The Dance

Some say this song is Garth Brooks' career signature song. Garth heard Tony perform the song at The Bluebird Cafe and recorded it. It was a #1 and helped propel Garth to one of the most successful careers in country music history. The hidden story is that the song was pitched around Nashville for years before it became what it is. Tony's version is the original.

In Tony's own words ...

I will be the first to admit that without this song there might not have been the others. Ironically it was the very first thing I ever had recorded after we moved to Nashville. More ironic, perhaps, is how prophetic the words to this song have become by virtue of circumstance, not some grand design on my part at the time of their creation. What has happened since then could have been no more anticipated than it could be re-created.

My one brush with being right was pure chance, as it were. I met the gentleman who cut it at an open-mic songwriters show at Douglas Corner. Garth and Sandy Brooks had moved from Oklahoma about the same time Jaymi and I came up from Georgia. We were both doing whatever we could to stay in Nashville, trying to get our songs heard by anybody. The only folks listening, however, were other songwriters as no one else was usually at our shows.

And so it was at one of those nights at the Bluebird, Garth heard this one and swore if he ever got a record deal, he was going to do it. Well, he did, and he did. I will always be grateful that it was a songwriter who made this one his own. The song was doubly blessed because it was also produced by a songwriter, Allen Reynolds.

One little-known fact about this song is that it originally had another set of lyrics which, by grace, never saw the light of day. Thankfully, these lyrics were lost in one of our moves and haven't resurfaced! The melody is the same as it was but the words that finally stuck were inspired by a scene from the movie Peggy Sue Got Married. Kathleen Turner discovers she can't alter one aspect of her past without affecting the rest.

No one gets to pick their memories, thankfully. I am humbled by letters I have received since this song was released from mothers, fathers, wives, husbands and children who found something worthwhile in the message of The Dance.