Toby Keith song analysis

Toby Keith song analysis 

Toby Keith is a mainstream country artist that has been in the county music business for a while. He has released many different hits during his career.  “Little too Late” and “High Maintenance Woman” are not his most famous song, but they both have strong messages to them.

Little too Late is a song about a man that is leaving his wife for good. In county music a song about divorce or falling out of love is a common song topic. In the music video Toby uses the brick wall as a metaphor for the end of the relationship, and at the end of the song he is the one that is locked in the basement and not his wife. He realized that he was worse off without his wife after he built the wall between them. The message that sends out is that when he left his wife he ended up worse than his wife. Without the aid of the music video the song has a different meaning; if you are unhappy with your marriage end it so you can be happy with someone else.

It's a little too late, I'm a little too gone

A little too tired of just hangin' on

I'm lettin' go while I'm still strong enough to

                 Every time that Toby sings the chorus the amount of crying becomes less present each time. This shows that through the song he is getting stronger and over the break up. During the different versus the instrumentals are quieter than the chorus. This puts an emphasis on the word that is being sung in the different verses.

No, I don't want to talk about what we can do about us anymore

Only time you and me wastin' is the time it takes to walk right out that door

Yeah, talk about water under the bridge

You should know by now girl that's all this is

When Toby sings this verse he sings in a softer voice. The softer voice makes the emotion portrayed to be disappointed and a lake of love. It really fits with the lyrics because the song is about the ending of their marriage. 

 

The song is about a working class man that is in love with a woman, but she will never love him because she is rich and he is just a maintenance worker. In the song “High Maintenance Woman” the maintenance man is a metaphor for a working class man. Toby tries to make the connection of maintenance, fixing of things and the upkeep of a woman.  Toby sings the whole song in a full voice. Being sung in full voice represents the strength that the working class has. There is a lot of slang words used and a strong southern accent used when he sings this song. He uses them so that he is more relatable to the working class culture. This song can be a relatable song to many people; A man that falls in love with a very beautiful woman.  

She's my baby doll, she's my beauty queen

She's my movie star, best I ever seen

I ain't hooked it up yet but I'm tryin' hard as I can

It's just a high maintenance woman

Don't want no maintenance man

The chorus shows that the man in the song hasn’t asked the girl on a date yet when he says “I ain’t hooked it up yet but I’m tryin’ hard as I can.” This is a relatable part because a lot of men have a hard time asking out beautiful woman.