Country superstar Toby Keith’s final recording dropped on Friday more than a month after his death at age 62 following a battle with stomach cancer.
Keith ended up recording a cover of the classic Joe Diffie song, “Ships That Don’t Come In,” for country singer Hardy’s mixtape Hixtape, Rolling Stone magazine reported.
For Keith’s cover, he was joined by singer Luke Combs as the two take turns with the poignant lines of the popular 1992 song. Given Keith’s recent passing, hearing his final studio performance hits different in the song that includes lyrics about life’s unexpected twists, the opportunities that are missed, and those that never come.
The chorus reads, “So here’s to all the soldiers/Who have ever died in vain/The insane locked up in themselves /The homeless down on Main/To those who stand on empty shores/And spit against the wind/And those who wait forever/For ships that don’t come in.”
It’s clear that no matter how much time has passed since Keith was performing in those big arenas, the late country singer still sounded incredible. The Hixtape is Hardy’s third one and is completely Diffie-themed. It includes a host of cameos from such country stars as Clint Black, Blake Shelton, Chris Young, Darius Rucker, and more. Keith’s recording is truly a beautiful tribute to the late singer’s legacy.
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The “Red Solo Cup” hitmaker was recently announced as one of the new inductees into the Country Hall of Fame, the outlet noted. He died the day before he would’ve learned about his inclusion in the hall.
Shortly after Keith’s death, the late singer broke a record and made history after beating out music giants like Kenny Rogers and Taylor Swift to dominate 90 percent of the top 10 songs on the Country Digital Song Sales chart at one time.
After his death, the “Should’ve Been A Cowboy” hitmaker’s catalog of music filled the country charts. He is now the first artist ever to claim nine spaces in the top 10 songs on the Billboard chart, Billboard reported.
Following Keith’s diagnosis in 2021, he talked about his incredible country singing career.
“Just seeing how enormous the career I amassed over 30 years when they show the video,” he told People magazine at the time. “You know where you were when you wrote all those songs, you hear those numbers and you’re just like, you looked up one day and all of a sudden 30 years went by.”