Mom's illness reason for Brooks' new hit

Jack Hurst - Tribune Media Services

Garth Brooks' mother, Colleen, has just received a ``100 percent'' favorable report on her treatment for throat cancer from physicians at UCLA, Brooks reports.

Her medical situation was a primary reason her son recorded the hot new single ``It's Your Song,'' which recently broke a record by becoming the highest-debuting single in the history of the country hit chart of the Radio & Records trade publication. The song hit number four in its first week on the chart.

Garth's mother's problem was the reason the singer was shown the song by one of its two co-writers, Benita Hill. Herself a cancer survivor who also had gone through the same kind of trauma with her own mother, Hill was a co-writer of the Brooks smash ``Two Pina Coladas.'' Brooks says she showed him the song as a friend seeking to help him deal with his pain.

Brooks says the song hit him hard, and he went to producer Allen Reynolds to ask whether Reynolds thought the song was really that good or whether Brooks was just feeling it because of the situation with his mother. He says Reynolds, who already had heard it, replied that he thought the song was a hit and was just waiting for an appropriate moment to recommend it.

The initial single from Brooks' brand-new ``Double Live'' album, ``It's Your Song'' is sufficiently ambiguous to be able to be taken as a moving thank-you to Brooks fans.

``And (to) God,'' the singer adds.

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