It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful.
It has the beauty of loneliness and of pain: of strength and
freedom.
The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love.
The cruel beauty of nature and the everlasting beauty of
monotony.
-- Benjamin Britten
Underneath the bright lights of the stage, the plump man with thinning hair emerges in a style that, minus the cowboy hat, is not typical of a country performer. He runs to the front of the stage, where he then jumps onto a rope and swings out above the crowd. As the show goes on several guitars are smashed, and a bottle of water is dumped over the performer's head. The production is so electrifying that the crowd is on their feet and screaming for more. The next day the New York Times raves, "the singer effectively did away with decades of country stereotypes and is helping to usher the music into a new era" (Richards and Shestack 40).
I have never been a big fan of country music, but growing up in a small southern town, one can't help but be exposed to it. Before I go on I will enlighten you about my town so that you may understand that the way I have grown up has a lot to do with the person I am now. It is a very small town that, at some times, seems as if it is another world. It lacks diversity in the ethnic sense, but certainly not in areas of personality. There are two major social groups designated by geographical location, generally referred to as up the road and down the road. Those who live down the road call their sons Bubba, wave rebel flags in the front yard and, refuse to listen to anything but country, which they turn all the way up when they drive into town in their monster trucks. Those who live up the road, on the other hand, spend their time at the PTA or the local lodge gossiping about who's kid did what and making fun of the rednecks down the road. Up the road they never listen to country music. Somewhere in between there is a meeting place where the traits of both sides mix and it really doesn't matter where you live or what you listen to. Overall I can say that people where I come from can't get enough of talking about each other. I love my town very much, but the thing I love about it, the way that it is so close knit, has also become something that I hate. As I have gotten older I have realized that it benefits me to form my own opinions rather than assuming that the opinions of others will be the same as mine.
You may wonder why I picked country music to take with me to a desert island where it will be the only thing I can listen to for the rest of eternity. To begin with, I did not choose Garth Brooks because he is my favorite artist. While pondering what music I should bring to my new abode, it occurred to me that maybe it wasn't the best idea to bring my favorite disc, because I have already begun to overplay it, and I am not yet on the island. I thought and thought and finally came to the conclusion that the disc had to contain a variety of songs. Some that make me cry, some that make me smile, and even those songs that hold my fondest memories within their lyrics. So I chose The Hits by Garth Brooks to accompany me to my new world.
Garth Brooks is today the best-selling solo music artist of all time, sweeping past Billy Joel by selling 60+ albums to date. Through his own style, he has managed to take country music to a new level. He has taken the music out of the package that society placed it in and moved it in a new direction by opening up the genre for new styles and listeners. He chanced telling the story the way he sees it, rather than the way he has been told to see it. Brooks combines passion with commonness that attracts rock and roll lovers as much as country fans. However, things weren't always so glamorous for Brooks. He did not reach stardom in an instant. He had a long road to the top, but in 1990 his fourth single "The Dance" opened the floodgates.
The song begins with the solo notes of the piano moving up and
down the scale. The first few notes send chills up my spine. This
song truly conveys to me the way relationships go. At the end of a
relationship, if I have been hurt I wish that I had never been in the
relationship at all because then I wouldn't feel so bad. I was
missing the point, and I began to see this. Now I value every memory
that I have. Even though the relationships might be over, the
memories that I gained from them are priceless because even if I was
hurt that hurt only lasted a short time, but the good times that came
before the pain will be with me forever. "I'm glad I didn't know, the
way it all would end. The way it all would go. Our lives are better
left to chance. I could've missed the pain, but I'd have had to miss
the dance." Sometimes in life there are times when we have to take
chances, especially in love. "Envisioning the junkman dressed in
satin is as absurd as falling in love. The facts don't justify the
faith; no loved one ever lives up to a lover's dream; still, no love
ever survived on facts alone. So buy the vision. Believe the lady's
sawed in half. Be willing to be made a fool. Listen to the junkman.
If only every act of faith were just as easy" (Swartley 57).
The music of Garth Brooks is much more than a commodity. It is not
some CD that you go out and buy so that it can sit on your shelf, and
every so often you can play that one song that you like. It has
significance. It is not just played to sound good, it is played to
say something. The songs tell us to be thankful for this life and to
do something with it because before we know it, it will be gone. They
tell us to follow our dreams and if we love someone tell him or her.
For me, the songs evoke memories that I didn't even remember were
there. When I listen to Garth Brooks, I don't simply hear the music.
I experience it.
"Shameless," a song that originally belonged to Billy Joel, has always been a favorite of mine. The melody of the guitar is so beautiful that it alone sometimes brings tears to my eyes. This is one of those songs that stirs something inside and leaves you feeling so fulfilled at the end that, for fear of losing that feeling, you want to hear it again and again. This song is about that feeling that you have when you are hopelessly in love. "I'll do anything you want me to, I'll do anything at all." The song moves along at a steady pace until the middle, where Brooks seems to let out all the frustration that he is feeling. Then the guitar has a solo, as if it is giving me time to do the same. There have been occasions when I have sat in my bedroom singing this song at the top of my lungs, simply because it makes me feel better. I cannot imagine being stranded on a desert island without such a song.
