Toby Keith wrote all kinds of country songs. His legacy might be post-9/11 American anger

Toby Keith’s songs accomplished, for some, what great art is intended to: They sustained people in challenging times, particularly U.S. service members and their families during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11. For others, Keith’s work sowed division and was blindly patriotic — a wedge that deepened America’s cultural fault lines.

Keith, who died Monday of stomach cancer at age 62, is being celebrated for his immense catalog across a diversity of subjects, from small-town heartache to his preference for red Solo cups. But in the fractured political landscape of 2024 America, it’s the long-tail legacy of “Courtesy Of The Red, White And Blue (The Angry American)" that may be remembered most.

For many in post-9/11 America, the 2002 song caught the mood. It featured the lyric: “We’ll put a boot in your ass. It’s the American way.”