RAMBLE ON: "Don't Tell Me How to Live" by Kid Rock

My deep dark secret is that I’ve never been much bothered by Kid Rock, or at least the vast majority of his career. I still like “Bawitdaba” and “Cowboy” as much as I did in junior high. I’ve never found “All Summer Long” particularly objectionable. The rhyme of “things” and “things” doesn’t bother me. Disliking Kid Rock is an easy lay-up for a music critic, and imagining the “type” of person who Kid Rock’s music is “for” has been an easy Twitter dunk for years that I’ve resisted. It’s not like I actively listen to Kid Rock either, I can’t remember the last time I heard one of his songs voluntarily, but it’s always been hard for me to really hate any of his music. I did hate that awful song he did in those National Guard commercials that used to play before movies. That was pretty bad, I guess. In my opinion, the worst Limp Bizkit songs were much more painful than the worst Kid Rock songs, but Fred Durst aged into a cuddly old man instead of a Trumpy loudmouth so people are much fonder of him in hindsight and forget how bad “My Generation” or “Hot Dog” were. I don’t think Kid Rock’s music is that bad.

But I also find it hard to be offended by Kid Rock as a person, which is much harder to justify because objectively, Bob Ritchie the man sucks. A man who willingly visits the Trump White House, a Northerner who waves the Confederate flag, there’s just no excuse for that. Fuck that guy. Idiot. And yet, I find it hard to muster anything angrier about him than a dismissive jerk-off gesture. Something about his right-wing, ooh-am-I-offending-you culture warrior shtick just comes off as cute. As I was writing this, Kid Rock just got angry about Bud Light supporting trans people, one of the few times he’s actually offended me. The first thing I think of when it comes to Kid Rock’s politics are not the actual attempts to piss me off but his vague gestures in the other directions; his disavowal of Nazis, his confused laughter when Trump attempted to get his thoughts on North Korea. (Kid Rock was in the Oval Office and was the adult in the room. Dark horrible times we’ve survived.)

The tragedy of Kid Rock is that he was once the respectable face of Family Values-era rap-rock. He played nice with the rock establishment, he was constantly paying tribute to his elders and he was eloquent in defense of the classics. He wrote a Bob Seger homage and got Seger to do piano on it and it rules. His Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction speech for Cheap Trick is an all-timer. He’s a lousy rock star but an excellent music nerd; in an alternate universe, Kid Rock is the keeper of the flame for classic rock, rather than the joke he’s become.

Anyway, I forced myself to listen to Kid Rock’s “Don’t Tell Me How to Live” all the way through for the first time to write this essay. (This essay is five days late because it took me that long to work up the courage.)  Actually, no, that’s not true, I didn’t listen to it “all the way through,” I had to take a break in the middle. I made it three quarters of the way through, tapped out and watched a couple episodes of Damages and then listened to the last minute of the song. But at least I can say I have actually listened to every second of this song now. “Don’t Tell Me How to Live” went viral in 2021 and I saw a lot of people dunking on it; even most of the comments on YouTube are dunking on it. I resisted the urge, in the same way that I don’t watch stand-ups with specials with names like Trigger Warning. They want you to dunk on them. They’re getting off on it. It’s a symbiotic relationship that I don’t want to be a part of. And I live to dunk on bad music! I make a good living doing it! But honestly I was a little annoyed to see so many people take the outrage bait. Don’t give him that! (I thought about not including the video like I usually do; you don’t have to click that link.)

Before now, the only tiny bit I had heard of the song was because I needed to use it in comparison to Aaron Lewis’s foul “Am I the Only One” for a video once, and at the time it struck me what a different animal Kid Rock is to Aaron Lewis. Lewis is a horribly sincere man; every word he sings he means, down to the bottom of his blackened, miserable heart. He hates you and he hates all your values; he dreams of eradicating you and your kind. Kid Rock, meanwhile, doesn’t hate you; he’s just annoyed by you. He dislikes you the same way you dislike him; he thinks you’re lame. “Don’t Tell Me How to Live” takes aim at OFFENDED SNOWFLAKES and their MILLENNIAL FEELINGS and their PARTICIPATION TROPHIES. In the video, Kid Rock rides a rocketship shaped like a middle finger to space, one of the few times this shitshow is stupid enough to be funny. But unlike his fellow grifter Tom McDonald, Kid Rock doesn’t actually have the guts to stake out any actual political position. He doesn’t say what these snowflakes are offended by; he doesn’t say what the middle finger is actually pointing at except in the vaguest terms. More than anything, Kid Rock wants to be cool. I’m sure his right-wing leanings are real, but they’re shallow; more than any politics, Kid Rock is driven by wanting to be his idols, Steven Tyler, Mick Jagger, the dirty white boys of rock. At the end of the song he lists a bunch of people he wishes he was; Rev. Run (?!!), David Lee Roth, Bruce Springsteen.

Let’s take those one by one. Run-DMC are legends and always will be, and they performed with Kid Rock on several occasions; one of the first good things Kid Rock did with his fame is to put some respect on their names. But a man who willingly waves the Confederate flag has no right to claim any inheritance from Black legends. Run-DMC were also very old school, and hip-hop quickly outgrew their flow. Kid Rock began his career as a rapper in 1989; when hip-hop moved past his corny flow, he had to re-invent himself. He has nothing to do with hip-hop. It’s an insult.

David Lee Roth is the closest of the three to being something that Kid Rock can emulate. But David Lee Roth, as a performer, was always an entertainer. He was there to have fun. Van Halen was aggressively apolitical; they were a party band. “Don’t Tell Me How to Live” has no joy in it, no fun. It’s a bitter, try-hard, ugly track; I don’t think David Lee Roth would enjoy it very much.

And then of course, Springsteen. I noted at the time that this was the big difference between Kid Rock and Aaron Lewis; Kid Rock still likes Springsteen. As well he should. I’m honestly torn which is worse, though; Aaron Lewis hates Springsteen for his politics, which is a repellent and unjustifiable position, but at least Lewis seems to understand what his position is. If Lewis is going to be the man he is, he has to hate Springsteen. What right has Kid Rock to love Springsteen? What right has he to be the man he is and still aspire to The Boss’s mantle?  It reminds me of those shitty anti-woke stand-ups who adore Pryor and Carlin but don’t remotely understand Pryor or Carlin.

Kid Rock does get more political on the rest album, apparently (I am not going to find out for myself) but I notice this song, the vague one about offended millennials, was the single for a reason. I think he still thinks he can be a real rock star, even though the world has so drastically passed him by. His version of cool isn’t cool anymore, and wasn’t even really cool when it was big. I don’t want to take easy dunks on this because it’s too uncomfortable; there’s a tragic pathos to it.  It is Kid Rock’s curse to have great taste as a music listener but terrible taste as a music maker. It’s like watching Amadeus if Salieri thought he was as good as Mozart.