The Red Strokes

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"The Red Strokes"
Song
B-side"Burning Bridges"

"The Red Strokes" is a single by country music artist Garth Brooks from his album, In Pieces. While only charting on the country charts in the U.S. (#49) and Canada (#38) as an album cut, it became one of his most popular songs in the United Kingdom, peaking at #13. This song has not been featured on any of Brooks's greatest hits albums in the United States. The video, however, was included in The Entertainer DVD box set.

Content

"The Red Strokes" is a mid-tempo love ballad played predominantly on the piano and electric guitar. The narrator describes a romantic interlude in the form of a painting using multiple related metaphors: "Inspired by a vision that they can't command", "erasing the borders with each brush of a hand". Some oxymoronic elements are also present "Thundering moments of tenderness rage", "Tempered and strong" and "Burning the night like the dawn". The writer concludes with color metaphors: "the blues will be blue", and "jealousies green" but most importantly "when LOVE picks its shade it demands to be seen", inferring RED. As a final note, one of the themes of the piece is that the passions within us need to be restrained, and that two of the times it is proper to let them out, are when two people are in LOVE, or in a piece of art.

Music video

The video opens with an all-white room. As the music begins to play, Brooks is shown rising out of the floor from a red puddle like it was water in an all-white suit and barefoot sitting at a white piano. As the music builds up, the different colors of paint represented (red, blue, and green) are splashed across him and the piano. During the guitar solo, another Brooks is standing over the first Brooks on the piano wearing a black and red outfit. The video ends with him in a final all white scene, with the fade out done as red paint (digitally inserted) runs down the screen.

The overhead shots and the shots of blue on the hands and green on the feet were done by David Gant, the piano player for Brooks's tour band.

The piano rising from the puddle was not done with digital enhancement. It's actually the video they shot (piano going down into the paint) playing in reverse. Vince Montefusco, mechanical & explosives special effects designed and built the hydraulic rig and created the special non-staining red paint like solution. He was also involved with some of the directing of this dangerous stunt. Brooks was singing the song backwards and Vince lowered him into the paint pit. There was a safety medical team standing by in case the hydraulic rig failed to lift him out of the pit.

For the final line of the bridge, the initial blast of red paint from overhead is done by a fire hose and Vince Montefusco's special effects team.

"Red Strokes" won the 1994 Music Video of the Year Award at the ACMs, which, according to Brooks on his "Video Collection Volum II" VHS, was plaqued up and shipped to David Gant for his work on the video and the extra effort he put into it.

Release Notes

In the United Kingdom, "The Red Strokes" was released as a two-part single. Both parts containing the song as well as other songs from previous albums. Part two was released one week after part 1 and contained an interview with Brooks.

Track listing

7" Jukebox single Liberty S7-18554, 1993

  1. "The Red Strokes" - 3:43
  2. "Burning Bridges"

UK CD single Capitol PM515, 1993
Part 1

  1. "The Red Strokes"
  2. "Ain't Goin' Down (Til the Sun Comes Up)"
  3. "The Dance"
  4. "That Summer"

Part 2

  1. "The Red Strokes"
  2. "Friend in Low Places"
  3. "Every Now and Then"
  4. Interview

UK Cassette single Liberty TC-CL 704, 1993
Sides 1 & 2

  1. "The Red Strokes"
  2. "Ain't Goin' Down (Til the Sun Comes Up)"

Dutch CD single Liberty 7243 8 81127 2 7, 1993

  1. "The Red Strokes" - 3:44
  2. "Ain't Goin' Down (Til the Sun Comes Up)" - 4:31
  3. "The Dance" - 3:41
  4. "That Summer" - 4:47

Chart positions

Chart (1994) Peak
position
Canada Country Tracks (RPM)[1] 38
Europe (Eurochart Hot 100)[2] 32
Irish Singles Chart[3] 7
New Zealand Singles Chart[4] 34
UK Singles Chart[5] 13
US Hot Country Songs (Billboard)[6] 49

Sources

References

  1. ^ "Top RPM Country Tracks: Issue 7996." RPM. Library and Archives Canada. February 20, 1995. Retrieved September 5, 2013.
  2. ^ http://books.google.ca/books?id=KQgEAAAAMBAJ&lr=&rview=1
  3. ^ http://www.irishcharts.ie/search/placement
  4. ^ http://www.swisscharts.com/showitem.asp?interpret=Garth+Brooks&titel=The+Red+Strokes&cat=s
  5. ^ http://www.officialcharts.com/artist/_/garth%20brooks/
  6. ^ "Garth Brooks Chart History (Hot Country Songs)". Billboard.

External links

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