Rediscovering Garth Brooks: Recollecting and Reusing the Past on In Pieces
More than cowboys or honky tonks, more than good ol’ boys or cheatin’ spouses, Garth’s major subject, both as a singer and as a songwriter, is the accumulation of wisdom through experience. Previously, songs like “Unanswered Prayers” and “Everytime That It Rains” have located points in his life by which he can measure his own maturity and gauge his own contentment or regret. Even at its corniest, his music suggests a quality of real, lived experience that gives him a very specific and unique perspective from which to view the world, and that sense of a lively and pensive personality is likely one of the reasons for his widespread and long-lasting appeal.
That nostalgia fuels the opening track on Garth’s fifth album, In Pieces, which lays out the risks and rewards of life in the broadest terms possible. “Life is not tried, it is merely survived,” he sings on “Standing Outside the Fire.” Garth is in full-on rock mode here, and yet his performance sounds impressively invested. If the song borders on hokum, he doesn’t care. Instead, he throws himself into the song wholeheartedly, selling the lyrics as pop philosophy of the deepest order. He never sounds like he’s holding back, which can have its disadvantages: He shoots for lowdown and wild on the bluesy “Kickin’ and Screamin’,” but his performance just sounds strangely embarrassing–the rare moment when he’s in over his head. Still, In Pieces lacks major-statement songs like “We Shall Be Free;” it’s certainly more life-size than his last few albums. The album sounds like it was made by a man, rather than a committee hired by a celebrity, and that quality makes some of the flaws here come across not so much as bad decisions, but as tics of personality.
That said, I’m starting to question the lessons Garth imparts. Heavy drinking is apparently a reasonable response to the nation’s ills on “American Honky-Tonk Bar Association,” which doesn’t jibe with the rallying cry of “We Shall Be Free.” In fact, the song sounds like a calculated effort to recapture the good-times vibe of “Friends in Low Place.” It worked; the song was a number-one country hit. Even more head-scratching, though, is “The Night I Called the Old Man Out,” which endorses violence as a legitimate parenting technique:
The blood came from my mouth and nose
But the tears came from his eyes
And in memory of that fateful night
I know the greatest pain was his
And I just pray someday I’m half the man he is
The song may or may not be based on any of its writers’ lives (Garth gets a co-write with Pat Alger and Kim Williams), but here’s hoping they’re all twice the man and don’t beat their kids.
For all its faults, “The Night I Called the Old Man Out” is quintessential Garth in the way it ponders the past as prelude to the present, delving for lessons and guidance. Nostalgia fuels the ruminations of and “The Night Will Only Know” and “One Night a Day,” which perhaps owes even more to Billy Joel than “Shameless” did but which has a wonderful sax solo courtesy of the aptly named Jim Horn. But the culmination of this trend is “The Cowboy Song,” another in a long line of well-chosen album closers. Full of achingly specific details that give the song more verisimilitude than most country hits, it measures the hard reality of range life against the glamour of the movies and the sepia tone romance of memory. Garth inhabits the narrator’s dusty boots and threadbare hat casually and sympathetically, given human dimension to what could have been just another pokey lament. For that reason, it may be the best song–and the best album ender–since “The Dance” on his debut.
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August 4, 2010
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August 3, 2010 at 8:03 am
The song may or may not be based on any of its writers’ lives (Garth gets a co-write with Pat Alger and Kim Williams), but here’s hoping they’re all twice the man and don’t beat their kids.
This probably comes off as more flippant than you meant it to, but if the song is based from personal experience, I’m more likely to assume the past rather than the present, something that might have happened between one or more of them as teen boys instead of the likelihood that any of them are abusive parents.
Our take on Garth’s music is vastly different, including this review, but it’s an interesting read as all of this series has been so far.
August 3, 2010 at 8:20 am
Hey, Leeann–
My intention was never to suggest that any of them are actually abusive parents. I would never assume such an awful thing. I was just trying to say that that’s such a strange and misguided lesson to convey in a song. For me, a better message would be about avoiding violence altogether.
August 3, 2010 at 8:39 am
I think the message is a little more nuanced than promoting a message of violence, but that may just be my take on it.
August 3, 2010 at 9:55 am
Another great review of a Garth Brooks CD. I did notice there was no mention of the first single release Ain’t Going Down ‘Til The Sun Comes Up.
Also, no mention of the very jazzy One Night A Day.
August 3, 2010 at 11:03 am
One Night a Day was mentioned… I’m more struck by the omission of “The Red Strokes” and “Callin’ Baton Rouge.” I can’t be objective on Garth’s albums, they’re literally the soundtrack of my teen years. I will mention that Garth’s best music videos came out of this album.
August 3, 2010 at 12:11 pm
In Pieces was one of the first Country albums that I ever listened to and is directly responsible for bringing me to the genre in the early/mid-90s. Of that album, The Night I Called The Old Man Out is by far my favourite song, and might be my favourite Garth song of all time. I suppose I’ve lived it, to some degree, but things were different back then.
Some would suggest that a little more discipline might solve a lot of the worlds ills, a lot of which come from children growing up with zero personal discipline.
August 3, 2010 at 1:13 pm
But hitting your kid, particularly punching him out, isn’t what I’d call discipline.
August 3, 2010 at 1:49 pm
I don’t comment much anymore,this blog has kind of run its course for me.
