Care

Album: Born Free (2010)
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Songfacts®:

  • This contemplative ballad with a socially conscious theme features a pairing surely never to be replicated – rapper T.I. and Country icon Martina McBride. Kid Rock explained to Billboard magazine why he hooked up with two people from opposite sides of the music spectrum for this song. Said Rock: "I've been told by people I really look up to, like Rev Run, 'you know what you do best?' And I'm waiting to hear you're best on the turntables or you write songs, and he says 'you bring people together better than anyone I've ever met in my life.' I sat back and thought about it and, I don't sit around and toot my own horn, but I give credit where it's due, and, yeah, I'm pretty good at that. I am good at bringing people together and that song is a great example. What format is it gonna be? I don't know, but it's a good song, man."
  • Rock discussed with Billboard magazine the lyric, "they're screamin' on the left, yelling on the right/I'm sittin' in the middle trying to live my life." "I think that speaks to a lot of people. I think just the climate of things in this country, with tea parties and right wingers and left wingers and all the politicians, people are fed up with this. We don't want a bunch of pot-smoking hippies running our country and we don't want a bunch of bible-thumping, 'don't do anything but worship our Lord' types, either. There's a lot people that are somewhere in between. We can all get after it and still have our views and not be at each others' throats. We can all care without having to collide so much."
  • Kid Rock enlisted Pistol Annies' Angaleena Presley to appear alongside T.I. and himself in the song's music video, which spotlights the social stigma of recession. Film director Mark Pellington (The Mothman Prophecies, Arlington Road) helmed the black-and-white clip in Detroit in front of an abandoned building. The locals who appear as extras in the video were asked what they cared about most, and their answers were painted on the side of the building.
  • The song was the inspiration for a 12-date charity club tour that Kid undertook to raise money for various local charities in late 2011. "The song says 'the least that I can do is care' - and I want to put my money where my mouth is," he told Kerrang! magazine.

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