Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)
2002 country song by Toby Keith
"Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)" is a song written and recorded by American country music artist Toby Keith. The song was written in late 2001, and was inspired by Keith's father's death in March 2001, as well as the September 11 attacks on the United States later that year. It was released in May 2002 as the lead single from the album Unleashed.
Background
At first, Keith refused to record the song and only sang it live at his concerts for military personnel. The reaction, however, was so strong that the Commandant of the Marine Corps James L. Jones told Keith it was his duty as an American citizen to record the song. "It's your job as a singer to lift the morale of the troops," Jones said to Keith. "If you want to serve, that is what you can do."
In a November 2003 interview with CBS, Keith gave his take on the song: "It wasn't written for everybody. And when you write something from your heart – I had a dad that was a veteran, taught me how precious our freedom is – I was so angry when we were attacked here on American soil that it leaked out of me. You know, some people wept when they heard it. Some people got goose bumps.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)” as 2002 country song by Toby Keith. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 2002 country song by Toby Keith. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5178490. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2001, 2002 and 2003.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.