“How Do You Like Me Now?!”
Toby Keith
Written by Chuck Cannon and Toby Keith
Radio & Records
#1 (5 weeks)
March 10 – April 7, 2000
Billboard
#1 (2 weeks)
March 18 – April 15, 2000
Oh, the Monkey’s Paw of it all.
I spent a good chunk of the nineties quite correctly insisting that Toby Keith and Kenny Chesney were hugely underrated talents who deserved more attention. They got it in the new decade by leaning into identities that I couldn’t relate to, but their respective pivots are why they’re the two most recent Modern Era inductees into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Toby Keith spoke openly about how resentful he was of Mercury Records for trying to make him the next Vince Gill. His switch to Dreamworks paid off with his second single for the label, which established the brash and mischievous public persona that made him a bona fide superstar.
He pulls off something brilliant on “How Do You Like Me Now?!” It’s the birth of an anti-hero, really. This is a loathsome man who did something reprehensible after being rejected by a girl in high school, and then revels in her misery decades later, enjoying her suffering more than he seems to be enjoying his own success.
But you just try not to root him on while this record is playing. None of Toby Keith’s records from this era would’ve worked without his talent as a vocalist, and he sneaks some moments of vulnerability into his performance that suggest this surface bravado is masking a deeper insecurity. Listen to him sing, “I couldn’t make you love me, but I always dreamed about living in your radio” and you’ll hear the tell: he’d trade all of his success right now for the love that rejected him back in the day.
“How Do You Like Me Now?!” gets an A.
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That guitar intro alone get’s me hooked on the song. That chorus is catchy as all get out and I never understood the hate for this song. I think it’s fun and a great song.
That’s one of the first albums I remember as a kid that I bought because of one single on the radio then found out I loved basically all the songs on it. That’s an experience that I feel like many younger people just don’t get in the streaming age and one reason why I still choose to buy and download full albums instead.
Never at any point in the 90s did I get the sense that Toby Keith’s label was “trying to turn him into the next Vince Gill”. Romantic ballads were all the rage in the late 90s, so if anything I always thought the labels were trying to turn every rising talent of the era (from Ty Herndon to Andy Griggs) into the next John Michael Montgomery. But Toby Keith was a better songwriter than most and I usually enjoyed saccharine-glazed ballads of his better than those from many of his contemporaries. But even the 90s version of Toby had a mischievous and adventurous side with songs like “Ain’t Much Fun Since I Quit Drinking” and “Getcha Some”, so it didn’t really seem like “How Do You Like Me Now?” came entirely out of left field. What was more surprising was the degree to which it was a catalyst for the brash Toby Keith persona that followed. I rarely fully objected to that persona, but I never connected with it the way I did with 90s Toby.
The persona pivot is not the only reason I have mixed feelings about “How Do You Like Me Now?” though. The upside of it was that it was a genuinely original song concept that was cleverly crafted right down to the “nah, nah, nah, nah” guitar riffs at the end. And it was a revenge fantasy that was mostly relatable, clearly resonating with listeners of both genders. Mostly. The line “your kids hear you cryin’ down the hall” lyric articulates a level of schadenfreude that feels out of place with the rest of the song, embracing a degree of cruelty that goes beyond avenging a festering high school grievance. The darkness of that lyric has always left a bad taste in my mouth in the context of a song that otherwise comes off as lighthearted.
Also I must confess that this song never held up to repeated listening for me. I burned out on it quickly in 2000 and haven’t really sought it out much since. It gets a lot of recurrent play on the classic country station I often listen to in my car but I typically either turn it down or tune it out. Revisting the video this morning before preparing this response was my first time giving the song a serious listen in many years. It remains a good song, but wouldn’t rank among my top-10 of Toby’s favorites.
Grade: B+
It was Toby who said that the label was trying to turn him into Vince Gill. I think it might’ve been more his perception than the reality. They sent a lot of up-tempo stuff to radio from him, but it didn’t do quite as well as the ballads.
They might not have been the right label to promote that kind of stuff. “Getcha Some” deserved to be a No. 1 hit.
Toby wasn’t my favorite artist of the 90s and 00s but he was a very decent vocalist and he wrote many interesting songs. I did not like the video that accompanied this song – I thought it was too over the top. I regard this song as a solid “B”
I often liken How Do You Like Me Now? as Toby Keith’s “Grease move”, i.e. when Olivia Newton John moved from her pre-Grease, country flavored pop to her post-Grease “sexy pop” era. Now obviously this wasn’t the beginning of a “sexy pop” era for Keith’s, but it did seem to signal a personality shift, if you will, with the tenor of his music. This song is fine, and I even like a few of his pre-Courtesy Of The Red, White and Blue hits, but as a general rule I prefer his Mercury era over the stuff he did on Dreamworks/Show Dog.
