Garth Brooks Debuts Powerful New Song, Shares Message for March for Our Lives Leader [Watch]
Garth Brooks gave an emotional performance of a previously unreleased song during his weekly Inside Studio G broadcast via Facebook on Monday night (March 19), sharing a powerful message for student activist Emma Gonzalez in advance of the upcoming March for Our Lives rally.
Brooks was toward the end of his weekly show when he unveiled a new segment, "Primetime," in which he intends to discuss current events with his viewers each week. In the inaugural episode, he shared a letter from Emma Gonzalez, one of the students who survived the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. on Feb. 14. Gonzalez has since become one of the student activists who have been leading the call for student protests all over the country, with the goal of putting public pressure on lawmakers to pass a number of common sense gun control measures that experts say would help prevent future mass shootings and school shootings.
Beginning at 24:35 in the video above, Brooks talks about the upcoming March for Our Lives rally, which is set to take place in Washington, D.C., on Saturday (March 24) along with a number of rallies set for cities all over the country, including Nashville. Gonzalez is one of the organizers, and she recently wrote a letter which states in part, "I believe the young people in this country can change the world, and wouldn’t that be something?"
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Brooks read that line, and he addressed Gonzalez, saying, "OK, Miss Emma. It’s not yours to change, it’s yours. You understand that? You’re the future ... This is your world. Take it, shape it, mold it.”
He tells Gonzalez that she and the other protestors across the U.S. will have to "be patient, be loving, because there might be some cross voices that enter in this march. Be loving, be tolerant. Do not let hate win."
"Your generation is the generation for the school shootings. Let’s make sure the next generation is not," he urges. "Fair enough?"
The country superstar then performed an acoustic rendition of a song he wrote with Tony Arata, who also wrote "The Dance." The song is written from the perspective of a father addressing his children, telling them that the choices we make in this moment are the ones that will shape their future.
"To my children I make this vow / To matter then, it must matter now / If we’re ever going to take a step beyond the road from here to gone / Because there’s an endless stream of angels I see walking in my dreams / So many different voices, so many different wings / Those without are those with plenty and the meekest are the strong / All are one among the many marching on the road from here to gone / We’re all one among the many marching on the road from here to gone," he sings.
Brooks gives an emotional rendition of the powerful new song, which he has not yet recorded. Visibly wiping away tears at the end, he says, "Miss Emma, everybody who will be marching ... Love. Do not let hate win. Love." He also promotes the March for Our Lives one final time, saying, "Be part of it."
Brooks has mostly stayed away from commenting on politics throughout his career. However, after a string of mass shootings in recent months, there's begun to be a cultural shift in country music. Those incidents include a mass shooting at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, that killed 26 people in November. On Oct. 1, 58 people were killed outright and more than 700 more were injured when a shooter opened fire on the audience at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas.
Country artists have slowly begun to speak about the previously taboo subject of gun control in public, including Rosanne Cash, Sheryl Crow, Cam, Chely Wright, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. On Friday (March 16), NRA Country removed more than three dozen featured country artists from its website.
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