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3[[quoteright:267:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/garth_brooks.jpg]]
4[[caption-width-right:267:Nice hat.]]
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6Troyal Garth Brooks (born February 7, 1962) was, quite simply, ''the'' voice of country music for the better part of TheNineties. In the entirety of American music, only Music/ElvisPresley has sold as many albums as Garth[[note]]and there's some dispute in those numbers, though Garth is happy to concede to the King[[/note]]. His ''Ropin' The Wind'' was one of the first albums to be certified Diamond by the RIAA, and was the first country album ever to debut at #1... on the ''Billboard 200'' album chart that tracks ''all'' albums, not just country albums. (For reference, it held the spot between ''[[Music/MetallicaAlbum The Black Album]]'' by Music/{{Metallica}} and ''[[Music/UseYourIllusion Use Your Illusion II]]'' by Music/GunsNRoses.)
7
8The vast majority of his albums during his peak on Creator/CapitolRecords drew from the same pool of session musicians (Bruce Bouton, Mark Casstevens, Mike Chapman, Rob Hajacos, Chris Leuzinger, Milton Sledge, and Bobby Wood), longtime producer Allen Reynolds, and longtime sound engineer Mark Miller[[note]]not the lead singer of Sawyer Brown[[/note]], collectively known as the "G-Men". Recurring writers such as Pat Alger, Tony Arata, Kim Williams, Victoria Shaw, and Kent Blazy shaped some of his biggest hits, although he was no slouch to writing his own material or covering obscurities from others. His most famous songs range from slick ballads ("The Dance", "Unanswered Prayers", "What She's Doing Now", "The River") to working-class anthemic songs ("Friends in Low Places", "Shameless", "More than a Memory"), with various other styles in between.
9
10While he may not be the best ''singer'' of country songs (something which he himself will be the first to admit), he may well be the best ''showman'' country music has ever had, and his integration of pop/arena rock staples into his shows (most notably the use of a headset microphone to allow him to run around stage) brought life and energy to a genre that was increasingly viewed as growing stale and stagnate, helping to bring about a new generation of country stars. He's had half a dozen nationally televised concerts, including memorable ones in Texas Stadium (which installed two bridges to support his antics; the "Garth Bars" remained until the stadium was demolished), Central Park in New York, Croke Park in Ireland, The Wynn in Las Vegas, and Notre Dame in Indiana.
11
12About the only thing Garth did that didn't turn to gold was his alter ego, Chris Gaines, a bizarre side-project where he pretended to be another artist and released music that was almost completely different from his normal output. This was ''supposed'' to be for a movie, with ''The Life of Chris Gaines'' album supposed to be the soundtrack for it, but because there was no movie, there was no context, and the whole thing looked like some crazy ego trip. Unbelievably, this failed alter-ego project gave Brooks [[BlackSheepHit his sole US Top 40 hit]] with the ballad "Lost in You." Until that point, he had never actually pursued pop radio, except through a cover of Music/{{KISS}}' "Hard Luck Woman", and was a firm holdout of selling traditional singles, one reason for his massive album sales. As the music landscape later transformed, he became one of the final stars to resist the streaming revolution; most of his music remains unavailable for free on most platforms.
13
14Going into the 21st century, in the wake of his divorce from his first wife, he entered into semi-retirement in order to spend time with his daughters, intending to return to music full time in 2014 when his youngest turned 18. In 2005, he married fellow country singer Music/TrishaYearwood, who had been his opening act on his tours for years and done multiple duets with him (most notably "In Another's Eyes") and whom he first began dating in 2000. During this semi-retirement, he occasionally performed at special occasions and benefit concerts. From 2009 to 2014, he had a Las Vegas residency titled ''Garth at Wynn'', where he would periodically perform a couple of shows every few months at the Encore Theatre. In 2012, Brooks was named to the Country Music Hall of Fame, an honor was almost inevitable given his accomplishments.
