With these two songs bracketing the more innocuously playful material between them, Brooks has taken a leap out of the shelter of country tradition-where men can go astray, but are forgiven if they repent-and into the dirty reality of modern life. 'Face to Face,' the closing song, takes on the thorny topic of date rape, encouraging women to stand up to men who mistreat them. Yet it isn't the only radical cut on the new album. 'When we're free to love anyone we choose,' he sings, 'then we shall be free.' This is a first for country music. He wrote the song, he said, after the riots in Los Angeles, to address a wide range of injustice. He'll call you sir as casually as he'll say hello. Born and raised in Yukon, Okla., Brooks speaks in a soft, unassuming manner, sharp yet disarmingly humble. This was Brooks's way of explaining the song 'We Shall Be Free,' which leads off his new album, 'The Chase,' and includes a vote of support for same-sex couples. If your parents are black and white, if your parents are the same sex, that's still traditional family values to me.'

'The way I remember it,' he said during a free afternoon in his current national concert tour, 'traditional family values was encouraging children to be the best they can be. Garth Brooks just jumped into the family-values debate, right into the mess of it.

Garth brooks talking about songwriting