‘Cowboy’ song
Toby Keith celebrates 25th anniversary of breakout hit
Toby Keith’s whole life changed in one night in a hotel bathroom in Dodge City, Kansas.
“A guy said to another guy, ‘In all honesty, you should’ve been a cowboy,’ when a girl didn’t dance with him in his hunting clothes. And I thought, ‘Man, that sounds like a song idea,’ and it was all over me,” Keith recalled earlier this month.
“I went back and we were all two hunters to a room, and my roommate was Freddie Cortez. He’s passed away now, but he used to own Chastain's and a bunch of country bars in town. Freddie went to sleep, and I didn’t want to wake him ’cause he was hateful when you’d wake him up. I went in the bathroom, shut the door, wrote it down and put it in my bag and went hunting the next day. Came home, revisited it, and said ‘I’m gonna record this song.’
“It’s the foundation for me of everything.”
Released to radio in February 1993, “Should’ve Been a Cowboy” was the singer-songwriter’s debut single, and it galloped up the country charts, ascending to No. 1 in four months. Although it only took Keith about 20 minutes to write it, the tuneful tribute to Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and the Texas Rangers became the most-played country song of that decade and set the Oklahoma native on a multiplatinumselling, hall of fame music career.
The Norman resident, 56, is celebrating this year the 25th anniversary of his breakout hit, and the festivities so far have included a national television showcase on the Academy of Country Music Awards and the naming of his annual trek the "Toby Keith Should've Been a Cowboy Tour XXV.”
“I’m giving that song its due. … I’ve never played a show that I didn’t play that song,” Keith told The Oklahoman. “I’ve probably got 15 or 20 No. 1s I don’t play, and I’ve probably got 20 or 30 top 10s I don’t play. I do a two-hour show every night, and I