“I’m Just Talkin’ About Tonight”
Toby Keith
Written by Scotty Emerick and Toby Keith
Radio & Records
#1 (1 week)
September 7, 2001
Billboard
#1 (1 week)
September 15, 2001
For those of us who thought “Getcha Some” got a raw deal, “I’m Just Talkin’ About Tonight” was sweet redemption.
Country radio was more properly prepared this time around for Keith’s brilliant conversationalist style of humorous songs, and the production is loose enough to give Keith freedom to have some fun with the melody. He sounds so casual but every note is deliberate, a sign of his growing confidence in his newly elevated status.
This is the sound of a man on the bring of superstardom, and there’s an electricity to this record that can only come from an artist who waited a very long time to finally level up. There are two more No. 1 singles from this album, and they’re both solid, but this is the best single from his sophomore DreamWorks album.
“I’m Just Talkin’ About Tonight” gets an A.
Every No. 1 Single of the 2000s
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I actually like this a lot. My grade “A-“.
I thought this song was a lot of fun. It’s proof that macho swagger can exist without being meat headed.
“macho swagger can exist without being meat headed”
LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK
100%, this. And Keith, once he really leaned into his heel-turn era, would land on the wrong side of that too often. But here? He still really got that, and it makes for one of his very best records… Though I will say his Lari White-co-produced album, still a few years out from this one, was his best overall album.
Yes! WhiteTrash with Money is my favorite album of his! I feel lik it was underrated.
exactly
We’re still in the transition period here from 90s Toby to 2000s Toby but definitely looking more like 2000s Toby. While his power ballads tended to be my favorite songs of his in the 90s, he always had a number of cheeky and mischievous songs (album cuts and some singles) that teased the transition to come. He nails this one, channeling a whiff of Haggard, Jones, and Conway and updating it for the new millennium with a subtle swagger. It was a fun song and I could probably listen to this song for the thousandth time and still smirk at Toby’s pitch-perfect delivery of “eee-eee-easy now!” As hinted at by other reviewers, this was an early version of “bro country” I could get behind. As lighthearted as this song was, it’s sad to recognize that a decade down the road the music would be just as lighthearted but also vastly dumber.
Considering what was soon to come from Toby, I suppose it’s kind of fitting that he was the artist at the top of the charts on the week of September 11.
Grade: B+
A+ for me.
I had started a new job and one of the ladies in the office listened to a country radio station all day. This soon became my favorite song.
Toby Keith was a diamond in a group of newer country acts that I was coming to love. He definitely stood out.
And this song was an awesome stand out. Toby Keith was – and always will be – a special artist to me.
…apropos having a good time in mind: here’s a little shoutout in a small overseas market (it will be published at the beginning of june) in return for the great fun and more these two countryuniverse countdowns are providing currently:
“The US country music blog countryuniverse.net is once again running two fantastic chronological retrospectives. One focuses on every number-one hit from the 1970s, featuring interesting descriptions, ratings, and clips. The other follows the same format for the 2000s.
Kevin J. Coyne, whose blog celebrated its 20th anniversary last year, has long been a trusted reference when it comes to ranking, analyzing, and discussing country songs and stars. If you feel like joining in, you can also share your opinion on the selections.” (“Country Style” magazine, Switzerland)
A mix of entertainment and education—worth checking out!
I liked most of Toby Keith’s output. Although no Tom T Hall, he was an accomplished songwriter who was able to inject his personality into songs.This is not one of my favorite Toby Keith songs but it is fun – I would give it a “B”
I agree with most of the other commenters. This is macho swagger done right, and this is an earlier version of the more loose and fun 2000s Toby we’d soon come to know that I can get behind. I really enjoyed this one every time it came on the radio throughout 2001. The super catchy, classic sounding melody reeled me in right away, and I always loved the new traditionalist arrangement featuring some nice honky tonk piano (perfect for the song’s bar setting), twangy lead guitar, and plenty of steel guitar from Paul Franklin. I could always almost picture him and the band performing this at an old fashioned saloon with how it sounds. I also love how loose and confident Toby sounds on the record, and he sounds like he just had a whole lot of fun recording it. I can hear him smiling throughout the entire song with his charming performance. Like MarkMinnesota, I especially always liked that “eee-eee-easy now!” line, lol. While I think the genre has been oversaturated with hook up songs more recently, there’s an undeniable charm to this one that just makes it very likeable for me even to this day, and that’s something I feel that’s been missing in a lot of more modern “fun, lighthearted” country.
