About The Song
“I Wanna Talk About Me” is a song written by Bobby Braddock and recorded by American country music artist Toby Keith. The single was released on August 20, 2001 as the second single from Keith’s 2001 album Pull My Chain. The song was his seventh number one single on the US Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart.
In this comical country tune written by Bobby Braddock, a frustrated Toby Keith can’t get a word in edgewise with his self-absorbed significant other, leading to his refrain, “I wanna talk about me!” Braddock actually wrote the song for Blake Shelton, who released his debut album earlier in the year, but Shelton’s record label thought a country-rap number would be too risky for a newcomer. It became Toby’s seventh #1 hit on the Country chart.
Braddock thought the brashness of the lyrics would be perfect for Toby, on par with the singer’s shamelessly confident anthem “How Do You Like Me Now!?” There was just one problem: Toby’s A&R person absolutely hated the song and rejected it. Thankfully, Braddock was able to meet with DreamWorks Nashville’s President, James Stroud, who proclaimed, “This is a damn hit!”
Braddock told Rolling Stone Country how his own “I wanna talk about me” moment inspired him to write the track: “There were two inspirations for that song. One was a very good friend of mine’s assistant had been fired, so her workload doubled. Whenever I talked to her on the phone, that was all she’d talk about. I’d try to talk to her about something else and she’d just keep going back to that. I played it for her over the phone and she didn’t say anything. The next day, she called and said, ‘Did you write that song about me?’ I said, ‘That’s right!’ The other inspiration was Blake Shelton. He was going around doing this really raunchy little rap song he made up. To hear him in his Oklahoma white-boy accent doing a rap song was pretty hilarious. So, I thought, ‘I need to write a country-rap song for Blake.’ I wanted to write something about my friend and her loquaciousness, so I thought I would turn it into a rap thing.”
Both Braddock and Toby weren’t sure this could be a hit, because country fans would call it a rap song and rap fans would call it a country song. “They’re going to call it a rap,” Toby told Billboard in 2001. “[But] there ain’t nobody doing rap who would call it a rap.”
In 2010, Braddock turned down a lucrative deal to allow Houston Democratic mayor Bill White to use this in commercials to support his race for governor of Texas. Although he agreed with the mayor’s policies, he didn’t want to politicize the song. “I felt that it belonged not only to me, but to Toby Keith and his fans as well,” he explained.
Video
Lyrics
Yeah, yeah
That’s right
We talk about your work, how your boss is a jerk
We talk about your church, and your head when it hurts
We talk about the troubles you been having with your brother
About your daddy and your mother and your crazy ex-lover
We talk about your friends, and the places that you’ve been
We talk about your skin and the devils on your chin
The polish on your toes and the run in your hose
And god knows we’re gonna talk about your clothes
You know talking about you makes me smile
But every once in a while
I wanna talk about me, wanna talk about i
Wanna talk about number one, oh my, me my
What I think, what I like, what I know, what I want, what I see
I like talking about you, you, you, you usually
But occasionally, I wanna talk about me (me, me, me, me)
I wanna talk about me (me, me)
We talk about your dreams, and we talk about your schemes
Your high school team and your moisturizing cream
We talk about your nanny up in Muncie, Indiana
We talk about your grandma down in Alabama
We talk about your guys of every shape and size
The ones that you despise and the ones you idolize
We talk about your heart, ’bout your brain and your smarts
And your medical charts and when you start
You know talking about you makes me grin
But every now and then
I wanna talk about me, wanna talk about i
Wanna talk about number one, oh my, me my
What I think, what I like, what I know, what I want, what I see
I like talking about you, you, you, you usually
But occasionally, I wanna talk about me (me, me, me, me)
I wanna talk about me (me, me)
I wanna talk about me (me, me, me, me, me)
I wanna talk about me (me, me, me, me, me)
You, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you
I wanna talk about me
I wanna talk about me, wanna talk about i
Wanna talk about number one, oh my, me my
What I think, what I like, what I know, what I want, what I see
I like talking about you, you, you, you usually
But occasionally, I wanna talk about me (me, me, me, me)
I wanna talk about me (me, me)
I wanna talk about me (me, me, me, me)
Oh, me (me, me, me, me)
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