Garth Brooks is an extremely talented songwriter. Brooks is the writer behind some of his biggest hits, including “The Beaches of Cheyenne,” “Unanswered Prayers,” “Papa Loved Mama” and more. In fact, Brooks is such a prolific writer that he became a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2011.
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Still, Brooks appreciates a good song, even if he didn’t write it. We picked three of his best hits that were written by someone else.
“Friends In Low Places”
“Friends in Low Places” is arguably one of Garth Brooks’ biggest hits. The song, out in 1990 from his sophomore No Fences record, inspired an entire empire for Brooks, even becoming the name of his downtown Nashville bar.
Dewayne Blackwell and Earl Bud Lee wrote “Friends in Low Places.” At the time, Brooks had yet to release even his self-titled debut album, so the writers had no idea what the song would do for them or their career. But even then, they had an idea it was something special.
Interestingly, Brooks was working as a demo singer at the time. “Friends in Low Places” is the last song he sang as a session singer, before becoming an artist.
“I sang the session out in Hendersonville,” Brooks recalls to American Songwriter. “And for the next two weeks, the chorus to this song kept running through my head.”
“The Dance”
Right before “Friends In Low Places” came out, Brooks had another monster hit with a song he didn’t write, “The Dance.” That song was penned by Tony Arata, when he and Brooks were just getting started in country music.
Brooks heard the song at an open mic night in Nashville. At the time, neither Arata nor Brooks had much going on for them.
“We were both doing whatever we could to stay in Nashville, trying to get our songs heard by anybody,” Arata recalls. “The only folks listening, however, were other songwriters, as no one else was usually at our show.”
Brooks fell in love with the song as soon as he heard it, vowing to put it on one of his projects when he finally got a record deal.
“To a lot of people, I guess ‘The Dance’ is a love gone bad song,” says Brooks (via Wide Open Country). “Which, you know, that it is. But to me it’s always been a song about life. Or maybe the loss of those people that have given the ultimate sacrifice for a dream that they believed in, like the John F. Kennedy’s or the Martin Luther King’s. John Wayne’s or the Keith Whitley’s. And if they could come back, I think they would say to us what the lyrics of ‘The Dance’ say.”
“Longneck Bottle”
Garth Brooks’ good friend Steve Wariner penned “Longneck Bottle” with Rick Carnes, which is included on Brooks’ seventh studio album, appropriately called Sevens.
Wariner’s publisher sent the song to Brooks, who personally called Wariner when he heard it.
“He called me and says, ‘Dude, I love this song. We’re gonna cut it. Can you play on it?’ Wariner recalls to Songwriter Universe. “I go, ‘Of course, I’ll play on it.’ We went in the studio, and I was on cloud nine, of course. I remember cutting this; I was playing acoustic guitar, and they wanted me to play the solo. They said, ‘You play the first solo, and then steel guitar behind you.’ We cut it, and it was just rocking. Garth was dancing all over the booth in there.”
The song begins with, “Longneck bottle / Let go of my hand / Hey jukebox don’t start playin’ that song again / ‘Cause there’s a girl at home who loves me / You know she won’t understand / Longneck bottle / Let go of my hand.”
Brooks released “Longneck Bottle” in 1997, but 28 years later, fans still go crazy when he begins the song.
Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for Stagecoach
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