Garth Brooks Knows Cowboys and Mothers

It took Garth Brooks to show me why country music matters so much to so many women my age. In his new single, "Midnight Sun," he goes on about how a cowboy's work just ain't never done, which I'm pretty sure he lifted directly from the old saying that a woman's work is never done (while a man may work from sun to sun). That's what makes this tune come full circle for me. It proves yet again that country gets me, and can constantly reinvent ways to demonstrate that through song.

Musically, the song is classic Garth. And lyrically, it doesn't cover much new territory in its let's-go-out-drinkin'-after-work theme. But to a mother, whose work just ain't never done either, the words can show us all some love if you think on mom terms. Like when Garth's singing about baling his last bale of hay, moms know that feeling. It's the one you get when you've just made the last PB&J of the day. Later, when Garth says that 8:00 comes twice a day, my mind immediately goes to my two 8:00s: breakfast and bathtime. And when he says to fire up that old pick-up truck, I picture myself loading everyone into the minivan. In the chorus, I can't help singing, "A mother's work just ain't never done, in the land of the midnight sun." (For a cowboy, that midnight sun has more to do with partying all night than getting up with a fussy baby all night, but again, the parallels just keep coming.)

Garth's last release, a collaboration with Huey Lewis on "Workin' for a Livin'," peaked at 19, and it's clearly not his best work. This new one is poised to climb much higher, making it obvious that Garth should stick with what he knows: cowboys and parenting.