“I Wanna Talk About Me”
Toby Keith
Written by Bobby Braddock
Radio & Records
#1 (5 weeks)
November 16 – December 14, 2001
Billboard
#1 (5 weeks)
November 24 – December 22, 2001
This record is as goofy as hell and I’m totally here for it.
I dare say in the end that it might’ve been a good thing for Toby to go “Rah! Rah! Americah!” after this because the one two punch of “How Do You Like Me Now?!” and “I Wanna Talk About Me” could’ve set him on a Joe Ditty path that reduced his legacy to a handful of novelty hits.
Because there’s simply no way he could’ve kept executing records like this at the same level of wit and charm, as we’ll see with some of his later uptempo romps. This one is so damn good, though. It’s hysterically funny and so uniquely suited for Toby Keith. Who else could balance the swagger and sincerity needed for this one to work? It’s his “Shake the Sugar Tree” in that regard. Only Keith could sing this convincingly.
Am I worried about grade inflation at this point of the feature? A little bit, but it’s not like the rest of this decade’s number one singles aren’t already known. Enjoy the rarefied air. We’ll be back down to earth soon enough.
“I Wanna Talk About Me” gets an A.
Every No. 1 Single of the 2000s
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To my own surprise I will actually give this one an “A-“. I say surprise because I HATED this song when it came out. I wasn’t really listening and thought it was about him, only later really getting that it was a shot at his partner who couldn’t stop talking about herself. Yes, a great little novelty song. I am also surprised he did not write this one but Bobby Braddock is a great writer.
Yup! I love this one. It’s so fun and catchy as hell! He executes it perfectly.
I liked this song when it came out, but I regarded it as being mere fluff and hoped he would get back to more substantial material
B+
I always thought this one was hilarious and interesting. It never felt chauvinistic because he clearly still cares about the woman and just seems too good natured to come off as aggressive. And the rap styled production makes it really pop.
This was almost Blake Shelton’s debut single. Could you imagine?
This was a fun record and consistent with the mischievous side of Toby that he really leaned into after “How Do You Like Me Now?”. It’s an original concept (I think) for a song and highly relatable. Just about every listener has a person in their life who they have this kind of relationship with which makes it easy to understand why it spent several weeks at #1. Any critics it may have are probably people frustrated by the glide path to hip-hop beats in country music that this song definitely helped normalize. That trend would definitely jump the shark a decade later but held appeal for its novelty here and was a good fit for this record.
I can’t go “A” for it though. The first half of the song is clever and original enough to deserve that kind of score but in my opinion Bobby Braddock phoned it in on the second half with an unsatisfying bridge. Saying “you” 12 times in a row isn’t up to the lyrical standard established in the verses. This wouldn’t be the first really good song that starts winding down a minute and a half before the track ends but it’s always stuck out to me as one of the worst offenders. And while I’ll concur that Toby probably pulls this song off more than anybody else from the era could have, I could definitely see Blake Shelton having the swagger to pull it off too. I’m very glad it wasn’t his chosen as his first single though!
Grade: B+
I like that part of the song. I think Toby pulls it off well.
Bobby Braddock wrote this, wow.
It’s not a bad song. It certainly is much better than other embarrassments in the careers of great songwriters, like She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy (Paul Overstreet), Honky Tonk Badonkadonk (Jamey Johnson) or Wish You Were Here (Bill Anderson.)
I’m just so surprised that this was written by anyone other than Toby himself, let alone a serious contender for greatest country songwriter ever who has been writing hits since the 60s.
Back in 1980, Bobby Braddock went behind the mic for a terribly misogynistic garbage “comedy” song called “Nag, Nag, Nag”, which is not only the worst thing with his name on it by a country mile, but one of the worst country songs I’ve ever heard in my life. Even by its era’s standards, it’s shockingly awful, with annoying production tricks and lyrics that advocate spousal abuse. You’d think it was by some one-shot novelty artist nobody’s heard of, not the guy who that very same year wrote “He Stopped Loving Her Today”.
I love “I Wanna Talk About Me” and honestly think it’s one of the best from both Braddock and Keith. But I could see how a non-fan might not vibe with it. And in my opinion, “Nag, Nag, Nag” is still infinitely more embarrassing.
This became an anthem for me and all my buddies. We constantly sang it around the women in our lives – all in fun, of course.
Keith was on fire at this point. Releasing one great song after another, this was definitely a highlight.
A+ for me.
Like Bobby wrote, I just recently read that this was intended to be Blake Shelton’s debut single but his label didn’t want anything to do with it even with Braddock producing the album.
At the time of Keith’s single, I remember arguing with friends of mine who thought Keith was a joke and this song was proof of that. I always asked, “Have you actually listened to the song or heard what he does vocally here?”
Keith is showing off his pipes even as he is clowning around.
In fact, Toby Keith was quickly becoming some sort of dog-whistle for traditionalists. A neighbour friend referred to me as a Toby Keith apologist.
I will keep bringing it back to how insanely playful and fun this was. I just tapped out a similar response to Lynn Anderson’s latest ’70s chart-topper.
I was country not when it was cool, but when it had a sense of humour!
Unfortunately, I am well aware Keith will be responsible for taking much of country’s happiness away, but for now this song is a riot.
