Garth Brooks on World Peace: ‘We’ll Get There’

Garth Brooks hosted his weekly Facebook Live series, Inside Studio G, on Monday, and the singer had a frank discussion with fans after several people tweeted to Brooks about his song “We Shall Be Free.” The 1992 hit discusses unity and declares how “we shall be free” amid the lyrics, “When the last thing we notice is the color of the skin / And the first thing we look for is the beauty within / When the skies and the oceans are clean again,” among other sentiments of hope.

Responding to one fan who wondered when the “hopeful words” of the song will be more than “an aspiration,” Brooks responded: “That’s the whole thing about utopia is, it’s forever in front of you and you keep working. […] We’ll get there. It might not be in our lifetime. It might not be in my children or my grandchildren’s lifetime, but we’ll get there. This world’s a lot better — I know a lot of people think this world is going the other way, but I think this world’s a lot better than it used to be. I really do. Our history has shown that things have really gotten out of hand. As wild as they’re getting right now, still try to remember, these might be the best times of all the worst times simply because there are people like you that love one another and are standing up for it.”

He also shared a conversation he recently had with wife, Trisha Yearwood, who said she “feels like the whole world’s burning.” Brooks said that he took his wife outside on their farm in Tennessee and told her, “The world isn’t burning. And the reason why the world isn’t burning is because there’s a lot more people that believe in loving one another than they believe in burning the world.” The singer continued, “So that’s why it’s like this. Just believe that the person next to you is a good person. We’ll get through this. Keep the passion, just not the knee-jerk reaction. Stay steady, stay true. It’s the truth is what we’re looking for and the truth is where we’re going. So we’re gonna go fine.”

Brooks admitted that Monday’s episode of Inside Studio G was “a little more solemn” than normal in the wake of protests that had erupted around the world after George Floyd’s death, telling fans that “the bottom line of everything that we do” is “about love.” “It’s about trusting us as individuals and a family,” he said.