15
16Brooks came out of retirement again in late 2013 for a concert in Las Vegas. The concert was included as part of a box set that also comprised four discs' worth of cover songs. He then announced a full comeback in 2014, with a studio album for Creator/RCARecords, ''Man Against Machine'', and a full tour which lasted over three years and featured Yearwood in every show. The album was released in November 2014 and was certified Platinum in less than two months. In September 2016, he got his own channel on Sirius XM radio, which he kicked off with his first-ever concert at Nashville's historic Ryman Auditorium. Later that year came his next original album, ''Gunslinger'', from which "Ask Me How I Know" became his 20th #1 single on the country charts. His latest album, ''Fun'', came out in November 2020; three singles had already been released from it as early as 2018, including a duet with Music/BlakeShelton.
17
18Despite being the face of a genre of music traditionally associated with conservative values, Brooks is also known for having been an advocate for gay rights for nearly his entire career, due to his half-sister/bandmate Betsy Smittle being a lesbian. Brooks was vocal about this stance far before most artists of his stature in the country sphere were, and at a time where such advocacy likely could have incurred a boycott[[note]]he got away with it due to being, well, ''Garth Brooks''[[/note]]. He insisted on having his first single on ''The Chase'' be "We Shall Be Free", a song calling for greater tolerance in the United States, and played hardball with Creator/{{NBC}} and the UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeague by threatening to pull out of playing the national anthem 15 minutes before the UsefulNotes/SuperBowl unless they agreed to air its music video, an act that won him a GLAAD award in 1993. Despite this, enough radio stations refused to play the song that it became the first of his singles to not make the Billboard Country Top 10. This barely made a dent in his popularity, and it's a common joke/observed truth in America that few artists could reach across the political aisle like Brooks. In 2021, he performed "Amazing Grace" at UsefulNotes/JoeBiden's inauguration.
19
20!Albums
21* ''Music/{{Garth Brooks|Album}}'' (1989)
22* ''Music/NoFences'' (1990)
23* ''Ropin' the Wind'' (1991)
24* ''The Chase'' (1992)
25* ''Beyond the Season'' (1992)
26* ''In Pieces'' (1993)
27* ''The Hits'' (1994)
28* ''Fresh Horses'' (1995)
29* ''Sevens'' (1997)
30* ''The Limited Series'' (1998)[[note]]a box set of his first six studio albums, each of which had a new track added[[/note]]
31* ''Double Live'' (1998)
32* ''Music/InTheLifeOfChrisGaines'' (1999, as Chris Gaines)
33* ''Garth Brooks and the Magic of Christmas'' (1999)[[note]]reissued in 2001 as ''Call Me Claus''[[/note]]
34* ''Scarecrow'' (2001)
35* ''The Lost Sessions'' (2005)[[note]]mostly composed of outtakes[[/note]]
36* ''The Ultimate Hits'' (2007)
37* ''Blame It All on My Roots: Five Decades of Influences'' (2013)
38* ''Man Against Machine'' (2014)
39* ''Christmas Together'' (2016, with Music/TrishaYearwood)
40* ''Gunslinger'' (2016)
41* ''Triple Live'' (2018)[[note]]initially released as download-only; physically released in 2019 as part of ''The Legacy Collection'' box set[[/note]]
42* ''The Legacy Collection'' (2019)[[note]]a box set, consisting of vinyl and CD versions of ''No Fences'', ''The Chase'', ''In Pieces'', ''Fresh Horses'', and ''Triple Live'', with each CD including a bonus track that had previously been available only in a collector's edition[[/note]]
43* ''Fun'' (2020)
44----
45!!"I've got tropes in low places"...
46
47* AdvertisedExtra: Garth was one on Music/TrishaYearwood's "Like We Never Had a Broken Heart" (which he co-wrote), and had one with Music/SteveWariner on "Longneck Bottle". Both he and Wariner sang background vocals on their respective songs (though Wariner also contributed with guitar.)
48* AmazingFreakingGrace: Sang it at UsefulNotes/JoeBiden's inauguration, in January 2021.
49* TheAntiNihilist: "The Change" is all about this.
50-->''This heart still believes\
51That love and mercy still exist\
52While all the hatreds rage, and so many say\
53That love is all but pointless\
54In madness such as this\
55It's like trying to stop a fire\
56With the moisture from a kiss''
57* ArcNumber: ''Sevens'' had a ton of sevens [[EasterEgg hidden in the album art]] (including "VII" fashioned from the text of the album title), and 777,777 special "first editions" were issued.
