Last time we checked in on Kid Rock—the heir to a car dealership empire who reinvented himself two decades ago as a trailer park kid who rocks—he was assuring us that his gay friends were totally cool with him casually throwing around homophobic slurs. Five months later, in an apparent bid to remind everyone of his alleged solidarity with the queer community, the conceptual artist straddled a gigantic penis-shaped middle finger rocket and blasted himself so hard into the air that he now resides on the planet Mars.
Or, at least, that seems to be the general gist of Kid Rock’s new music video for a song called “Don’t Tell Me How To Live,” which is about people who don’t like it when other people ask them to please stop confusing ideas like “patriotism” and “independence” with blind contrarianism. Also, to please stop using homophobic slurs.
Based around the hook (and title) of a 2016 single from the Southern rock (by way of Canada) band, Monster Truck, who appear to be a “Jet-meets-Lynyrd Skynyrd” situation, “Don’t Tell Me How To Live” ascends to levels of self-parody not seen since Insane Clown Posse’s “Miracles.” In fact, it’s so willfully, preposterously ignorant that even Weird Al chimed in to assure everyone that this was not his doing.
“Kiss my ass, then you can suck a dick,” rasps Kid Rock before reminding us that “Ain’t nothing changed here, I still don’t give a fuck.” And yet, he subsequently ponders “what the fuck’s up with all the backlash” before reminding us “snowflakes” that, as you may have already guessed, ain’t nobody gonna tell him how to live.
The rest of the song, of course, is a predictable grab bag of soundbites overheard at the local Outback Steakhouse on a Wednesday night: “a nation of pussies is our next generation,” “every opinion has a millennial offended,” along with repeated extolling of Constitutional Amendments One and, more fervently, Two.
Visually, there’s the aforementioned image of a winged Kid Rock waving a gun around atop his giant, phallic middle finger as it “kid rock-its” into the upper atmosphere, alongside churches, pit bulls, bikers, an anonymous dive bar filled with all manner of good ol’ (white) boys. Rock does his trademark hop-around dance moves that make it seem like he’s suffering from severe bouts of athlete’s foot in both cowboy boots.
“Don’t Tell Me How To Live” seems destined for much-memed infamy in the coming weeks, which of course only pours additional moonshine atop Kid Rock’s strategically constructed garbage fire of a career. And yet, we can’t help but cover something this egregiously bad—a song that’s destined to be yet another barn-burner for Kid Rock’s primary fan base of Nazi face tattoo having men that smack cops in the face with colostomy bags at Mr. Rock’s “Big Ass Honky-Tonk & Rock ‘n’ Roll Steakhouse.”
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