One costly bar tab… Of course everybody knows the Garth Brooks hit “Friends In Low Places,” from his 1990 album No Fences. But one of the biggest legends surrounding the song goes something like this: The songwriter gave away his publishing rights to the song in order to pay for a bar tab, before the song went on to become a massive hit. And when I say a massive hit, that may be an understatement: It was one of the biggest country songs of the ’90s, and it’s still a classic and a staple of concerts, bars, karaoke…pretty much anywhere you hear country music. Written by Earl Bud Lee and Dewayne Blackwell, “Friends in Low Places” spent four weeks at #1 back in 1990, and it’s been a barroom staple ever since. It led to Garth’s album, No Fences, selling over 10 MILLION copies. And since that first release, “Friends in Low Places” has been released on two greatest hits albums, three live albums, and about 100 box sets. That’s a lot of sales – and a nice paycheck for the songwriters. Well, maybe… There’s an legend around Nashville that the songwriter for one of the biggest hits in country music actually gave away his publishing rights to the song – to pay for a bar tab. In one version of the story, Lee even offered a portion of the rights to any patrons at the bar who helped him pay off his bar tab. If that’s true, that would have to be one of the most expensive bar tabs in history. Just imagine how you would feel watching your song climb the charts, knowing that some bartender is getting rich from it instead of you, all because you couldn’t afford to pay for your night out on the town. So what’s the real story? It’s easy to see why there’s confusion surrounding the song’s history, because the songwriter himself has told a couple of different versions of how “Friends In Low Places” came to be. In one version of the story from co-writer Earl Bud Lee, as recounted in the 1996 book The Stories Behind Country Music’s All-Time Greatest 100 Songs by Ace Collins, the idea for the song came when Lee and fellow co-writer Dewayne Blackwell were out to lunch in Nashville and realized that they didn’t have enough money with them to cover their bill. When asked how he was going to pay their tab, Lee replied: “Don’t worry. I have friends in low places. I know the cook.” Lee and Blackwell realized that the line had potential, but didn’t do anything with it until months later at a party to celebrate a number one song for another songwriter. Looking around the “black-tie” affair, the pair went back to their “friends in low places” idea and scribbled down the words on paper napkins. But in another interview with AXS TV, Lee told a slightly different version of the song’s history – and revealed the truth behind the legend that he sold his rights to the song. In this version, Lee and Blackwell were out to lunch on a Sunday (skipping church, as he admitted), and having themselves a little Sunday Funday, throwing back a few drinks. And after “a couple of bottles of champagne,” the songwriters began jotting down lyrics on a napkin: “I got a bar napkin…and I wrote, ‘Blame it all on my roots, I showed up in boots, and ruined your black tie.” They went back and forth writing lines for the song, but when it came time to pay for their brunch, Blackwell realized he had forgotten his wallet and asked how they were going to pay for it – which is when the song came together with Lee’s response, “Don’t worry, I have friends in low places.” But apparently, those friends in low places weren’t willing to let Lee just walk out without paying his tab, which by that point was $1,200: “They gave me an ultimatum. You’re going to jail because your credit card didn’t work, or you can pay to stay out of jail. So I peddled the song around and three publishers finally came together and each of them gave me $400, and I paid the innkeeper, drove back, signed the contract, gave the song away.” Ouch. According to Lee, it ended up being quite the costly bar tab: “According to how they want to value it, I probably have lost a good $20 million, maybe. I ended up getting the Mona Lisa and then selling the Mona Lisa for $1,200 to pay a bar tab.” Of course all wasn’t lost for Lee. Copyright law is complicated, but there are two sets of rights that belong to the songwriter: Publishing and songwriting. Lee may have signed away his publishing rights, but he kept his songwriting credit, which earned him royalties from the airplay of the song…although not as much as he would have made if he had kept all of his rights to one of the biggest songs in country music. After finishing the song, the writers contacted a singer they had met while he was selling shoes in Nashville, a guy named Garth Brooks, to record a demo. Brooks, who had recently been signed to Capitol Records, liked the song so much that he wanted it for himself – but his debut single and album had already been recorded, and it would be another year and a half before his next album would be released. In the meantime, Mark Chesnutt recorded a version of the song for his 1990 album Too Cold At Home, but Garth still decided to include it on his sophomore album – though before either of them, it was actually first recorded by David Chamberlain in 1989. Of course Garth’s version would go on to become the most well-known recording of the song. And that bar tab apparently ended up costing a lot more than $1,200. The post Was “Friends In Low Places” Really Sold to Settle A Bar Tab? The Wild Story Behind The Hit first appeared on Whiskey Riff.