58** 18 is another one, if "8teen" from ''Gunslinger'' is any indication.
59* TheArtifact: Despite being slicker ballads that are out of step with his established style, "The Dance" and "If Tomorrow Never Comes" have remained in his setlist due to their enduring popularity.
60* AudienceParticipationSong: A big part of his success, and something he will do at every opportunity. Very present on ''Double Live''; the crowd sings along on nearly everything. Most notably on the version of "Friends in Low Places"; coming out of the second chorus, he vamps on the A chord while the audience cheers, then yells, "[[BigWhat WHAT?!?]]" before lampshading the presence of the song's "third verse" (which he's only ever done in concerts, and which at that point had no official recording). He then lampshades ''this'' trope by saying "I think the friends in low places should sing the third verse", which they do.
61** An even more present example on "Double Live" is the song "Unanswered Prayers". Brooks sings six words of the first verse, then turns the entire rest of the song over to the audience, who are singing it loudly enough to be picked up on the microphones recording the album. After those first words, Brooks' only addition to the song is at the end, when he laughingly says, "Very cool!"
62* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: The subject of "The Beaches of Cheyenne" got this after having an argument with her rodeo riding boyfriend.
63--> ''They never found her body, just her diary by their bed''
64--> ''Told about the fight they'd had, and the words that she had said''
65--> ''When he told her he was riding, she said 'Then I don't give a damn''
66--> ''If you never come back from Cheyenne'.''
67* BitterWeddingSpeech: "Friends in Low Places". Better: Singer wasn't invited. Ultimately subverted, because he's happy she dumped him.
68* BolivianArmyEnding: A rare musical version of this in "Ireland."
69--> ''"And there are no words to be spoken, just a look to say goodbye''
70--> ''"I draw a breath and night is broken, as I scream our battle cry"''
71* BrotherSisterTeam: Garth's older half-sister Betsy Smittle played bass and sang backing vocals in his live band for years before dying of cancer in 2013. She was recognizable due to her thick blonde hair and tasselled, brightly-colored stage shirts.
72* ByNoIMeanYes: "Not Counting You":
73-->Not counting you, I've never had a heartache\
74Not counting you, I never have been blue\
75There's no exceptions to the rule, I've never been nobody's fool\
76I've never lost in love, not counting you
77* CallingTheOldManOut: "[[TropeNamer The Night I Called the Old Man Out]]."
78* CassandraTruth: In "Cowboy Bill" - although the children all believe his stories (and are proven correct in the end), the adults of the town do not.
79* ChristmasSongs: ''Beyond the Season'' (1992), ''Garth Brooks and the Magic of Christmas'' (1999), and ''Christmas Together'' (2016). He also included another Christmas song, "Belleau Wood", on ''Sevens''.
80* ChronologicalAlbumTitle: ''Sevens''. The album cover also has several sevens as an EasterEgg of sorts, including "VII" fashioned from the name of the album.
81* TheCityVsTheCountry: "Alabama Clay" is about a young farming man who moves away to the city because he's bored of the farm... only to move back to the farm because he hates the city life and his lover has had a baby.
82* ClingyJealousGirl: The video for "The Thunder Rolls" features the cheating husband's mistress pleading with him to stay and leave his wife for her. The husband callously refuses, and after he leaves the mistress calls the wife and tells her about her husband's affair out of spite.
83* CoverAlbum: Garth packs four of them into the ''Blame It All On My Roots'' box set, each tuned to a genre that influenced his style: Country Classics, Classic Rock, Blue-Eyed Soul, and The Melting Pot.
84* TheCoverChangesTheGender:
85** Garth wrote "What He's Doing Now" for Crystal Gayle in 1990. He then recorded it himself as "What She's Doing Now" a few years later.
86** ''Triple Live'' features a cover of Ashley [=McBryde's=] "Girl Goin' Nowhere", gender-flipped into "Guy Goin' Nowhere".
