Sure he can!

The following account is taken from one of my favorite websites – Story Behind the Song.net (my only problem is I wish there were more stories!)

The Story Behind “That Summer”
written by Pat Alger, Garth Brooks.

performed by: Garth Brooks

|Interview with Pat Alger conducted by Adam Olson |

“That Summer,” co-written with Garth Brooks, was a really hard song to write. We turned it into Allan Reynolds who was producing Garth, and he didn’t like it at all. He’s an old friend of mine, and I could tell that he didn’t care for it. He said, “Y’all need to write that over.”

We heeded Allan’s advice and re-wrote it, but it still didn’t pass, so we wrote it over yet again! We must have written a book’s worth on this song, and in the end, I think Garth even changed a few lines the very day they recorded it.

We had common experiences and wrote from two different angles to come up with the song. It wasn’t written like a simple story because it uses a lot of imagery. We wrote “That Summer” after Garth’s fame had begun, so we were cramped for time especially with all the revisions it went through.

The moral? Don’t get discouraged. This story should reinforce the idea that you write the best song you can write. And you re-write it, and you re-write, and you re-write it!

(article continues)

A room full of professionals will judge a well written song differently depending on the mood they’re in, the time of day it is, if they’ve had a fight with their wife, or even if they’re hungry or not – but they’re always honest about the song itself. That’s why you don’t leave your songwriting critiques up to a family member – because they’ll always say things like “wow!” and “great” and “Whitney Houston should sing that!”, all complete lies. It’s a disservice to yourself and your song if you’re walking around the house believing you’ve written a great song because your Uncle or friend told you it was.

If a professional tells you it’s a great song, take it to another. If a professional tells you it needs work and how to improve it – take their word. In those occasions where you just know it’s a great song -follow your gut no matter what anyone says.

Garth and Pat were in a position to get a real reaction from a professional. You should too. Find your local Songwriters Associations. If your locale doesn’t have one, start one – songwriters of ever stripe will come out of the woodwork. If there are no pro’s, you’ll have to judge your writing in a subjective way against someone else. Be honest with everyone – including yourself!

And don’t take those pats on the back too literal. You might just run across Alan one day.