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Foreign Affairs The Endangered Christians America Should No Longer Ignore Christian leaders in Israel declare that Christian Zionism is putting the church in danger. On January 17, 2026, the leaders of all the major churches in Jerusalem issued a sobering warning. They released a statement in which they cautioned that “damaging ideologies, such as Christian Zionism, mislead the public, sow confusion, and harm the unity of our flock.” The leaders noted that these efforts have found favor among political actors in Israel and beyond and have led to the advancement of agendas that now threaten the Christian presence in the Holy Land and the wider Middle East. The statement’s significance lies in its timing and rarity. The patriarchs of Jerusalem last addressed Christian Zionism in their 2006 Jerusalem Declaration, so this pastoral statement is their first comment on the issue in nearly two decades. It is a warning that signals an immediate danger to Christian unity and survival.  It closely followed a summit sponsored by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem last December, a gathering of more than 1,000 U.S. pastors that advanced a Christian Zionist narrative while sidelining Jerusalem’s historic churches. Those who signed this statement are the patriarchs and senior bishops of the historic churches of the Holy Land, Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant alike. Their offices predate modern nation-states, the Crusades, and even Islam. In matters of religious, communal, and pastoral Christian life in the Holy Land, there is no higher ecclesial authority. Faithful American Christians should recognize the gravity of this moment. These leaders are the custodians of Christianity’s oldest continuous communities, and when they warn that a modern ideology is harming the Church and threatening its survival, Christians everywhere have a responsibility to listen. Yet only a few weeks earlier, in a Christmas message from Jerusalem, Benjamin Netanyahu cast Israel as a haven for Christians, claiming it is “the only country in the Middle East where Christians can practice their faith with full rights and in total freedom.” The claim resonates in the West because it trades in a familiar moral binary: safety under Israel, persecution everywhere else. But its power lies less in accuracy than in selectivity. That claim does not withstand scrutiny. Leading Israeli human-rights organizations such as B’Tselem and HaMoked document the severe impact of occupation policies on Palestinian civilian life, including restrictions on movement and the denial of  basic protections. These conditions affect all residents, including the region’s dwindling Christian communities. In Jerusalem, the desecration of a Christian cemetery was described as a clear “hate crime” by Anglican Archbishop Hosam Naoum, while the British Consulate said it was part of a broader pattern of assaults on the Christian community. These concerns are not confined to local testimony. The Associated Press reported that Holy Land church leaders publicly condemned Israeli settler violence during a West Bank visit, prompting U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee to travel to Taybeh and denounce the attacks. In places like Beit Sahour, historic Christian communities face mounting pressure from recent illegal settlement expansion that threatens their very existence. Christian life under Israeli occupation is increasingly constrained. In February, the Jerusalem Post reported that the foreclosure of properties belonging to the Armenian Church of Jerusalem threatens Christian communities rooted in the city for more than 1,700 years. Clergy encounter visa and residency restrictions, and Christian communities are steadily pushed out through land confiscation and economic pressure. The World Council of Churches has repeatedly warned of an existential threat to Christians in the Holy Land, citing unjustified taxation, attacks by settlers, and the killing of Christians in Gaza. The Jerusalem church leaders’ warning does not stand alone. In December, Andrea Zaki, President of the Protestant Churches of Egypt, issued a public statement distancing all Egyptian evangelicals from Christian Zionism, calling it a political movement rather than a theological conviction and warning that Scripture must never be used to justify war, dispossession, or domination. These statements by church leaders in Egypt and Jerusalem are not the first of their type. In August 2024, prominent evangelical pastors and leaders from across the Middle East issued “A Collective Call to the Global Church,” condemning all ideologies that lead to injustice and violence. They rejected all attempts to baptize bloodshed with biblical language and called the church back to unity, compassion, and peace. Taken together, these voices form a coherent and deeply conservative witness. From Jerusalem to Cairo, from patriarchs to evangelical pastors, indigenous Christian leaders are saying the same thing: When Christianity is fused to political movements, military power, or national destiny, it ceases to be faithful and becomes destructive to the very communities it claims to defend. There is also a strategic reality that Americans should not ignore. A Middle East emptied of Christians will not be more stable, more pluralistic, or more aligned with Western interests and values. Christian communities have long served as moral anchors and cultural mediators. Their disappearance strengthens extremism and accelerates civilizational fracture. Supporting Israel’s security does not require ignoring Christian suffering, distorting theology, or silencing Christians whose faith predates modern borders and modern politics. Church leaders in Jerusalem and across the Middle East are not asking Americans to abandon Israel. They are asking them to abandon illusions. They are calling the Church to moral clarity: Faith must not be weaponized, Scripture must not be conscripted, and ancient Christian communities must not be sacrificed on the altar of any political ideology. American Christian communities now face a choice. They can continue aligning themselves with Christian Zionist activist and political movements that emerged far from the land they claim to defend. Or they can listen to the Christians who have carried the faith in the land of its birth, at great cost, for two millennia. The post The Endangered Christians America Should No Longer Ignore appeared first on The American Conservative.

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