But I’ll comment on the concept of Calling the Old Man Out . I’m really not too familiar with the song,I had pretty much given up on Garth at that point, But the title suggests the boy called the old man out.Having raised a teenage boy as a stepparent,a boy that ended up on meth,I can assure you that until you have been in that position,you shouldn’t pass judgment on what is good parenting and what isn’t.
August 3, 2010 at 2:06 pm
The Night I Called the Old Man Out came from a story Garth told Pat Alger about his father teaching him and his 4 brothers to box. His late father was a Marine middleweight champion; he was trying teach them the self discipline that boxing requires, but would get upset when he landed a punch on one of the boys, hence the line about the blood from my mouth and nose and the tears from his eyes. As with most songwrting th esong eveloved from there into a ‘young buck/old buck’ theme. Having older brothers and a Ranger father I related to this song immediately.
One Night a Day and the Cowboy Song are my favourites from this one.
August 3, 2010 at 2:06 pm
Yeah, perhaps the father should have refused to engage in the rumble, but the son is the one who insisted on the fight. He even says that his dad would have let him “walk away”, but he “would not let it go.”
August 3, 2010 at 2:09 pm
It seems that, sometimes, a song originates in one place and develops into something different as it’s actually written.
August 3, 2010 at 4:12 pm
I think the real message behind the song, to me, is that his dad was a man because he would do something he didn’t want to do, because it had to be done, and that’s what a man does. We could obviously go ’round and ’round about how to punish kids, but that would remove us far from the point of the piece, so ill just leave it at that. :)
I can’t honestly be objective about any of Garths music. As I’ve said before, for whatever reason, he really really really resonates with me. “One Night A Day” is probably one of my favorite ballads ever, but I’m a sucker for anything Gary Burr writes too, soo….
This isn’t my favorite album of his, that spot being held by his debut, then “Ropin The Wind”, but it holds a special place in my heart, in that it was the first cd anyone in my family ever had. My sister got it for Christmas along with a cd player. Funny how I when I listen to the album, I enjoy it much more around Christmas time.
August 3, 2010 at 4:18 pm
For me, just the fact that the song brings about a discussion makes “The Night I Called the Old Man Out” a success. It’s engaging.
Nowadays, there seems to be a shortage of songs that have an opinion about anything controversial-and even rarer, a unpopular opinion about anything controversial.
But then, I did get a bit thrown off by Luke Bryan’s “Drinking Beer and Wasting Bullets,” and by Joe Nichols “Let’s Get Drunk and Fight.” Spousal abuse in sing-along form? Sign me up…
August 3, 2010 at 5:30 pm
Never commented here before, but I just have to put in my two cents.
@LEEANN
Yeah, perhaps the father should have refused to engage in the rumble, but the son is the one who insisted on the fight. He even says that his dad would have let him “walk away”, but he “would not let it go.”
Based on your comments, it seems that you are viewing this from an adult’s point. But to really understand the song, imagine you are fifteen again. You’re fifteen, in high school, and you honestly think that you know everything that there is to know. You’re invincible, you really think nothing can take you down.
From watching his older brothers fight his father and lose. He thinks he can take him. What the father did was put the son in his place. The lesson was to not be cocky and arrogant. And to never underestimate your opponent.
Now, yes maybe it was little misguided. But this was during a time when kids had respect. And didn’t call Child Services because they didn’t get an iPod for Christmas.
August 3, 2010 at 7:45 pm
Love “One Night a Day” but the rest of the album didn’t do much for me. I still play Garth’s first 3 cds but hardly ever play those that followed.
Re the “Called the Old Man Out” song, my wife and I never hit either of our children, probably a good thing for an unanticipated reason – my son (now 28) is 5 inches taller and 50 lbs heavier than I am.
I agree with Idlewildsouth about Gary Burr’s music. His “Stop Me …” cd is awesome and I get to see him again this Friday night.
August 4, 2010 at 5:14 pm
@Mike Parker — Aaron Lines had a fairly solid run with “Let’s Get Drunk And Fight” up north here, and the song definitely did cause some backlash. I remember a couple calls, specifically, coming into the radio station livid about “glorifying” spousal abuse.
Love love LOVE controversy. We need more of it in music, IMO. Everything is so stale these days.
August 6, 2010 at 9:34 am
“The Cowboy Song” unfortunately was not on the original album in 1993, it was added as a bonus track on the WalMart reissues, typical of all of the reissue albums.
This is quite a bit better of an album than the Chase but as Jimmy Bowen says in his autobio, by ’93 or ’94, most people had had enough of Garth and that maintaining 10+ million album sales everytime was impossible.
August 6, 2010 at 10:30 am
I agree with Lucas. Garth Brooks’ next CD was Fresh Horses and is certified at five times platinum. It debuted at #2 on the top 200 chart behind the first Beatles Anthology (the first Brooks CD not to debut at #1 since No Fences).
August 8, 2010 at 7:26 pm
Overall a decent album for me. But since the main debate here is about “The Night I Called The Old Man Out”, my two cents on the matter is that the respect of a father who was forced at hand to deal with a son’s rebellion leads that young guy in a philosophical stance of wondering if he’ll perhaps be in the same role at some point in the future, which garners respect in how the father tows the line. This is a very common perception back then which I believe Garth is channeling from.
August 12, 2010 at 11:12 am
Lucas- The Cowboy Song was on the original release. I’m not sure what the Walmart-added track was for this one. Maybe “Anonymous?”