Toby Keith was much more than his controversies

For many liberals, Toby Keith was one of the signal cultural villains of the 21st century: author of a jingoistic post-9/11 anthem, antagonist to the Chicks’ Natalie Maines, one of the few musicians willing to perform at Donald Trump’s inauguration. At a casual glance, I fit the profile of a Keith skeptic or even hater: I’m a lefty writer who spent more than a decade working as a cultural critic.

But I’ve loved Keith’s music my entire adult life. And with his death at 62 from cancer, I found myself taking another moment to really listen to his songs.

Before contemplating anything he said with it, pause to consider Keith’s voice. He had a marvelous, deep baritone – not just low but also capacious.

Keith could use his voice to sound like Elvis at the King’s syrupiest in tracks like “We Were in Love,” or as a kind of time machine, urging listeners to “Go West, young man, haven’t you been told? California’s full of whiskey, women and gold.” At times, he was purely silly, especially in songs that bridged rap and country, drawling in ways that disguised the underlying intelligence of the songs. And if the mark of a memorable singer is the ability to deliver a line in a completely distinctive way, the rawness Keith applied to a late chorus of “How Do You Like Me Now?” surely qualifies him.

That voice helped make Keith an appealing, amiable host of what sometimes felt like a party to which the whole country was invited. “I Love This Bar,” from his 2003 album, “Shock’n Y’all,” imagined yuppies and bikers, “high-techs” and “rednecks” bellied up to the rail together, all drinking beer out of Mason jars.

Keith was also just funny. Take “Red Solo Cup,” an intentionally dumb, supremely affable 2011 ode to a beer pong and tailgate essential.

There’s a lot that’s ridiculous about “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue,” his 2002 song dashed off in response both to his father’s death and to the 9/11 attacks. The image of the Statue of Liberty “shaking her fist” in the general direction of Osama bin Laden is beyond hokey. But what’s not absurd is Keith’s memory from the second verse of the song: his father raising an American flag in his front yard every day to honor the country for which he gave his right eye. “Courtesy of the Red White, White and Blue” is bad foreign policy, but Keith’s recollection renders it comprehensible as the sort of profound emotional reaction so many people had – but couldn’t express on a national scale – after 9/11.

And while I have no nostalgia for mob justice, Keith’s 2003 collaboration with Willie Nelson, “Beer for My Horses,” was appealing in its invocation not of law and order but of community. Keith was never going to sell a modern audience on a return to public hangings and shootouts with desperadoes. But the image of him and Nelson celebrating making their town a better place by ordering whiskey for the humans and pitchers for the equines expressed the same camaraderie as Keith’s party songs. In one of those inexplicable decisions you make when you’re young, my college roommate and I adopted “Beer for My Horses” as a kind of personal anthem.

Loving Keith’s music never meant endorsing every decision he made as a man. And I’m grateful for the lessons in complexity that Keith taught me: that a beautiful voice can be used to sublime or foolish ends, that values I share, such as respect for military service, can lead to actions I deplore. “I always dreamed about living in your radio,” Keith sang in “How Do You Like Me Now?” If there’s any justice, his songs, and his voice, will continue to do just that.