Toby Keith Remembers a Friend

Anna Bryan

The newest single from Toby Keith, Cryin' for Me (Wayman's Song), was written for Wayman Tisdale, who recently passed away at age 44 after a battle with cancer. Wayman was a basketball legend, jazz musician and Toby's good friend. In the song, Toby sings about the ways he is dealing with Wayman's death. While the song is personal for Toby, the ways in which he faces his grief are a reminder of things that can help many people cope with the loss of a loved one. Some find creative outlets help them process the situation, rather it be writing music like Toby or channeling grief through some other form of creativity. The video for Cryin' for Me opens with audio from Wayman's outgoing voicemail after Toby has dialed it to hear his voice again. For a lot of people, dialing the voicemail, saving old messages or pulling out pictures and videos of their loved one helps ease the pain by reminding us that even though someone is gone, we will always have our memories of that person. And perhaps most importantly, many of us come to the same conclusion that Toby sings about in the tagline of the song -- that we are crying for ourselves rather than crying for the one who has passed because we believe that person is in a better place.