Toby Keith recently performed twice for hundreds of people in his hometown of Norman, Oklahoma, returning to the concert stage on Friday and Saturday of July 4th weekend. During the concert, Keith not only thanked the many people who showed up to listen to him sing, but also sounded off with a fiery, patriotic message for Independence Day.
Speaking about patriotism and not being afraid to speak one’s thoughts on love of country and the people in it, Keith said, “Never apologize for being patriotic, f*** em” while singing his famous “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue.”
The famous song’s lyrics go, in part: “Justice will be served and the battle will rage / This big dog will fight when you rattle his cage / And you’ll be sorry that you messed with / The U.S. of A. / ‘Cause we’ll put a boot in your ass / It’s the American way.”
Continuing, the song says, “Hey uncle sam put your name at the top of his list / And the Statue of Liberty started shakin’ her fist / And the eagle will fly it’s gonna be hell / When you hear mother freedom start ringin’ her bell / And it feels like the whole wide world is raining down on you / Brought to you courtesy of the red white and blue.”
Describing why he wrote the song, Keith told CNN in 2002, “I was real angry when I saw that second plane hit that tower and wondered what my dad would have thought about it. And the lyrics just fell out of me.” He added that the troops loved the song, saying, “The response was so tremendous, I said, ‘Hey, we’re allowed to be angry.’ I know how angry I was when I saw those towers come down, and this is my way of serving my country.”
A controversy arose when a Canadian leftist that worked for ABC, Peter Jennings, booted Keith from the network’s 2002 July 4th country music special, during which he was to sing the aforementioned song. Keith reportedly called Jennings the “soft underbelly” of America over the incident.
Beyond the one song, Keith, whose father was a veteran who lost his eye in the service, is no stranger to proud patriotism. During the War on Terror, he routinely traveled to warzones to sing for the troops. Speaking on that decision in 2009, he said, “I’ve been all over the world and there’s no place that can touch the U.S., so we have to defend this soil vigilantly. And we have people willing to volunteer to go put themselves in harm’s way for what their government has asked them to do — the key word being ‘asked’ here. And so I feel like it’s my duty every year to take about 14 or 17 days and go over there.”
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He also mocked people for “flapping their gums” about leaving the country when politicians they dislike are elected, saying, “When Bush was re-elected, you heard … all those really liberal people say that they hate him so bad they’re moving out of the country. And now that Obama has been elected, you hear the same stuff from some of the rights … But you never see them move, it’s just all of them flapping their gums.”
Watch Keith’s recent performance here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video