Songfacts®:

• Toby Keith spoke to AOL Music about this song, which was written by Chris Wallin and Keith's frequent songwriting partner Craig Wiseman: "Very few times do I record a song I don't write. I can probably count on both hands the number of times I've done that in my whole career. This song wasn't written for me, but it sounds like I wrote it for myself. Every word Craig wrote tells it like it is for me. There are a lot of homeless people out there who are lazy, drunk or hooked on drugs, but there are some who might just be down on their luck. So I may feel like the homeless should just get up and go to work, but I won't stop giving money to charitable organizations that help people on the street. I do sometimes think war is necessary, but if we could push the big red peace button and make it all end I think every single one of us would."
• One of the reasons Keith recorded this song was to try to explain himself after all the criticism he received for his patriotic post-9/11 number "Courtesy Of The Red, White And Blue (The Angry American)."
• This was Toby Keith's first Country #1 on his own Show Dog Nashville label. His previous 15 chart-toppers had all been on major labels.
• The day before a writing session with Craig Wiseman, Chris Wallin was indulging in one of life's great low-effort pleasures: aimlessly browsing through television channels.
  
  "So there I was flipping channels and there's this guy on Jerry Springer," Wallin recalled to The Tennessean. "The crowd's booing the guy. Turns out he's got 10 baby mamas or something like that. But he just turns around, looks at everyone, and says, 'Y'all can hate me if you want to, but I wish you'd love me because I'm just a man.'"
  
  Now, it's not often you hear raw, if misguided, poetry emerge from a televised shouting match, but that line stuck. Wallin walked into his session with Wiseman the next day thinking about the sad, strange fellow he'd seen on Springer. He even gave him a name in his head: "Earl."
  
  Thankfully, Wiseman had other plans.
  
  Instead of leaning into the Springer-style melodrama, they pivoted. What came out of the session was "Love Me if You Can," a ballad about human frailty, moral conviction, and the universal longing to be accepted despite it all. A far cry from flying chairs and paternity tests.
• Toby Keith wasn't the first to record "Love Me if You Can." That honor went to Trace Adkins. "Trace killed that song," Wallin told The Tennessean with a wistful shrug.
  
  And then… nothing. No album placement, no single release. The song disappeared into that mysterious graveyard of Nashville recordings that were perfectly good but for one reason or another never saw the light of day. Six years passed.
  
  Eventually, producer Casey Beathard, who was working with Adkins, asked Wallin if he had any songs lying around. Wallin mentioned this old tune he still loved: "Love Me if You Can." Beathard gave it another spin. Adkins even revisited it. Still - nada.
  
  One day, after Toby Keith got hold of it and took it to #1, Adkins told Wallin, "Yeah, I told somebody I think the best song we cut on that thing that never made the album was 'Love Me if You Can' because I heard Toby do it."