“Who’s Your Daddy?”
Toby Keith
Written by Toby Keith
Radio & Records
#1 (1 week)
December 13, 2002
Billboard
#1 (1 week)
December 21, 2002
I dismissed this record 23 years ago and never looked back.
So imagine my surprise when I heard “Who’s Your Daddy?” with fresh ears and picked up on the fact that Keith is the side piece, not the woman he’s singing to.
This guy is in the same boat as Darryl Worley was on “When You Need My Love,” but he’s got money in his pocket and he’s quite happy to play the role of the big spender and the one night stand.
He does so with the unbridled enthusiasm of a second stringer being called off of the bench. He doesn’t have any interest in starting in each game. He’ll hang around, enjoy the single life, and have some fun when he gets the tap on the shoulder every once in a while.
His performance is brilliant in that context. Yes, this would be a lascivious mess with a different power balance.
That speaks to one of the underappreciated elements of Keith’s music. He had swagger, for sure, but he also made country music for consenting adults that had left the heartsick swoon of adolescence behind a long time ago.
I can only go so far with a song built around the line, “Who’s your daddy.” But I’ll go far enough to say this is a much more entertaining record than I gave it credit for the first time around, and it has far more in common with the best of Twitty and Strait than it does with any of the bro country that came in its wake.
Toby Keith was so damn good, especially when he wasn’t trying too hard.
“Who’s Your Daddy?” gets a B+.
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