“Ask Me How I Know” was Garth Brooks’ first No. 1 hit in a decade.
The song was released in 2017 as the second single off Brooks’s album, Gunslinger, and it spent much of the year climbing the chart, finally reaching the No. 1 spot on the chart before the year ended. It was Brooks’ first new No. 1 song since “More Than a Memory” in 2007.
For The First Time In Ten Years, Garth Brooks Celebrates A Huge Accomplishment
Written by Mitch Rossell, “Ask Me How I Know” comes from the wisdom of learning love lessons the hard way. We can hear Garth Brooks warning a friend that “one day, you’ll meet the girl you swore you’d never find.”
He went on saying, “You’ll push her away ’cause that’s all you know how to do. And then she’ll leave, and you won’t beg her not to go. Ask me how I know.” The song sings about letting yourself love the object of your affections well, so you don’t lose them.
Rosell admitted to Taste of Country that the song was based on his personal experiences:
“It came out straight from the soul and the heart of me always being that guy in relationships that had to have control and power, and wouldn’t let anybody close enough to ever really love somebody,” Rosell said. “I pushed a couple of really good girls away because of that quality. It came from a very real place for me.”
Rossell first caught Garth Brooks’ attention when he pitched some songs for the country star’s comeback album, Man Against Machine, in 2014. Though he did not score any cuts on that record, Brooks invited the new musician to open some shows during his world tour with Trisha Yearwood.
Years later, when Brooks was looking for songs for Gunslinger, Rossell sent him “Ask Me How I Know,” along with a few others. Not only did Brooks choose to cut this tune, but he also asked Mitch Rossell to play the acoustic guitar during the recording session.
“I just had to keep staring at the floor,” Rossell laughingly recalled when he played the song. “When I looked up and saw all of those guys around me and knew all the records they’d played on, I was like, ‘Oh gosh! Don’t suck.’ [Brooks] is standing there just belting this thing out, and I’m just cheesing the whole time, with this big, goofy smile on my face. It’s almost like you’re living something that’s too big for you to comprehend.”
Brooks, at the same time, couldn’t be happier. After all, it was Rosell’s very first song to be cut, and to hit the radio – we would say it was a success!
“I’m so proud of the Pearl Records team for working so hard for this No. 1,” Brooks once said in a press release. “Congrats to Mitch Rossell on his first cut…so happy for you, pal! And to country radio…four decades later, thanks for still believing. I’m humbled and veray grateful.”
Brooks also revealed that he and his team jokingly call Rossell “diva” because he never asked for anything.
Let’s look back at one of Brook’s biggest accomplishments by listening to “Ask Me How I Know” in the video below.
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Garth Brooks