaganda tendancies…coming out on the wrong side of my delicious Dixie Chicks…our relationship was simply not to be. “I love this bar”, is my most recent unwilling guilty pleasure. Perhaps the honky-tonk-as-home diddy is Toby’s way of saying goodbye to me as a self-professing fan, trying to end our relationship on a good note. He won some points back with that one…but not enough.
But I digress…
“American Soldier” (Written by Marion Cannon and Toby Keith) is an example of what I feel is wrong with Toby Keith these days. It’s just too much, and too much of perspectives that I simply don’t share. This is the price you pay when you bring your politics into your music, I suppose.
That being said, “Letters From Home” (Written by Tony Lane and David Lee, recorded by John Michael Montgomery) is arguably written with a similar premise, but it is much more approachable, I feel, as a song. I actually enjoy it, even though I probably have as many similar views with JMM as I do with Toby, precious few. Even though I do not support the war in Iraq.
I want our servicefolk to return home as quickly and safely as possible. I do not trust the people in charge of their lives to make good decisions with those lives.
Haven’t heard Letters From Home, but I love American Soldier and totally disagree with you in almost every possible way, both artistically and politically.
Here are lyrics links to both, for those of you who aren’t country music fans: Letters from Home and American Soldier. I love both songs and find them true and moving. Neither song stipulates a specific war, BTW. I admit to being a very patriotic veteran, married to a veteran and coming from a family with a proud history of military service. So, these songs thumb a sensitive button in me – I am always deeply moved by an appeal to patriotism and the notions that “freedom isn’t free” and that it is the military who protect that freedom are not tired cliches to me.
That said, I hated Toby’s previous song, Angry American. Not because it was jingoistic (although it was, I admit) but because the lyrics were stupid. “My Daddy served in the Army where he lost his right eye” always leads me to think, “He lost his what? What did he do, leave it on his chow tray with his retainer?” And the part about “He wanted my mother and my brother and my sister and me to grow up and live happy…” makes me think, “What? Your mother wasn’t grown up yet?” And the rest of the song wasn’t good enough for me to overlook these stupidities.
I’m fussy about lyrics. I loved Alan Jackson’s Where were You, but one line has always bothered me: “I watch CNN but I’m not sure I can tell you the difference in Iraq and Iran” should be “…the difference between Iraq and Iran.” Drives me crazy, but it’s such a great song the error doesn’t prevent me from loving it anyway (although, when I sing along, I sing “the difference 'tween Iraq and Iran.”)
Hey, Toby…liberty’s not in jeopardy. the war in Iraq has ZERO (0) to do with
protecting America’s freedom or potecting America from anything at all.
Keith really has nothing to offer rather than homoerotic paens to sweaty guys in uniforms. He has never made a single intelligent comment on the substance of the war in Iraq. His songs are just macho posturing and nothing else.
If TK really cares about American soldiers then let’s see him donate his profits from songs like this to the families of those soldiers who have been killed and maimed for no reason.
If TK cared about soldiers he would not support the invasion of Iraq. The two positions are mutually contradictory.
The song doesn’t mention any specific war at all. Toby’s views on the Iraq war are well-known and, I suppose, you can feel free to think that, because of those views, Toby “means” this war when he refers to liberty being in jeopardy. Personally, that’s not how I see it. From my perspective, the song is more about the American military in general than American soldiers in this particular war.
Anyway, as I said before, I like what *Diogenes is pleased to call “homoerotic paens to sweaty guys in uniforms.”
I’m fairly conservative and share some opinions with TK, but I think that “American Soldier” is a horrible song (as are most all of TK’s songs). In fact, of all the patriotic songs that have come out since 9/11, one of the only ones I’ve enjoyed has been “Travelling Soldier”, obvoiusly quite liberal, and “Letters from Home”.
I totally agree with you about those two songs being entirely enjoyable, and I think that Travelling Soldier appealed to a wide cross-section. That seems a bit morbid of a term to use…enjoyable…they are evocative to me, and I find them poignant.
Travelling Soldier…That is a very unique song for me, as it came out after 9/11, but prior to the Dixie Chicks arriving in London, prior to the war.
At the end of the song, I wished that the travelling soldier had had a different fate, filled with many pleasant memories of a girl with ribbons in her hair, the best way to offer him that fate is not to send him in the first place.
I wish that the soldier reading letters from home could be home, instead of being whisked off to somewhere he could very well fall also. Another life, hope, potential lost.
But then, I’m just a bleeding heart liberal, right? (that’s a rhetorical question, not anything directed at Bababooey)
Sure you wanna open this can of worms in Cafe Society?
But I will give you a preliminary answer right now which we can argue in a different forum if you wish: Iraq supported terrorism. Perhaps not Al Quaeda directly, but most certainly Islamic Jihad and Hamas. He supplied them with money, moral support (paying the families of suicide bombers) and weapons. If nothing else, these organizations contribute to instability and violence in the Middle East, but given the interconnectedness of terror networks these days, Saddam’s attitude towards the US, his desire to restart his NBC program (although it appears he was not yet able to do it) and his connection to these terror groups, it was only a matter of time before they made common cause with Al Quaeda.
Let me stress that this is not the only reason justifying the war—there are many and IMHO they are very good ones. But this is definitely a potential threat that getting rid of Saddam protected the US from.
(that’s a rhetorical question, not anything directed at Bababooey)