Clint Eastwood and Toby Keith

 Sent to me by a very special friend.  

The story here is not at all unusual; it is axiomatic that good art or good poetry or good fiction can and does provoke good music.  Schiller's Ode is Beethoven's Ninth.  Mussorgsky viewed the Great Gate of Kiev at an art exhibit. John Adams (and Aaron Copland) both wrote music for Dickinson's 'Because I Could Not Stop for Death.  Mahler heard a poem by Klopstock and wrote the final movement of his Second.  And so on.

In 2017, Toby Keith was participating in a charity golf tournament in Pebble Beach, California, where he shared a golf cart with legendary Hollywood actor Clint Eastwood. The actor told Keith that day that he was about to start filming a movie called The Mule. Toby was in awe of the then-88-year-old’s energy and desire to keep working and asked Eastwood how he does it.

    “He said, ‘I just get up every morning and go out. And I don’t let the old man in,’” Keith recalled. “And I thought, I’m writing that.”...

Keith spent quite a bit of time writing the song and sent his first recording to Eastwood as a gift.  The song is now regarded as Keith's finest composition.

...When Toby finished the song, he recorded a demo to send to Clint Eastwood as a gift. Toby wasn’t feeling well, the day he recorded the demo, but recorded it anyway with the intention of re-recording a better version later. But, that didn’t happen. Clint loved the “sick and tired and dark” sound of Toby’s vocals on the demo and called the singer less than an hour after hearing it.

    “He said, ‘I’ve got a spot in the movie and I’m putting it in there.’ And then Warner Bros. called asking did I read the script before I wrote this song because it fits perfectly,” Toby said...

The Mule is based on a true story, by the way.  If you haven't seen it, you've missed another great Eastwood performance.

Here is the official video.  Enjoy.