Garth Brooks Almost Didn’t Record ‘The Dance’

“The Dance” is one of Garth Brooks‘ most well-known songs, but according to Brooks, he almost didn’t release it. During a recent appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show, Brooks shared the story of how he got his hands on the song, telling Clarkson that he first heard it played at The Bluebird Cafe in Nashville.

“I was sitting at the Bluebird, there was probably about seven or eight of us,” Brooks recalled, sharing that Tony Arata, who wrote “The Dance,” was performing at the time. “Tony starts in on this song, and when he gets done with it, I’m just amazed. And nobody else in the room seems to be getting the same reaction that I’m getting.” Brooks took the song to producer Allen Reynolds, who also loved it, though it took a little while for Brooks to cut the track.

“We keep waiting and we keep waiting and finally Allen goes, ‘How come we haven’t cut ‘The Dance’ yet?’ Because the album was almost over,” he recalled. “I said, ‘I’m not sure that’s country enough.’ Just being from Oklahoma. And it had piano in it. I didn’t move to Nashville to know what a piano was, it was always just steels and fiddles.”

“Yes, but your voice is country, music,” Clarkson exclaimed. “You tie it in.”

“Thank you, that’s very sweet. It’s funny, because that’s what he said,” Brooks replied. “He told me, he said, ‘Pal, I’m going to tell you right now.’ He always used the world pal. He says, ‘If you don’t cut ‘The Dance,’ if you don’t record that song, it’ll be the biggest hit you never had.’”

“The Dance” appeared on Brooks’ 1990 self-titled debut album and is now considered one of his signature songs. It went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart and remained in the top spot for three weeks.

During the show, Clarkson told Brooks that “The Dance” is helping her through her divorce from ex-husband Brandon Blackstock. “There’s been a lot of books and people always give you stuff to help, especially when you have kids,” she said. “It was like, ‘Man, there’s so much shame and guilt and everybody kind of sends you stuff.” The singer explained that she couldn’t “quite nail down” the feeling she was experiencing, but that changed when was listening to one of her playlists and “The Dance” came on.

“I was like, ‘No, that’s the thing,’” she recalled. “That’s it.” Clarkson shared that she actually wrote a song for her upcoming album inspired by the message of “The Dance,” with the lyrics, “Even though my heart is broken, it was worth the dance anyway.”

“I was listening to my room and I was just like [crying],’” she said. “I got the point. And I think sometimes that’s so crazy, you don’t know that’s going to happen. You’ve known this song your entire life and you freak out when it actually is a direct impact.”