The first time I ever heard “I’m Just Talkin’ About Tonight” was actually when my step dad and I saw Toby perform it on the 2001 ACM awards. It was the opening performance of the night, and it was really neat getting to hear something new from Toby right then and there. This only added to my feeling at the time that he was really hot at the moment after the success of the How Do You Like Me Now era, when he could debut a brand new song at the start of an awards show. Anyway, as we watched him perform the song, I was instantly loving the song’s catchy melody and fun vibes, and I had a good feeling he had another big hit on his hands. I also liked the blue sleeveless denim jacket he sported, along with his big cowboy hat. Later that evening, after I had gone to my bedroom and continued to watch more of the show on my little TV (as quiet as I could since it was a school night and I was supposed to be sleeping), I really loved seeing Toby pick up both the Album Of The Year and Male Vocalist awards, which was very refreshing and satisfying at the time, since he had been pretty underrated for most of his career up to that point, imo.
Every time I heard “I’m Just Talkin’ About Tonight” on the radio after that, I always thought of the ACM’s performance, and it was a favorite that I never once got tired of hearing. It was always such a fun listen. I even remember it competing on the Smackdown Rodeo on WMZQ, though it sadly didn’t win enough to get the champion title. It probably would’ve if it were 2002-2004 when he was even bigger.
I always thought the song’s music video was hilarious, as well, and it always made me laugh every time I saw it on GAC. I especially always liked the parts with Terry Bradshaw trying to impress the goth girl with his magic tricks and him eventually having his wig fall off, lol. Even the piped in club music featured in the beginning and end of the video is funny, especially as Toby is trying to shake the ice and drink off of him at the end, lol. I love how he looks in his all black outfit throughout the clip. btw. One thing I appreciate about 2000s Toby is that I enjoy much of his humorous videos, and they showed that he didn’t take himself too seriously.
Pull My Chain is another one of my favorite Toby Keith albums from this late 90s/early 2000s period, featuring more excellent meaty production from James Stroud. Besides the singles, some of my other favorites are “Tryin’ To Matter,” “Yesterday’s Rain,” “You Leave Me Weak,” “Forever Hasn’t Got Here Yet,” “The Sha La La Song,” and “You Didn’t Have As Much To Lose.”
I agree with MarkMinnesota in that there were traces of the fun loving Toby in the 90s, as well, though it wasn’t being represented as much on the radio yet. Earlier hits like “A Little Less Talk (And A Lot More Action),” “You Ain’t Much Fun,” and “Big Ol’ Truck,” all which I enjoy, are early examples of him putting on the swagger. I also like “Getcha Some,” which was very unique when it was on the radio in late 1998, and it was nothing like what I’d heard from him before. Even the song’s video was like a 2000s Toby Keith music video with its style of humor, and when I first saw it on GAC, that was also the first time I heard the song.
I love this song! I agree that Toby nails the swagger here, and like many of his records, there’s some great steel guitar on here. Big fan of the Pull My Chain album in totality.
It has been discussed in the 70’s feature how poorly recurrent radio play has represented the depth and breadth of the careers of Sonny James and Charley Pride. I would suggest radio similarly narrowcast Keith as he put on a new hat in the 2000s.
He would never abandon the playful sensibility he leans into so fully with this hit, nor his facility with tender ballads.
I can’t help but notice that Keith is alternately celebrated as a great songwriter and singer.
He was both.