I love this parallel, though if I’m being honest, I like ONJ post transformation best, but prefer 90s (and late 00s) Toby over his superstar era stuff.
Same on both counts.
Keith put his foot in the ground with this song and clearly made a move towards a reimagined persona and sound. This song crackled and sparked from all the narrative details in the lyrics and the instrumental choices in the production. It sounded like a John Hughes film.
It is hard to imagine that this song did not get all our attention when it was released.
It radiated its own energy and charisma.
I am a huge fan of Keith’s music and will go to bat for his songwriting and vocal skills across his career. He was monstrously talented
Though it’s never been one of my most favorite Toby songs, personally, I also never got the hate for it. It’s fun, catchy, and it’s a relatable revenge tune for anyone who had a naysayer or bully or two in their life. And besides the other cool parts of the song already mentioned (love that “na na na na na” guitar at the end, too), I always enjoyed the smokin’ electric guitar solo before the final chorus, as well. I do agree with Mark above that the “kids hear you cryin’ down the hall” line is a bit unnecessarily mean spirited, and for me it my least favorite part to an otherwise good song.
While this is known for being the tune that introduced Toby’s brash persona for the 2000s, I also feel that the sensitive 90s Toby didn’t really go away just yet, either. One of the hits that followed this, “You Shouldn’t Kiss Me Like This,” sounds like it would’ve been at home on his Dream Walkin’ album from 1997, while “My List” was also still the softer side of Toby. The albums, How Do You Like Me Now?! and Pull My Chain, also feature plenty of great ballads that still resemble late 90s Toby, and those are two of my favorite CD’s of his, along with Blue Moon and Dream Walkin’. I personally consider what came after “Courtesy Of The Red White And Blue”, specifically the Shockin’ Y’all album, to be when he completely embraced his brash, macho man attitude and identity, and that’s when he started losing me.
But during the early 2000s, especially before 9/11, I was definitely still really enjoying most of what he was putting out. “How Do You Like Me Now” did catch me off guard when I first heard it, especially him screaming the title at the end (I had been listening to “He Ain’t Worth Missing” a lot from one of my tapes, so it was hard to believe this was the same guy, lol). After a few more times hearing it though, I grew to like it’s catchiness. I also remember really cheering for him when he won the Male Vocalist award at the 2001 ACM’s, and I loved it when he held the award up high and mouthed the title of the song to the camera for those that doubted him in the past. As someone who always enjoyed his music in the 90s, it was nice and refreshing to finally see him being embraced at the awards shows. Between that moment, him finally reaching superstar status on country radio, having a huge hit album, and him being everywhere on TV with those 10-10-220 telephone commercials, he seemed to be on top of the world, at last.
On a funny note, I remember my step dad jokingly shrieking this song’s title out when it came on the radio one time when it was still a fairly new song, sort of how an 80s hard rocker would yell, lol.
Nice pic of Toby, btw. I love and prefer the cleaner image he had during the late 90s and early 2000s with the larger cowboy hats and suits he wore sometimes, as opposed to the more rugged appearance he took on in the mid 2000s with that smaller, curled up worn out looking hat.
I agree with just about everything you wrote here. “Dream Walkin'” seemed to be the album that Toby fumed the most about looking back upon his Mercury days, but it was probably my favorite album of his.
Yeah, I consider Dream Walkin’ to be one of his most solid, consistent albums. I particularly really enjoy the singles “We Were In Love,” “Dream Walkin'” and “I’m So Happy I Can’t Stop Crying.” I especially always thought it was a bummer that Toby hated the Sting duet so much, though I guess it was understandable since according to him, it was pretty much forced on him by Mercury. Still really love the song, nonetheless.
I used to not be a big Toby Keith fan, but I always liked this song. Now as someone who has a much greater appreciation of his music, there are songs of his I like more but still find this to be a fresh and confident version of Toby.
…till this day i remember hearing that song for the first time in 2000. i was on the autobahn in the frankfurt (germany) area with its big rhine-main us air force base nearby at the time. afn played it and i loved that song right from the start till this day.
Mean spirited but somehow likeable. I don’t think many other artists could have carried off.
Mean spirited but somehow likeable. I don’t think many other artists could have carried it off.
I guess this song sits wrong with me because the guy obviusly feels entitled to her liking him. Because she doesn’t like him, he writes her number for everyone to see and writes “call for a good time” under it. That just seems like she dodged a bullet to me. Or if he did it to get her attention, then it also seems like she dodged a bullet. I can understand the wish fulfilment of the song though.
I agree that “Getchya Some” should’ve been a number one song!