87* TheCoverChangesTheMeaning:
88** "Friends in Low Places." A fellow country singer and newcomer named Music/MarkChesnutt was the first to record this Dewayne Blackwell-Earl Bud Lee-penned song, and was intended to be about a man who wallows in despair on the night of his ex-girlfriend's wedding. Chesnutt's version – which actually hit the market a month ''after'' Brooks' ''No Fences'' album was released – is faithful to the original intent. Brooks (who actually recorded the demo in 1989) decided to make it a raucous kiss-off song where the guy goes out and parties and tells his ex, in essence, "screw you!" To say Brooks succeeded would be an understatement.
89** Music/{{Aerosmith}}'s "The Fever", upon getting the Garth treatment, was changed from its original topic to a portrayal of a rodeo rider and the thrills he gets from his profession.
90* CoverVersion:
91** His version of Music/{{KISS}}' "Hard Luck Woman" on the ''Kiss My Ass'' album was performed with the band members themselves.
92** "Shameless" was originally written as a Music/JimiHendrix pastiche by Music/BillyJoel, on Joel's 1989 ''Storm Front'' album.
93** "Callin' Baton Rouge" was originally done by Music/TheOakRidgeBoys, and was covered first by the New Grass Revival, who played with Garth on his version (and his version of their song "Do What You Gotta Do" as well).
94** He teamed up with Trisha to cover "Shallow" from the 2018 version of ''[[Film/AStarIsBorn2018 A Star is Born]]''.
95** The ''Blame It All on My Roots'' box set has four full albums of cover songs from the genres that influenced him.
96* DeathByWomanScorned: The third and final verse of "The Thunder Rolls" has the wife getting a gun from her dresser drawer preparatory for killing him for cheating on her.
97* DisproportionateRetribution: In the song "Papa Loved Mama", when long-haul trucker Papa finds out that Mama's not only cheating on him, but has been for a while, his response is to kill her and her lover by driving through the motel room they are in with his semi truck.
98-->''Oh, the picture in the paper showed the scene real well\
99Poppa's rig was buried in the local motel\
100The desk clerk said he saw it all real clear\
101He never hit the brakes, and he was shifting gears
102* DistinctDoubleAlbum: ''Blame It All on My Roots: Five Decades of Influences'' is a four-album box set of cover songs, each sorted by genre: country, rock, soul, and "the melting pot" (covers that don't fit the other three discs' themes).
103* DomesticAbuse: The secondary theme for the video for "The Thunder Rolls" (with the song's primary theme being the cheating husband).
104* DoNotDoThisCoolThing:[[invoked]] Borderline example with "Rodeo". The verses are about how being a rodeo cowboy will ruin your relationship with your wife, and your health, and your life in general... and then the chorus is a rocking anthem to how awesome it is to be out there participating in the rodeo!
105* DoNotGoGentle: "Ireland": "They will storm us in the morning / When the sunlight turns to sky / Death is waiting for its dance now / Fate has sentenced us to die" ... "And as I look up all around me / I see the ragged, tired, and torn / I tell them to make ready / 'Cause we're not waiting for the morn"
106* DrowningMySorrows: Both "Friends in Low Places" and "Two Piña Coladas".
107* DualMeaningChorus:
108** "The Thunder Rolls", again. From the literal thunder of the storm, to the emotional thunder of a woman scorned, to the thunderlike sound of a gunshot.
109** "What She's Doing Now"...first he wonders What She's Doing Now...then he wonders if ''she'' knows What She's Doing Now to ''him'' (or, more specifically, her memory).
110** "Wolves". The first verse refers to actual wolves who have killed some of the narrator's cattle, while the other two verses refer to the metaphor "[[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/keep_the_wolf_from_the_door keep the wolf from the door]]" as the narrator has noticed that his neighbors are struggling with poverty and debt, and he doesn't want to be "the one the wolves pulled down" just like they were.
111* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: His first album was less focused and ("The Dance" notwithstanding) generally less rock- and pop-influenced. "Not Counting You" in particular sounds like it could've been cut by nearly anyone (although it's also the only time besides the album cut "Mr. Right" from ''The Chase'' that Garth wrote anything entirely by himself).