Brooks' music is universal. It doesn't just attract country fans. It comes into the mainstream. He has revolutionized country music by moving it in a new direction and opening up the genre for new styles and listeners. Not many artists possess enough confidence to hold a free concert in New York's Central Park. In fact, Garth Brooks is the first country performer to do so. In August of 1997 he opened up to a crowd of 150,000 to 1 million New Yorkers. It took a brave country performer to face such an audience. "People were wandering in after work, attracted by the spectacle of the crowd in cowboy hats and the prospect of visiting Central Park unmolested at night" (Vinzant 4A). As he opened with "Rodeo" the crowd sang along, most of them only catching a glimpse of the entertainer on the big screen TV's placed around the park. The big surprise came after Brooks sang "Shameless": when Billy Joel came up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. Brooks invited him to sing, and he performed "New York State of Mind." The night came to an end, as the chubby hometown boy from Oklahoma became the first country performer to take New York.
I find it hard to leave the topic of love because so many of the songs on The Hits revolve around it. However, many of the songs contain life lessons as well. Brooks said, "'The River' is a song of inspiration -- a song I will be proud of a hundred years from now" (Brooks). The music does a fade in and then builds up to the point where the singing begins. There is a steady, almost soothing beat in the background and occasionally the string of bells and the tambourine. The music itself has the ability to make you feel as if you are peacefully floating down a river, "You know a dream is like a river, ever changing as it flows, and the dreamer's just a vessel that must follow where it goes. Trying to learn from what's behind you, and never knowing what's in store makes each day a constant battle to stay between the shore." We must follow this river throughout our lives, learning from the past and never knowing what we may come upon in the future.
Garth Brooks has changed many people's opinions about country music, including mine. He gave the music meaning where before it just had words. As I said before, I was never much of a country girl. The fiddles and banjos just didn't appeal to me, but once again I was missing the point. Like all things in life we don't often try something new unless we are forced to, simply because we fear the unknown. A few years ago I had a friend that forced me to listen to country music. It was kind of right there in my face and impossible to ignore. The artist was Garth Brooks, and the song was "Unanswered Prayers." I sat there in her room and heard every word of that song and by the end I was willing to hear more. As I said before, the music had meaning. The words in the song held personal value.
Garth Brooks knew what he wanted. After his first trip to Nashville in 1985 he returned home four days later, rejected by the industry. Not ready to give up yet, he joined a local band, Santa Fe, and became their lead singer. The next year Brooks returned to Nashville and got a day job in a boot store. His first break came in 1987 when he signed a writer's contract. By the end of 1988, he had signed with Capitol Records, and his first single "Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old)" was in the top ten in the summer of 1989. Since then Brooks' music has gone on to top the pop as well country charts. "Possibly the best thing about Garth as a singer is his ability to perform such a wide range of music, from cowboy ballads to honky-tonk, to country swing and rock" (Cackett 21). He has won more than fifty major industry awards, and has been the Country Music Award's Entertainer of the Year three times. By 1991, his album sales for six releases had topped 35 million in a career of only five years, making him possibly the most successful country music entertainer of all time. Accepting his third Entertainer of the Year award, Brooks said, "It's funny how a chubby kid could just be having fun, and they call that entertaining" (Richards and Shestack 41).
I can't remember when I first began to love music, or what song it was that first initiated that love. I can say that throughout my life, it has been in times of high emotion, whether that is great sadness or great joy, that I have loved it the most. Now I am on my way to spend the remainder of my days on a desert island that is pure and untouched by society. "Every explorer names his island Formosa, beautiful. To him it is beautiful because, being first, he has access to it and can see it for what it is. But to no one else is it ever as beautiful--except the rare man who manages to recover it, who knows that it has to be recovered" (Percy 46). In many ways I can see that music is like the island. Many people enjoy music, but how many people really recover it and hear it as it was first heard? On this island I will have time to slow my life down, and to take it one day at a time. I will try to spend life on my island better than I have spent it here. As the sun sets over my island I will be listening to The Hits and I hope to be able to experience them both as they are meant to be experienced.
Cackett, Alan. The Harmony Illustrated Encyclopedia of Country Music. New York: Crown Trade Paperbacks, 1994.
Richards, Tad and Melvin B. Shestack. The New Country Music Encyclopedia. New York: Fireside, 1993.
Vinzant, Carol. "Garth Brooks Ropes in New Yorkers." Reuter
8 Aug. 1997, 4A
Percy, Walker. "The Loss of the Creature." The Message in the
Bottle. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1975: 46-63.
Swartley, Ariel. "The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle," Stranded: Rock and Roll for A Desert Island. Ed. Griel Marcus. 2nd ed. New York: DaCapo Press, 1996.
Brooks, Garth. The Hits. Liberty, 1992.