Jump Into the Fire: Garth Brooks and the Radical Representation of Intellectual Disability of “Standing Outside the Fire”: Part One

Disclaimer: I like reading and writing about disability issues (and apparently Garth Brooks), but you should always listen to actual disabled voices about disability issues instead of non-disabled ones. Go follow Alice Wong, Sara Luterman, Imani Barbarin, Stephanie Woodward, Ivanova Smith, Cal Montgomery, the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, Self-Advocates Becoming Empowered, and the National Council on Independent Living if you don’t already.

Garth Brooks in 1991.

In the early 1990s, the TV in our house was on either MTV or CMT nonstop throughout the day. My two teenage sisters were constantly flipping between the two. I didn’t mind. I liked both. Give me Madonna or Reba. Salt-N-Pepa or Brooks & Dunn. Early 90s videos were something else. Since being around for close to two decades, music videos had reached a point in their evolution where the performance of the song seemed like an afterthought. A lot of times the focus instead was on these sprawling storylines that at best connected tangentially to the lyrical content of the song.

90s videos were also long. Reba’s epic “Does He Love You” video featuring elaborate sets, multiple costume changes, and an exploding boat (!!!) clocks in close to five minutes. Her video for her cover of Bobbie Gentry’s “Fancy” is over six minutes long. Meatloaf’s “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)” pushes near the eight minute mark. I still have vivid memories of the dread that I felt when I heard the opening piano riff of Celine Dion’s “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” because it was the beginning of eight minutes of malaise. I’m sure that song was the soundtrack to many sandwich making sessions from the other room. I had to do something else when that song came on. I just couldn’t make myself sit there and endure it.

I never really liked the “story” music videos, which almost always featured the singer “acting.” Even at 12 years old, I knew the performances were cringeworthy and the sets cheesy despite all the money thrown at them. More than that, I just found them boring. There were a couple exceptions, though. To this day, I adore the nine minutes of Guns N’ Roses’s “November Rain” video in all of its abandoned desert church and rain-soaked wedding cake glory. The other exceptions were any video that Garth Brooks ever released. I don’t know if the music was so engaging and emotional that it made the content transcend itself or if the videos seemed to my kid-mind to be scripted, directed, and produced better. I remember that the Brooks’ videos were so good that it was an event whenever one came on. His videos were loudly announced to the entire household so that anyone who wanted to watch had the chance to run into the room.

The Brooks’ video that I got the most excited about coming on was the 1994 video for “Standing Outside the Fire.” I have never forgotten the video, but haven’t actively sought it out to rewatch in 20-something years. The memory of my love of the video shook loose a couple of weeks ago after my friend won a local country contest by playing fiddle on a Brooks’ tune. So, I decided to track it down (Brooks’ content is extremely hard to find online) to see how it holds up.

I was anxious about watching because I was absolutely sure that it would be an ableist, outdated, offensive, and emotionally manipulative mess. What I found instead is a video that features a radical, subversive representation of intellectual disability that even today seems ahead of its time. Give it a watch below before we dive into why I feel this way.

Please note that I could not caption this video because I did not upload it. I did attempt to upload it on my own so that I could caption it. However, copyright claims would not allow me to post it publicly. The video does have a few sentences of spoken dialogue besides the song lyrics. Since I can’t caption the video, here are the snippets. In the beginning of the video in the car, Brandon’s mother say, “Are we clear yet?” Brandon responds, “Not yet, Ma.” Brandon’s mother then asks, “How about now?” Brandon again says, “Not yet.” His mother then says, “You can still see them?” Brandon says, “All clear!” Then just before she opens the car door, his mom says, “Come on; let’s have some fun!” After the one minute mark, Brandon’s parents are arguing. His dad says, “He’s just gonna embarrass himself!” Mom responds back emphatically, “No! You’re just afraid YOU’RE gonna be embarrassed!” Dad retorts, “No, I’m worried the kid’s gonna get hurt!” After Brandon falls on the track, Brandon’s father runs up yelling, “Get away from him! Don’t touch him! He’s not finished!” He then bends down next to Brandon and says, “Come on, Brandon, you gotta get up, son. Come on; get up. You can make it. Come on. You’re gonna finish.”