112* FeelingTheirAge: "Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old)" is all about this trope - a cowboy starting to feel older and noting that his competition's getting younger.
113* FunWithAcronyms: "American Honky-Tonk Bar Association":
114-->Do not delay, contact today\
115Your A. H. B. A., your A. H. B. A.
116* GenreRoulette: ''In the Life of Chris Gaines''. Justified as it's supposed to be a greatest hits album for the fictional musician, and one of the songs doesn't even have Garth Brooks performing on it.
117* GhostStory: "The Beaches of Cheyenne", although according to Garth it wasn't originally intended to be one. In fact, he claims it was supposed to be about a businessman dreaming of being a rodeo rider, but a bit of PronounTrouble changed its direction completely.
118* GroundedForever: The female protagonist in "Ain't Goin' Down ('Til the Sun Comes Up)" shirks her curfew until the morning, and has been rumored to have been "grounded 'til she's dead". However, she escapes by the end of the verse.
119* HardTruckin: The song "Papa Loved Mama" showcased the side of the trucker's life that strains the familial life. Told from the perspective of a trucker's son, his trucker father discovered his wife having an affair with another man, leading him to [[ADeadlyAffair ram his trucker into the hotel the wife was sleeping in, killing her and sending the father to prison.]]
120* IdiosyncraticAlbumTheming: Garth supposedly puts his favorite song on each album as the last track. This is why, when his first six albums were reissued for ''The Limited Series'' in 1998, the bonus tracks were put in the middle instead of the end.
121* UsefulNotes/TheIrishDiaspora: The subject of "Ireland." The American Civil War is one possible setting, but other wars involving Irish soldiers (e.g. the "Wild Geese" who served in continental Europe, or the Latin American wars of independence) can't be ruled out.
122* TheLadette: The subject of "That Girl Is a Cowboy" is about a woman who outperforms the narrator at various cowboy tasks and leads him to declare that "sometimes the best cowboys ain't cow''boys'' at all."
123* LampshadedDoubleEntendre: From "Two of a Kind, Workin' on a Full House": "We really fit together if you know what I'm talking about".
124* LoudnessWar: Inverted with ''Man Against Machine'', as many fans feel that Mark Miller actually managed to ''under''produce some songs, causing many of them (particularly "Ask Me How I Know") to sound like unfinished demos instead of full fledged radio songs.
125* LyricalColdOpen: "It's Midnight Cinderella", "Longneck Bottle", "Rodeo or Mexico", "Dive Bar"
126* MamaBear: The video for "The Thunder Rolls" features the cheating husband beating up his wife, only for their daughter to come down and see what's happening. The husband sees her and turns to attack her too, only for the wife to pull a gun out of a drawer and shoot him dead on the spot. Her shot also breaks a window, and the video ends with a police car pulling up as a dismayed Brooks looks on.
127* ManVersusMachine: "Man Against Machine", of course.
128* MayDecemberRomance: "That Summer". The pairing is [[InvertedTrope inverted]] in Man Against Machine's ''She's Tired Of Boys," which matches a younger woman with a mature man.
129* MinisculeRocking: "Longneck Bottle" is all of 2:17.
130* MotorMouth: The rapid-fire verses of "Ain't Goin' Down ('Til the Sun Comes Up)". And he actually sings it ''faster'' in concert.
131* NakedApron: The female protagonist in "Somewhere Other Than the Night": "She was standing in the kitchen with nothing but her apron on."
132* NeverBareheaded: He always wears a black cowboy hat. (Well, sometimes he changes it up and wears a white cowboy hat.) He is, after all, the codifier for the country music "hat act" (where Music/GeorgeStrait is the UrExample).
133* OldFlame: "That Ol' Wind" is about two people who still carry feelings for each other after their separation, but choose to reunite at a concert. The final verse reveals that each has a secret they're hiding from the other, but in the moment, rekindling their old flame is more important.
134* OldFlameFizzle:
135** "Every Time That It Rains" has the narrator recalling a former lover that he met at a diner during a rainstorm. He goes back to the diner to try and relive the memories, but finds that their former chemistry is no longer present.
