Throwback To Toby Keith’s Video For “As Good As I Once Was” In All Its Splendor

Toby Keith country music

Have you even lived if you’ve never heard your dad and his best friend duet the Toby Keith classic, “As Good As I Once Was” after a long day of drinking?

Probably not.

But a close second to that experience would be the official video for the song.

Premiering on CMT in 2005, the video featured Toby Keith as the main character. After sitting down on his regular barstool at the bar, he looks around only to find that the majority of the crowd is now much younger and more “hip” than he is. He even gets cutting glares for ordering a beer instead of a fancy mixed drink.

The entire song is a tribute to good-ole-fashioned aging and the self-deprecation that comes along with it. And while it acknowledges the hardships that come with getting older and not being “as good as you once were” it also stands to prove that even with age, you CAN be “as good once as you ever were.”

Arguably one of the best country music videos of the past two decades in terms of a humorous-interpretation, the video snippets feature Toby encountering a series of events that only prove the bridge of the song… “I ain’t as good as I once was.”

Including a couple of twins asking him to “rodeo,” and breaking up a bar fight for his friend Dave against a “couple of redneck boys and one great big bad biker man,” which actually only results in Toby getting knocked out in a bar fight.

All-in-all, it’s the definition of great video interpretation that stands to further prove that even though “the years have flown,” and inevitably our bodies age, our pride somehow manages to remain youthful.

PEAK 2005.

A beer bottle on a dock

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