EVERY FOURTH OF JULY, TOBY KEITH’S SONG COMES BACK ON THE RADIO — STILL DOING THE ONLY JOB HE EVER WANTED IT TO DO. Most people remember “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue” for the anger. Toby Keith remembered where it came from….. His father, Hubert “H.K.” Covel, had died six months before September 11. He was an Army veteran, a flag-flying man, and the reason Toby had been taught to respect the people who served. Then the towers fell…… A few days later, Toby sat with a Fantasy Football sheet, turned it over, and wrote around the edges. Twenty minutes later, he had a song he first called “The Angry American.” He did not plan it as a radio single. He played it acoustic at the Pentagon for Marines preparing to deploy. The band did not even know it yet….. When the song was done, he was told it needed to be recorded. So he released it, knowing the storm would come. Then he spent the next two decades proving it was not just a song. More than 250,000 troops. Seventeen countries. USO show after USO show….. The Fantasy Football sheet is gone. Toby Keith is gone. But every Fourth of July, the song still comes roaring back through the radio — doing the only job he ever asked of it: sending courage to the people who serve.
Introduction Every Fourth of July, Toby Keith’s Song Comes Back on the Radio Every year, when summer reaches the Fourth of July, a familiar song starts to rise again through…