136** "Unanswered Prayers". Here the singer thanks God for not answering his prayer to give him his Old Flame, which would've prevented him from having his current wife.
137* PartingWordsRegret: The DramaticIrony of "The Beaches of Cheyenne" is this; when her boyfriend told the female protagonist he intended to ride, she told him "Then I don't give a damn/If you never come back from Cheyenne." Which he doesn't, because he is killed by the bull.
138* PersonalEffectsReveal: "Cowboy Bill" gets a pretty good one.
139-->''He was clutchin' a badge that said "Texas Ranger"\
140And an old [[FunetikAksent yaller]] letter sayin' "Texas is proud"''
141** "The Beaches of Cheyenne" has both his ("They packed up all his buckles / Shipped his saddle to his dad") and hers ("They never found her body / Just her diary by the bed").
142* ProtestSong: "We Shall Be Free", inspired by the 1992 Los Angeles riots, has Garth protesting against what he sees as obstacles to true freedom. Among the ones mentioned are xenophobia, racism, homophobia, poverty, and world hunger.
143* RearrangeTheSong: His cover of Aerosmith's "Fever" changes the lyrics considerably; instead of a drugged-up guy having a wild night out, it's about a rodeo rider getting "in the zone".
144* RecordProducer: Garth worked with producer Allen Reynolds on all of his "main" albums, with [[Music/WasNotWas Don Was]] producing the Chris Gaines album. After Reynolds retired, his sound engineer Mark Miller got promoted to producer. Brooks himself produced one of Ty England's albums (and he covered two of the songs on that album), and self-produced ''Fun''.
145* RereleaseTheSong: "Wild Horses", a track from his critically-acclaimed ''No Fences'' album, got released as a single in 2001, ten years after the album came out.
146* RockstarSong: "The Old Stuff" has him reminiscing about the smaller scale of his early pre-fame gigs, when he didn't have a bus and a touring crew, and "the old stuff" (his most famous songs) were new.
147* RockersSmashGuitars: Well, technically he's a ''country'' rocker, but he still did so, baseball-style, during his first two live NBC concerts.
148* SelfDeprecation: Brooks has often joked about his fluctuating weight, and once famously said that he thought he looked "like a thumb wearing a cowboy hat".
149* SerialEscalation:
150** In 1991, "The Thunder Rolls" debuted at #19, making it the second-highest debut on the country charts. Fifteen years later, he would tie the record (which was set by Eddie Rabbitt's "Every Which Way but Loose") with the #18 debut of "Good Ride Cowboy." The next two years saw Keith Urban and Kenny Chesney debut singles at #17 and #16, respectively... and ''only one week'' after Kenny's debut, Garth's "More Than a Memory" '''''debuted at #1.''''' To put this in perspective: The country music singles charts at the time were tabulated entirely by airplay, not by physical sales or downloads like the all-genre Hot 100 and certain other charts. The nearly 120 stations surveyed by ''Billboard'' each had to play "More Than a Memory" an average of 30 to 35 times ''in one week.'' What's more, Garth was on an independent label at the time.
151** Another perspective maker: Garth's album ''Ropin' the Wind'' was the first country album to debut at #1 on the ''Billboard 200'' albums chart. This is the chart for ''all'' albums, not just country. Perspective? It first held the position between Music/{{Metallica}}'s Black album and ''[[Music/UseYourIllusion Use Your Illusion II]]'' by Music/GunsNRoses. Then it went back to #1 after two weeks of ''Illusion'', and then was knocked off the spot by Music/{{U2}}'s ''Music/AchtungBaby'' and Music/MichaelJackson's ''Music/{{Dangerous|Album}}''. Then in January 1992, it knocked off Music/{{Nirvana}}'s ''Music/{{Nevermind|Album}}'' off the top spot, only a week after Nirvana had done the same to ''Dangerous'', stayed there for two more weeks before ''Nevermind'' returned to #1 on 1 February, then returned with a vengeance on 8 February and stayed at #1 until ''4 April'', when it was pushed off by the ''Film/WaynesWorld'' soundtrack. Basically, ''Ropin' the Wind'' was #1 '''four separate times'''. And guess what happened whenever Metallica, Guns N' Roses, U2, Michael Jackson and Nirvana took the #1 position instead? Why, ''Ropin' the Wind'' stayed constantly on #2, of course, except for the weeks of 5 and 12 October 1991 where it was #3 after ''Use Your Illusion I'' landed at #2 instead. Even better, his previous album, ''No Fences'' (aka the one with "Friends in Low Places") was on the charts at the same time, and could only peak at #3 thanks in large part to ''Ropin' the Wind''.
