The 2018 CMA Award show is in full-swing, with iconic country star Garth Brooks debuting a brand new song dedicated to his wife, Trisha Yearwood.
Though the song, “Stronger Than Me” was not penned by Brooks by himself, the audience really went wild for it. The performance marked the first time the audience, and Yearwood, heard the song after months of anticipation. A spotlight shone over her during the performance.
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Brooks previously spoke to PopCulture.com and other media outlets about the song — which will be available to download tomorrow — saying that he has kept it fairly secretive.
“The queen and I are going to be there. We don’t know what we’re doing yet because the whole thing was, between you and me, there’s a song that we cut about two months ago,” he stated. “Me and the five guys and the engineer. We won’t play it for anybody else. It’s a song, you’re not going to believe it’s written by guys. It’s a song about the strength of a woman. And for me, it’s stressful, it’s tough.”
Brooks’ plan was to perform the song for the first time at the CMA’s, even keeping it from Yearwood as well, but the organization wasn’t initially keen on that plan.
“What I offered to the CMAs was: let me sing this to her. She hadn’t heard it, she won’t hear it until that moment. Nobody will,” he explained. “They’ve been very sweet. They kind of came back and just said, ‘Hey, look, something new, that’s a ballad, probably doesn’t work for us.’ So, cool. I’ll find some other way for her to hear it.”
The CMA organizers later changed their minds, it seems as Brooks revealed on Inside Studio G that he would be performing the song during the The 2018 CMA Awards.
Notably, while Brooks is performing during the big event, he is actually not nominated for any awards, which is somewhat unusual for the singer. However, he is not bothered by this one bit.
“The fact that [I’m] not nominated for Entertainer of the Year is going to make it a much more fun night for me to relax and just enjoy it all,” Brooks said half-jokingly. “So this is probably going to be my most enjoyable CMA [Awards] yet. Because I get to go with the love of my life, my best friend, we get dressed up and probably get to go to Taco Bell afterwards.”
Throughout his more than three decades in the country music industry, Brooks has been nominated for a total of 33 CMA Awards. He has won 13 of those trophies, with six of them being for Entertainer of the Year.
Photo credit: Getty Images
