“Beer For My Horses”
Toby Keith featuring Willie Nelson
Written by Scotty Emerick and Toby Keith
Radio & Records
#1 (5 weeks)
June 6 and June 20 – July 11, 2003
Billboard
#1 (6 weeks)
June 14 – July 19, 2003
I became a country music fan long enough ago to know older folks who still called it “Country & Western.”
Toby Keith was old enough to have watched TV Westerns and get lost in Marty Robbins’ West Texas town of El Paso.
Willie Nelson was old enough to have known some of those cowboys in real life.
And with “Beer For My Horses,” Keith and Nelson came together to revive the Western ballad tradition all over again, enchanting a new generation with a wickedly entertaining tale that surrounded an all-time classic country line: “Whiskey for my men, beer for my horses.”
Keith may have regretted not having been a cowboy back in 1991, but by 2003, he could ride next to Willie frickin’ Nelson and stand just as tall in the saddle.
“Beer For My Horses” gets an A.
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It’s rare that a song pops up for review that I’m deeply conflicted about. I didn’t officially review it, but the most recent example was probably the melodrama porn “How Do I Live?” which blew past all previously unwritten boundaries for histrionic balladry. I absolutely hated the song but Trisha Yearwood gave such a uniquely moving and heartfelt vocal performance that my grade would have punched well above its weight. Six years later and I move on to a very different song that I’m even more conflicted about.
Going back more than 20 years now, “Beer for My Horses” has been a deeply uncomfortable listen for me. Play this song and TG Sheppard’s “War is Hell on the Homefront Too” back to back and “Beer for My Horses” still stands out as the more uncomfortable listen of the two. Not only does it lean in to a barbaric philosophy of criminal justice complete with imagery adjacent to lynchings, it romanticizes it, complete with an “old man” playing Butthead to the narrator’s Beavis in a way that really evokes haunting connotations of “frontier justice”. I fundamentally object to the messaging of this song and the uniquely problematic post-9/11 timing of its release stirring the passions of a bloodthirsty nation.
With that said, it’s a banger of a song. The cross-generational perspective that is so unsettling also manages to give the song an extra layer of narrative gravitas and evokes an Old West period piece sensibility. Couple this with the addictive arrangement and, as uncomfortable as the song continues to make me, I can’t turn the radio off when it comes on.
Grade: B-
I certainly see where you’re coming from on this, Mark. However, I feel (and have felt for some time) that the narrators of this song are a couple of old boys who watched one too many westerns and think they know how to fix the world.
Viewed through that fictional lens, I don’t think this song promotes or even condones vigilante justice and lynching, it’s just two characters’ POV.
Yeah, I’ve settled on that interpretation of the song over the years and accept it. The language and perspective still make me uncomfortable though.
Of course time moves on and every generation wants their own stars, but Willie is one of a handful that are timeless. A great song. I agree with the “A”.
I felt conflicted about the “vigilante” theme too when I got to it. But the delivery is just way too chill and lighthearted for me to perceive it as anything close to serious, or read it as projecting those tropes onto the present day. It’s just a boomer and someone old enough to be his dad escaping into well-worn fiction tropes they’re both familiar with. It reminds me of when I used to work at nursing homes, and the male residents often wanted to watch Westerns.
Country hits that call for lynching:
“Simple Man”–Charlie Daniels (Calls for it twice).
“W-F-M-M/ B-F-M-H”–Toby and Willie
Ones that seem to, but don’t quite:
“If the South Woulda Won”–Hank Jr. (“If they were found guilty, they would swing qucikly. (Seems to belive in a trial.)
“Small Town”–Aldean.
Re: the Charlie Daniels song: I still can’t believe there is a top-20 country radio hit with the word “pantywaist” in it.
Someone should make a list of unexpected words in country songs and see who can ID them.
How about “tampons”–(Robert Earl Keen)
“cabriolet” (Tim McGraw)
“benign” (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
“facsimile” (Suzy Bogguss)
“centrifugal” (Faith Hill, “This Kiss”)
I’ll add one to the list: “otter”. (“Seminole Wind” by John Anderson)
Interesting piece of trivia….the “Beer for My Horses” video wasn’t the first time Willie Nelson played a Texas Ranger gone vigilante. He guest-starred as one on a 1986 episode of “Miami Vice”.
…after yesterday’s event in utah another toby keith hit, which has for pure chronological coincidence been coming up here, all of a sudden becomes yet another uncomfortable echo in the american present. like i pointed out in my comment on jonathan’s “a separate peace” post, taking things toward extremes more often than not ends up/clashes at the same position – coming from completely different directions astoundingly.
back in the day, i would have said (with a positive connotation) that if you wanted to know what is going to happen here in europe sooner or later – take a look at what’s going on in the usa now. nowadays, this time lag has shrunk to almost nothing (as the reports from paris show), thanks – or regrettably – to enormous technological progress. and the connotation has changed markedly too, recently.
perhaps, i should take a closer look at toby keith’s catalogue again, trying to figure out what the future might hold in store next.