“Made In America” (Toby Keith, Bobby Pinson & Gregory Scott Reeves)
A couple of years ago, I was with a retail guy discussing how to manufacture clothes in the U.S. of A, opening some factories up that had been closed down. One of them was in my home state of Oklahoma. Still trying to balance the delicate line of finding a retail price point where you can break even and sell American made clothes. At the time, Bobby Pinson was out on the road with me and said he had an idea for a song about simpler times, when you could still work on your vehicle with a Craftsman wrench, WD-40 and some bailing wire. And we wrote “Made In America.” It says in the song: “my old man’s that old man” and by God, my old man was that old man.
“I Need To Hear A Country Song” (Toby Keith, Rivers Rutherford & Bob Dipiero)
Rivers Rutherford brought this idea to me, one that he and Bob Dipiero had been throwing around. We ended up writing a little different version, but it had a great melody and was a great idea for a song. It’s very well written, very well crafted and really country with a lot of word play. But the gist of the song is: when you really need to hear a country song you can’t just turn the jukebox on. I want to “hear a loser cryin’, songs about a love that’s dyin’, lyin’, cheatin’ to the bone. Three chords stone cold country song.”
“Clancy’s Tavern” (Toby Keith & Scotty Emerick)
My Grandmother passed away when she was 86; she was like Miss Kitty and ran a supper club/night club in Fort Smith for years. So when I was a kid, some of the earliest memories I have of being on this earth were going by her night club and seeing my Grandmother. I spent a whole summer with her, and years ago I wrote the song “Honkytonk U” about it and her buying me a guitar. This song is a tribute to her. The name of the bar was Billy Garners’ Supper Club, but it wasn’t fitting into my song very well. My Grandfather had nicknamed her Clancy because she was a saloon keeper, and always called her Clancy around the house. So I used Clancy’s Tavern. I give you the visual and everything you see when you go in the door. There’s nothing made up in this song. Every bit of this is word for word, exactly what you would have seen if you went in the front door at 5:00 and stayed all night long. It’s a pretty special song to me.
“Trying To Fall In Love” (Toby Keith & Bobby Pinson)
Bobby came over one time and said, ‘I wrote a song today that you ought to cut,’ and I knew the song he was talking about, it was a hit. I started strumming it with a little different groove and had this real cool little acoustic sound going on, and I spit a bunch of words out. In about 30 seconds I had this, “if women come a dime a dozen I ain’t got a penny. Some guys are getting’ way too much, some guys don’t get any. But if I had a nickel for every time I’d had enough, I’d still be busted and heart broken still be tryin’ to fall in love.” It’s really up tempo, traditional, fun country song. Then we put some verses to it and screwed it down. It’s one of my favorite things on the album.
“Just Another Sundown” (Toby Keith & Bobby Pinson)
“Just Another Sundown” is a classic country radio song. It’s old-fashioned. I guess I get it from listening to The Roadhouse so much on XM Sirius Radio in my vehicles. But the song is very simply written, a very classic melody. Guys, hey it’s “just another sundown, just another bar stool, just another place where a fool can find another fool,” sad night in the world, sad night in the club.
“Beers Ago” (Toby Keith & Bobby Pinson)
“Beers Ago” is up tempo fun. Talk about word play; it’s a freaking word salad. It flies by very fast and has a lot of catchy phrases. It was difficult in the studio to sing the first time because it’s just so complicated to get all of the rhymes to fall inside the meter of the song. It’s about a guy that leaves town when he turns 18 years old and figures out that maybe I should go back but maybe not. Can’t ever really go home. But all those memories I have are “fifteen hundred and sixty two beers ago.”
“South Of You” (Toby Keith & Eddy Raven)
Eddy has come out here several times on the road and written several songs with me. We’ve had a lot of fun and written some really, really good songs. “South of You” was an idea that he had about getting on a boat and not knowing where I’m gonna’ end up but it’ll be “somewhere south of you.” I jumped in the middle of it with him and we started saying: there’s a lot of places I could go but eventually we end up living with peace of mind “somewhere south of you.”
“Club Zydeco Moon” (Toby Keith & Eddy Raven)
Eddy’s from Louisiana and knows all of the Cajun coon ass vibe lingo that goes on down there. So we started writing about a brothel where there’s a head lady. The madam is named Mama Zue Zue and she brought this boy in that was a wayward soul. He had a wonderful evening that night, he thought, and he’s still haunted by it 25 years later. It’s got all of the Cajun gree-gree eyes and Mama Zue Zue, squeeze box and the candle light - all the supernatural stuff that tends to go on down in that world. It’s really well crafted and I wanted to put it on the album because it’s different than anything on the album.
“I Won’t Let You Down” (Toby Keith)
I almost put this on the last album but I held it back because it was such a good ballad. It’s one of my favorite things I have written by myself in the last couple years. I actually said one day in a conversation: “don’t expect too much from me and I won’t let you down,” and I thought that it needed to be a song title. I wrote about two lonely rebels, a boy and a girl, finally falling in love. And the guy says: “I ain’t got a pot of gold, I ain’t even got a rainbow, but I’ve heard that love is where treasure can be found, don’t expect too much from me and I won’t let you down.” Kind of a first take for the two rebels who let their hearts go.
“Red Solo Cup” (Jim Beavers, Brett Beavers, Brad Warren & Brett Warren)
This song was sent to me by the Warren Brothers and the Beaver Brothers, they call their band The Warren Beavers. It’s a ridiculous, fun song. It’s very stupid but it’s very clever and very funny. And it’s fun to sing with an infectious melody. I heard it and they said, “Man, you’re probably the only guy in town who will do this.” They’re right and so I had to prove them right and cut the song. We did a video; it’s outrageous. The song is basically a bunch of frat party people getting hammered, drinking out of a red Solo cup and all the stupid stuff they do. They actually praise the red Solo cup for all the important things and usages that it has. You’re going to find it really stupid but you’ll be singing it the next day when you wake up.
“Chillaxin” (Toby Keith and Scotty Emerick)
Scotty and I were on a bus in South Korea; he has done all my USO tours with me. We were going from A to B, or B to C, wherever we were going. He had this idea and we wanted to write a little cool song called “Chillaxin.’” It’s about finding a little piece of mind somewhere where I can just kick all the way back.
Deluxe Edition - Incognito Bandito
There will be a ‘deluxe edition’ of the album which will be a premium and have extra songs. It’s hard to find a lot of material. So what I do is take my live recordings from The Fillmore in New York City with Incognito Bandito, my little side-bar band, and put them on the ‘deluxe edition.’ We did it the last album, and this time we’ve taken four more cuts and they’re all at the end of the ‘deluxe edition.’ We recorded them live, there are no overdubs, no added harmony and no vocal tweaks. It’s just raw, live footage with a good mix on it. You will hear us doing “Truck Drivin’ Man,” the old song by Buck Owens, “Shambala,” by Three Dog Night, “Memphis,” the old Johnny Rivers version, and “High Time” which is a Waylon song: “it’s high time you quit your lowdown ways.”
BUY: Amazon CD | iTunes Deluxe Edition
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