Kid Rock & His Middle Fingers Would Like You To Know He’s Mad in His New Video for “Don’t Tell Me How to Live”

Sliding in with an incendiary new anthem just a few days ahead of those awkward family gatherings at the Thanksgiving table, Kid Rock pulls off a spot-on impression of your cranky uncle with “Don’t Tell Me How to Live,” a confrontational and oh-so-salty new song from the Detroit-based rap/rock/country/crossover.

Shared on Friday, Mr. Bob Ritchie introduces the new track with a pleasant “Fuck all you hoes,” which may indeed be a callback to the title track from his 15-million-selling 1998 breakthrough Devil Without a Cause. Or, it’s just Kid Rock’s way of saying hello and reminding us all that he’s pretty peeved with the state of things (as vaguely as possible).

NEW SINGLE AND VIDEO – 11.19.21 pic.twitter.com/uCL1my1ftF

— KidRock (@KidRock) November 18, 2021

Either way, it sets the tone for the four minutes to come, a “throwback” Kid Rock song with lyrics like these (presented in all caps because he’s really revved-up):

DEVIL WITHOUT A CAUSE YOU HEARD ME SCREAM IT
AND TWENTY YEARS LATER BITCH I STILL FUCKING MEAN IT
BUCKA BUCKA YOU AIN’T NEVER MET A MOTHERFUCKER LIKE THIS
KISS MY ASS THEN YOU CAN SUCK A DICK SIDEWAYS
MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY LISTEN UP
AIN’T NOTHING CHANGED HERE I STILL DON’T GIVE A FUCK
SO WHAT THE FUCKS UP WITH ALL THE BACKLASH
YOU SNOWFLAKES HERE’S A NEWS FLASH

AIN’T NOBODY GONNA TELL ME HOW TO LIVE

YEARS AGO WE ALL THOUGHT IT WAS A JOKE SEE
THAT EVER KID GOT A MOTHERFUCKIN’ TROPHY
BUT YO HOMIE HERE’S THE SITUATION
A NATION OF PUSSIES IS OUR NEXT GENERATION
AND THESE MINIONS AND THEIR AGENDAS
EVERY OPINION HAS A MILLENNIAL OFFENDED
BUT THIS AMENDMENT ONE IT RINGS TRUE
AND IF YOU DON’T DISSENT BITCH THEN SEE NUMBER TWO

You get the idea.

A man named Monster Truck sings the song’s hook, popping up every few lines or so.

There are also various amusingly Photoshopped images of Kid Rock as Run DMC, Bruce Springsteen and David Lee Roth, wearing a shirt that (correctly) says “SOCIAL MEDIA SUCKS” and, uh, riding a middle-finger statue up into space, where he assumes a kingdom over his own planet, or something.

Kid Rock, folks. He’s back in “nu-metal” form once again, maybe. Either way, he’s pissed about … something. (That this song landed roughly a week after a similarly overtly confrontational new song from the equally cantankerous Ted Nugent is quite a coincidence, we must add).

Kid Rock’s most recent studio album was 2017’s Sweet Southern Sugar, making “Don’t Tell Me How to Live” the first new song from Mr. Rock in a while.

For more, and to gain a better understanding of what the man born Robert James Ritchie meant to the “current rock scene” in the late 1990s, be sure to watch HBO Max’s revealing Woodstock 99: Peace, Love, and Rage documentary.