33 Years Ago Today, Garth Brooks Was at No. 1 With a Steamy Song He Co-Wrote With His First Wife and Recorded With Trisha Yearwood

On this day (July 3) in 1993, Garth Brooks was at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart with “That Summer.” It was the fourth and final single from The Chase and spent a single week at the top of the chart. Interestingly, both of Brooks’ wives–Sandy Mahl and Trisha Yearwood–have connections to this track. He co-wrote it with Mahl, and Yearwood provided backing vocals.

It is interesting that Mahl and Yearwood are connected to this track. However, it isn’t surprising. Mahl was a songwriter who co-wrote a handful of songs with Brooks. He and Yearwood met in 1987 and became friends, often providing backing vocals on one another’s recordings. This just happens to feature both women.

It Took Garth Brooks Multiple Tries to Get This Song Right

Garth Brooks had to rework “That Summer” multiple times because his producer, Allen Reynolds, hated it.

In an interview, he revealed that the song was originally much different. “That Summer started out as a single guy and a married woman meeting at a party, the married woman being ignored by who she was with,” he explained. Allen Reynolds sent him back to the drawing board. “Man, I just can’t see myself pulling for these characters. It doesn’t seem innocently cool,” the producer told him.

Brooks agreed and started trying to find a new direction. “Going home that night in the truck, I started singing, ‘She had a need to feel the thunder.’ Sandy started helping me write the chorus, and we got the chorus done,” he recalled.

The song is about a fling between a teenage boy and a widow. Sparks fly while he works on her farm over the summer. According to Songfacts, the inspiration behind the song was a little tamer. “There’s a seed and from that seed some people might call exaggeration, some people might call journalistic liberties, but I think you take the seed and you run with it. Then, you start to paint the picture,” he said, introducing the song. “I was lucky enough to date some girls in high school, and this song is about one of those girls. She was a senior, I was a junior, and that was the seed. This is what came out of that.”

Featured Image by Paul Natkin/Getty Images

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