Songoftheday 08/27/24 - I'm just trying to be a father raise a daughter and a son, be a lover to their mother everything to everyone...

 

 

"American Soldier" - Toby Keith 

from the album Shock'n Y'all (2003)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #28 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 9

Today's song comes from (the late) Toby Keith, who was riding the post-9/11 train with his eighth album Shock'n Y'all, though laying off the politics for a moment with the lead single "I Love This Bar", which made the top-40 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in the late autumn of 2003. The second single from the record however went back to the jingoism grifting train, with the "tribute" "American Soldier". Written by Toby with Chuck Cannon and produced by the singer with James Stroud, the lyrics are so vague as to infer that Toby is a "business man" and though he can't pay all the bills (because the oligarchic policies of the right depend on starving the common man) and can't call in sick or be off on the holidays (same, same), but "providing for our future is my responsiblity". Slipping in the "best that I can be" and "when the wolf is at our door" lean to a military career that Keith never had. It's not as crass as "The Angry American", but it's just using patriotism as branding. The director of the music video makes this all about the men and women in uniform, a little more reverently than the material...

 

 "American Soldier" topped the Country Songs airplay chart in Billboard for four weeks, and crossed over to the top-40 on the Hot 100 in February of 2004. 

Both Toby and the Shock'n Y'all album will be back to the series.

(4/10)

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Keith performed the song on The Tonight Show...

Up tomorrow: Atlanta rapper gets wet.