Garth Brooks Hopes Bronze Statue That Sparked His Proposal To Trisha Yearwood Will Inspire Others To Get Engaged at His Friends In Low Places Bar & Honky-Tonk

While Garth Brooks won't serve as the door greeter at his Friends In Low Places Bar & Honky-Tonk, located at 411 Lower Broadway in Nashville, his famous bronze statue commissioned by Buck Owens is just the man for the job.

Until recently, the statue resided at Owens' Crystal Palace in Bakersfield, California. The bronze likeness features Brooks in his signature live pose, wearing a guitar and a cowboy hat with his arms outstretched, singing to the heavens. It was unveiled at the Legends in Bronze concert at Owens' Crystal Palace on May 25, 2005, and served as the backdrop for Brooks' proposal to Trisha Yearwood. Owens promised to bequeath it to Brooks.

"I'm very excited about it," Brooks says. "I realized that statue is the place where I proposed to the love of my life, so it was like, 'Hey, let's bring it out here, and maybe somebody might want to propose to their love in front of it out here in Nashville.' So, it was pretty cool."

Brooks used the statue as more than a prop. The sculptor told the "Friends In Low Places" to carefully choose the pose he wanted for the statue because it would be crafted in bronze that would stand for "a thousand years." The comment sparked Brooks' idea to propose.  

"I thought, 'Wow, there it is,'" Brooks says. "If there's one thing in my life that I know will stand for a thousand years, it's going to be my love for Ms. Yearwood.' I said, 'Can you put a wedding ring on it?'"

He did, and the ring was Yearwood's first clue that Brooks was about to propose, although she didn't catch on immediately.

"When they pulled the sheet off the statue, the first thing she noticed was the ring," Brooks says. "She thought maybe they got the pose from the early '90s. So I addressed the ring while I was sitting there talking to her. I told her, 'That's why today's the day.'"

Then Brooks dropped to one knee and popped the question.

When Brooks toured the Ernest Tubb Record Shop next door to his Friends In Low Places Bar & Honky-Tonk, he realized the same artisan had crafted a statue of Tubb that was also on display. Brooks saw it as a hint guiding him down the path.

"This is what I love," Brooks says. "If I could take myself out of Garth, I think that's what I love most about Garth as an artist. Everything that we do, it's just got so much guts and grit in it."