I’m glad the consensus here is that this song is fun! I never understood why people thought this was chauvinistic. And to Peter’s point, this is a sneakily difficult song to sing and Toby Keith nails it. Of Toby’s objectionable songs, this is not one of them to me.
Like Tom P. above, I hated this song the first time I heard it. The country rap style totally threw me off as someone who was still a lot more of a traditionalist in 2001. It eventually started growing on me though as I started to see it more as the good natured novelty song it is. Now, it’s actually one of my favorites of his novelty hits, and it still makes me laugh whenever I hear it.
I’ll never forget that right before I first heard “I Wanna Talk About Me,” I saw that it was going to be a new challenger on the Smackdown Rodeo on WMZQ on the station’s website. I had no clue what the song was going to be like. They just showed the song title and Toby’s name, and right by it they had an older promo head shot of Toby from I’m guessing around the Boomtown era in the mid 90s. He sported that black flat topped cowboy hat, which made me think of the Quaker Oats guy, he still had the longer permed mullet, and on his face was a big excited, almost mischievous looking grin that perhaps could’ve been a foreshadowing of what I was soon about to hear. And then when they finally played the song on the Smackdown Rodeo that night, I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I knew Toby had recently been successful with unconventional country songs like “How Do You Like Me Now,” and I had heard him talk through verses on “Getcha Some,” but I was still not prepared for THIS. It was just so totally different and bizarre from anything I was used to hearing on country radio up to that point, and as someone who had liked most all of what Toby had released until then, it was quite a let down at the time. I’ll admit that him doing those falsetto “MeEEEE!” parts after each chorus was funny to me, but still I couldn’t believe this was going to be an actual single on the radio, and by the time he got to that “You you you you you” part during the second half, I was in disbelief. The funny thing is, the whole time the song was playing, I still had that older mid 90s Quaker hatted pic of Toby with that big ol’ grin in my mind that I would now be associating with the song forever. Even now, whenever I hear the song, that’s the first image of Toby that comes to mind immediately, lol.
I remember the day after hearing “I Wanna Talk About Me,” my parents and I went to the Cracker Barrel in Montclair, VA, and I remember wondering if that new song by Toby I had heard would ever get played in the restaurant, since it was so unlike most of the older, more traditional sounding country that they usually played. Their Wild Maine Blueberry Pancakes were new on the menu at the time, and that was the first time I ever ordered and enjoyed them. Each time we went back to Cracker Barrel in late 2001 and I ordered those blueberry pancakes, I’d always think about “I Wanna Talk About Me” and I’d STILL have that image of Quaker hatted Toby with that big mischievous grin in my head, lol. To this day, I still don’t recall ever hearing “I Wanna Talk About Me” inside a Cracker Barrel, at least not the ones I’ve been to or while we were there.
After the song had been out for a while, though, I FINALLY started to warm up to it and I started to see it as simply a good natured novelty song, and I realized that Toby was not actually trying to turn country music into rap. It was just way too goofy and too fun of a song for me to hate forever. And especially after seeing the absolutely hilarious music video on GAC a few times, it really got me liking the song more. Even my step dad, who was even more into old school country than I was, could appreciate a good novelty song when he heard one, and I remember us both enjoying it in the car one time. My biological song also liked it, and like me, he always liked the funny falsetto “MeEEEE!” parts at the end of each chorus, and the way he’d sing “Me me me meeeee!” like a singer practicing before he performs, lol. As soon as we’d hear that in your face guitar intro, we knew what was coming!
What I like about it is that even though it’s poking fun at his female romantic partner who likes talking about herself a lot, he also makes it clear that he still loves and cares about her a lot. It’s just all in good fun, and Toby’s performance is full of charm all the way through. The way Toby delivers some of the lines is hilarious as well, especially the way he says “crazy ex loveerrrrr” in the first verse and the funny accent he has when he rhymes “Muncie, Indiana” with “grandma down in Alabama” in the second verse. The way he sings the “You you you you” bridge and “I wanna talk about ME!” is also done in a humorous way rather than arrogant, which it would easily look like when reading it on paper. I just don’t think anyone could’ve delivered this song any better with the humorous, tongue in cheek way Toby does here, though I’d be interested in hearing Blake Shelton’s take on it, knowing he also has quite a sense of humor.
Even the song’s intro with that in your face electric guitar is funny, and it lets you know right away what’s coming. I also like when the backup singers echo “me me me” in each chorus. Even though Toby sings the song’s verses in an old school rap style, I appreciate that instrumentally it’s actually not that rap influenced at all. There are no drum machines, and it’s pretty much mid tempo all the way through with a bright, early 2000s contemporary country arrangement and nice punchy drums typical of James Stroud’s production from that time. I even hear an occasional steel from Paul Franklin during the chorus. It pretty fits in perfectly with the early 2000s pop country landscape while also being very unique and quirky.
The music video for “I Wanna Talk About Me” is also one of my favorites of his funny videos besides “I’m Just Talkin’ About Tonight.” The way Toby does those hand moves with the crooked camera angles is funny, and the choice to put Toby and the talkative woman in different roles and costumes perfectly matches the song’s offbeat nature. I especially like them as cops with the perp in the back of their car miming to the “me me me” by the backup vocals, lol. I also love the way he does those boxing/punching moves along to the loud punchy drums in the song, lol. And once again, I just love how bright and colorful the video is, which is something I’ve come to really appreciate about country videos from this era.