Before it became Garth Brooks‘ signature anthem—and a staple at country bars for decades—”Friends in Low Places” was scribbled on a bar napkin by two songwriters skipping church and sipping champagne.
And today, thanks to songwriters Earl Bud Lee and Dewayne Blackwell’s preference for alcohol over the Almighty, “Friends in Low Places” is 35 years old.
“For me – forgive me – a honky‑tonk’s a church,” Brooks said in the Prime Video docuseries Friends In Low Places. “Because we all need a shoulder to lean on sometimes, and sometimes the shoulder we need to lean on is a perfect stranger’s.”
Brooks released “Friends In Low Places” on August 6, 1990, as the lead single from No Fences. The song not only spent four weeks in the top spot on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, but it also won both the Academy of Country Music and Country Music Association awards for 1990 Single of the Year and took up residence in pop culture for decades.
“I’m not the best golfer in the world, but I can write a song,” Lee told American Songwriter.
Videos by American Songwriter
He Can’t Golf, but Earl Bud Lee Can Write
Lee said “Friends in Low Places” was born when he and Blackwell went drinking on a Sunday.
“After a couple of bottles of champagne, the song just fell out on the bar,” Lee said. “So, it was really a gift.”
Lee previously said the idea for the title came from a statement he made after discovering he forgot to bring money. When someone asked how he would pay the tab, the songwriter said not to worry – that he had friends in low places. The friend he was referring to was the cook at the bar.
Brooks said Lee and Blackwell wrote lyrics on a bar napkin, sliding it back and forth across the bar.
The songwriters asked Brooks to sing the demo in 1989, which he did. Brooks said in the liner notes on The Hits that “Friends In Low Places” was the last demo session he did as a singer.
“I sang the session out in Hendersonville, and for the next two weeks, the chorus to this song kept running through my head,” he said. “I knew it would be a year and a half before the release of No Fences because Garth Brooks was just getting ready to be released. (Brooks) asked Bud Lee and Dewayne if I could hold on to it, and without a blink of an eye, they both said yes. Putting that kind of faith into an unknown artist is unheard of.”
“Friends in Low Places” was Garth Brooks’ Last Demo
Later, Brooks added the much-beloved third verse to the song, which he performs live. In it, he tells “Sweet little lady, I’ll head back to the bar / And you can kiss my ass.”
But the Oklahoman wasn’t the only person to record “Friends In Low Places.” Mark Chesnutt also recorded “Friends In Low Places” but never released it as a single.
Lee told American Songwriter that he didn’t know “Friends in Low Places” was special until about 50 million Americans had already endorsed it.
Lee’s impressive songwriting catalog also includes Blake Shelton’s “Who Are You When I’m Not Looking” and George Strait’s “One Night At A Time.”
“I learned to read, write, and arithmetic in the first grade,” he said. “It just stunk. I write to a certain standard, and you never know the subject. My next song is my favorite song.”
Hairy-Legged Hillbilly
Lee told American Songwriter that he’s “just a hairy-legged hillbilly made good.”
Brooks might say the same thing about himself. More than three decades after the release of his self-titled debut album, the singer is still one of the most recognizable names in pop culture – thanks in part to “Friends in Low Places.” Brooks and his wife, Trisha Yearwood, named their Lower Broadway Nashville bar after the song. Brooks just appeared in the Billy Joel documentary, “Billy Joel: And So it Goes.” And Brooks and Yearwood will both appear in “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues,” the sequel to Rob Reiner’s 1984 mockumentary “This Is Spinal Tap.” The movie opens September 12.
Spinal Tap II: The End Continues reunites the original cast — Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, and Harry Shearer — as the fictional band Spinal Tap. Reiner returns as the documentarian Marty DiBergi. The couple appear alongside fellow music royalty Elton John and Paul McCartney in the long-awaited sequel.
‘This is Spinal Tap’
In addition, Brooks and Yearwood also have a song on the soundtrack. The couple team for a cover of “Big Bottom” from the original This Is Spinal Tap.
The 13-track soundtrack, out September 12 via Interscope, includes nine new songs and four reworked Spinal Tap fan favorites.
With the original cast back and a soundtrack that blends new songs and revamped Spinal Tap classics, Brooks summed it up best: “This was more fun than I could have ever imagined.”
(Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
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