Toby's back, and his message is "Get Drunk and Be Somebody." White Trash With Money starts off with this song, one that has already made the rounds on CMT. Forty-hour work week getting you down? Go unwind at the neighborhood bar. "Drink all you want! Be the star of the show!" Despite the cheering you might see in the music video, there's something oddly sad about it. Are we nobodies until we drink? Perhaps Toby has been spending too much time on Rugby Rd.
But the album isn't all jokes. It's Keith's voice. Listening to the slower songs in this album is like unwrapping a box of chocolates ... or in his case, a box of Oklahoma steaks. Somehow he gives us the spice of a country twang and the smoothness of a love poem at the same time. In "Crash Here Tonight," this combination is delightful. When he sings, "Is this what love is all about? / Am I gettin' in too deep?" Girls, you will melt. Guys, um, skip to the next track.
The catchiest song on the album is "Grain of Salt," a macho drinking story about getting over a girl. "I took your leavin' with a grain of salt / Tequila and a slice of lime," he sings. You can just see the cocky strut. He says he got over her before she was even gone, but there's hurt behind the facade of the lyrics. "Running Block" is fun too, when his blind date is more ... horizontally endowed ... than he had expected. "I tried to drink her skinny / But she's still about 215" is insulting at first, but it'll grow on you. And get you to the gym.
This is Keith's first album with his own record label, Show Dog Records, after fights with other labels in his past. If this is his autobiography, it appears that he's calling himself white trash. Keith's view of Middle America is broken-down trucks and sleazy motels. His protagonists race home to their Victoria's Secret-clad girls. They're such cheapos that they recycle birthday presents. They hook up with blind dates and take the family to Wal-Mart for a night on the town.
"Can't Buy You Money" is the heart of the album. It's funny and sad. Three kids, a busted truck and the bills are due. A drive-thru window is a fancy dinner. Somehow this family manages to keep going. The dad credits God, but money trumps religion. "Yeah we'd save it all up for a rainy day / But it's always sunny," the refrain goes. But you don't have to be poor to understand this song -- everyone will get the punch line. "Guess all the happiness in the world can't buy you money."
"Ain't No Right Way" is too spoken-word and repetitive to be enjoyable, but in a way it's the most interesting song on the album. In three stories about tough choices, Keith laments the destruction of American family values. Pregnant girls consider abortion, fathers beat their sons and politicians support a secular culture. Keith asks in an accusatory tone, "If God blessed America / Then how could someone vote / To take prayer from our classrooms / Right when we need prayer the most?"
It's reminiscent of the famous "Beer for My Horses" attitude-- "Back in my day, son, a man had to answer for the wicked that he done." The song also has a rebellious hint of an earlier hit, "It Works for Me," which oozed red-state pride -- "If it's so good in the city, why don't anybody smile?"
Keith is cruder and grittier in this album than any other in his past, and his politics seep through. Perhaps his previous managers were right to keep his stronger opinions out of his lyrics. That said, the strength of this album is that it has more depth than the flashier fluff in Shock'n Y'all and How Do You Like Me Now. These are true stories from the heartland with real people and real consequences -- what country music should be. White Trash With Money is more colorful and less melancholy than Keith's last album, the self-pitying Honkytonk University. This memorable album will show that Toby is more than a boot up someone's rear. He's a complex thinker, and his years and independence have only made him wiser.
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