152* ShoutOut:
153** He name-drops singer/rodeo star Chris [=LeDoux=] in "Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old)". Although Chris was fairly obscure, he and Garth became closely associated, especially after Chris' death in 2005, which led to Garth's tribute song "Good Ride Cowboy".
154** He also name-drops Music/GeorgeStrait in "Ain't Goin' Down ('Till the Sun Comes Up)"
155* StepUpToTheMicrophone: Ever since their marriage in 2005, Music/TrishaYearwood will usually do a set in the middle of his concerts, usually consisting of her #1 hit "She's In Love With The Boy", her SignatureSong "How Do I Live", and Garth's personal favorite of her songs, "Walkaway Joe", as well as a duet or two with him. This is highly unsurprising given that Garth will tell anyone who stands still long enough that she is a ''far'' better singer than he is. And also he really just likes watching his wife do her thing.
156* SuicideBySea: "The Beaches of Cheyenne" tells of a woman who upon learning her husband had died in a rodeo ran out into the ocean and drowned herself.
157* TechnicianVersusPerformer: He is the Performer to his wife Trisha's Technician -- he has a decent voice, or he'd never have made it on country radio, but the true reason for his success is his ability as a songwriter and, more importantly, his sheer stage presence and charisma. Trisha, conversely, is more reserved -- she does well up onstage, but openly admits that she has nothing on Garth in that area -- but has what is often cited as one of the greatest voices in the history of country music.
158* TelephoneSong: "Callin' Baton Rouge" is about a truck driver attempting to call up a woman he'd had a relationship with in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
159* TenMinuteRetirement: Wasn't he supposed to retire after ''Scarecrow''? Yeah, but Chris [=LeDoux=] died, so let's put out "Good Ride Cowboy" in his honor and tack it onto a collection of previously-unrecorded scraps from earlier on. What's that? Another Greatest Hits package? Fine, send out "More Than a Memory" and have it debut at #1.
160* TerrorAtMakeOutPoint: "The Night Will Only Know" has two married people (as in married to other people) witnessing a murder during their night of passion in the backseat. The murderer [[KarmaHoudini gets off scot-free]] because the lovers can't reveal what they know about the murder without also revealing their affair, resulting in the victim's death being ruled a suicide.
161* ThirteenIsUnlucky: Garth has admitted to being a triskaidekaphobic. ''Double Live'' has 13 songs on the first disc; to keep the last one from being number 13, the official track listing skips from 12 to 14, and "track 13" is just three seconds of applause between songs. ''Fun'' similarly skips track 13 by way of a blank track.
162* ThisIsASong: Occurs twice in "Ask Me How I Know", which has the lyrics "Go on and shake your head and tell me that I'm wrong / Say, 'I'm just another fool and this is just another song'" and later on, "And you best put this song on repeat / Maybe then you won't end up like me".
163* UnderdressedForTheOccasion: The very first line of "Friends in Low Places."
164-->''Blame it all on my roots\
165I showed up in boots\
166And ruined your black tie affair''
167* UnpluggedVersion: Brooks' ''Double Live'' version of "Unanswered Prayers" is just him, his guitar, and 50,000 of his closest friends.
168* WentCrazyWhenTheyLeft: "The Beaches of Cheyenne"
169* WordSaladLyrics: A mild example. "The Beaches of Cheyenne" is a hauntingly tragic song until you finish listening to it and realize that Cheyenne, Wyoming is landlocked, and there are no beaches there. And the song is about a woman committing SuicideBySea in California. There doesn't seem to be a clear answer for this by Brooks or his songwriters, except that it scanned well and sounded intriguing.
170----

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