I have some pretty hardcore guilty pleasures – Saturday’s Irish Independent, E4’s 90210, Jon Bon Jovi, but the greatest of all I’m about to confess today. I have a bit of a penchant for Garth Brooks, his music! 

My “penchant” for Mr. Brooks music began many years ago, a secret I’ve hidden well for quite some time, but it came to the fore a few weeks back when I was in a friend’s house as we went through our stuff to see what we’d sell at the car boot sale (honestly, there is only so much judgement I can take in one post, I’ll come back to you on the CBS, judge me another day)…and I saw Garth Brooks Greatest Hits on CD. Now, over the years I have tried to source GB’s songs on iTunes, Limewire, AN Other piracy source but all to no avail. The best I could do was a few badly recorded snippets on YouTube. I had all but given up on ever owning ‘a bit of Garth’, but you should have seen my excitement when I opened the rather damaged CD box to find a perfect CD inside.  My friend, we shall call her Nemo’s friend Emo was more than happy to offer me the CD in a sly way to get rid of her husband’s questionable musical taste.  I excitedly popped the CD into my bag (along with two dresses, a book and a bracelet I’d also found in her stash!) and went along my merry way, vowing to download it onto my laptop and safely to my iPod before anyone would be any the wiser.

Needless to say I still have the CD and have found a home for it in the glove compartment of my car. I mean no one ever looks there, right?  Anyway, I was down in the homeland for the extended weekend and on my way back, dug out GB and popped him into the CD player.  I found a true love for “Friends in Low Places” and have even considered it as a song that will be played at my wedding (when am I getting married? No idea! But sure it pays to be prepared, right? Besides, if I get my plans all sorted, the fella can just slot in, yeah?). No! God! Not the first dance, noooo. You know, at the end when the band plays the last song, and everyone dances around the happy couple in a circle and they play some song like Sweet Caroline or You’ll Never Walk Alone or … yyesssss I’m thinking Friends in Low Places. Everyone knows at least 6 words, it’s a bit of a hooley song, you can just picture everyone linking and running back and forth in and out to me and m’husbind, smiling and roarin’ “IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII’ve got friends in looooow places, where the whisky drowns and the beer chases my bluuuuuuuuuuuuuuues awaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyy, And I’ll beeee ooooookkkkkkk” I think it’d be fantastic! Good for the young and old, Lord Jaysus! A real crowd pleaser!

So there I was on the M50 80 minutes into my drive, listening to Friends in Low Places for the 20^th time (it’s just under 4 minutes long), blaming it all on my youth that I’d shown up in boots, when I got a wobble!  Not the wobble that made me think “What the fuck are you thinking Nemo, Garth Effing Brooks? Have some class…” No, a wobble on the road, in the middle lane of the M50 on a Monday evening at 5.20pm and I was reminded of the true danger of guilty pleasures.  For many a year I’ve had a fear that I would have an accident, be thrown unconscious and my car radio would be blaring out (at the time) Jon Bon Jovi! THE SHAME!!  At the time I owned a purple Polo, so the shame of the purple Polo with SOMETHING FOR THE PAAAIIIINNN blaring from it would be just too much to bear.  Interesting that ten years ago my guilty pleasure would have been Bon Jovi in all his glory, guitar and all. (But after attending a concert of his last year with two very excited 17 year old girls, I’m thinking perhaps it had come full circle and he is rather cool right now. Answers on a post card.) But to lie on the M50, in a less garish coloured and styled VW, with Oooooohhh the red strokes, passions uncaged, thundering moments of tenderness raged… blaring is just a step too far.  Garth, you may be my guilty pleasure, I may still get tipsy on a couple of glasses of red wine and dance around my living room shouting “You’ll never hear me complaiiiiiinnnnn” but I’m sorry, your CD will most certainly have to be sold at my next car boot sale…and probably for about 50p