The Lyrics

“Standing Outside the Fire” (gonna go with the acronym SOTF from here on out) opens Brooks’ 1993 In Pieces album. It was also the third single from the album. Like his previous singles from In Pieces, SOTF was a hit, reaching the number three in both Canadian and American country charts. Before we jump into the content of the video, let’s first take a look at the lyrics of SOTF and their message. Here they are:

We call them cool
Those hearts that have no scars to show
The ones that never do let go
And risk it the tables being turned

We call them fools
Who have to dance within the flame
Who chance the sorrow and the shame
That always come with getting burned

But you got to be tough when consumed by desire
’Cause it’s not enough just to stand outside the fire

We call them strong
Those who can face this world alone
Who seem to get by on their own
Those who will never take the fall

We call them weak
Who are unable to resist
The slightest chance love might exist
And for that forsake it all

They’re so hell bent on giving, walking a wire
Convinced it’s not living if you stand outside the fire

Standing outside the fire
Standing outside the fire
Life is not tried it is merely survived
If you’re standing outside the fire

There’s this love that is burning
Deep in my soul
Constantly yearning to get out of control
Wanting to fly higher and higher
I can’t abide standing outside the fire

Standing outside the fire
Standing outside the fire
Life is not tried it is merely survived
If you’re standing outside the fire

Standing outside the fire
Standing outside the fire
Life is not tried it is merely survived
If you’re standing outside the fire

Brooks wrote the song with his friend/songwriter Jenny Yates in 1992. Yates also wrote two other Brooks’ tunes on In Pieces: “The Red Strokes” and “The Night Will Only Know.” Brooks recounts the creation of SOTF in the liner notes of his album The Hits:

“In a conversation [with Yates] I was describing something that I thought was really close, but for me it stood just outside the fire. There was that brilliant moment of silence when we just looked at each other and smiled. Within an hour and a half, this song was written. This is another song of inspiration and Jenny is that way when it comes to inspiration.”

So, the song was written to be inspirational for its total audience or in other words generally inspirational. This is important and we’ll come back to this thought later. Let’s look at what makes the lyrics inspirational first.

The lyrics are about how in order to truly live a meaningful life filled with love and contentment, you can’t just watch from the safe distance of the sidelines (that is “outside the fire”). Loving and living your life how you want to means that you have to take risks when there is something you want in life. You have to dive into the fire of risk, doubt, and possible heartache to get to the things that truly matter in life. Brooks confirms this view in this interview circa 1994/1995 on a New Zealand talk show when the interviewer asks about the meaning of the phrase “standing outside the fire.” Brooks responds, “Life is there to live. I don’t think it’s there to watch. So, just jump in it. Get after it and go. See what happens.”

Brooks circa 1994/1995 on a New Zealand talk show. This video also contains a couple acoustic solo performances of the songs “Unanswered Prayers” and “The River” that highlight Brooks’ underrated guitar picking.

Risks sometimes work out and sometimes not. That’s why they are risks. Our lives are defined by the risks that we have taken that have been both successful and failed. Failure makes us who we are, just like success. Failure leaves marks on our hearts and souls, but it is just a part of the game. However, SOTF makes the case that it is better to take risks and make stands that are important to us than to do nothing at all. Who wants to be like the cold, scared people described in the first verse whose “hearts have no scars to show” and never did “let go and risk it the tables being turned”?

Brooks and Yates acknowledge in the song that sometimes taking a risk/stand on something you believe in can lead to you getting hurt not just by your actions, but also by bystanders. People may view you as a “fool” and watch as you “dance within the flame,” chancing “the sorrow and the shame” that come with “getting burned.” By using the particular word “fool,” I think Brooks and Yates also include a part of risk-taking as the optics of taking risks. Others may view you as stupid, ignorant, or reckless for standing up for something you believe in or pursuing something that is important to you. These people can then hurt you by disparaging you. However, Brooks and Yates state that you can’t let others perceptions of you stop things: “You got to be tough when consumed by desire/’Cause it’s not enough just to stand outside the fire.” In other words, screw ‘em and do what is important and meaningful to you regardless of how in the hell anyone else feels about it.

The heart of the message of SOTF can be found in the chorus of “life is not tried/it is merely survived/if you’re standing outside the fire.” When you don’t stand up for what you believe in, when you don’t take risks to go after what you love, when you don’t challenge yourself, then what’s the point of life? How do we grow when we don’t take chances that can lead to success? How can we learn when we don’t have the opportunity to fail? SOTF is inspirational because it urges us to take stands for what we believe in, chase love, go after what we think is important to us, and jump into the fire of life without worrying what others think about us.

For people to understand just how radical “Standing Outside the Fire” is, we have to first take a look at how intellectual disability has been depicted over the years in media. This is honestly an extremely complicated, nuanced topic that is going to need its own article. So, I’m gonna tackle this in part two. To be continued, folks…