In 1999, Brooks , tiring of the music that had made him famous as well as the persona - the image - he had created of himself, decided to start anew. Like Joyce, he attempted to start over with a clean slate, denying his musical past as well as his personal Family and Career interpolation. Shedding his own back story, he became a new image, Chris Gaines, with his own fabricated biography.

The people around Garth Brooks had become suffocating, and he broke away from them. But Brooks shifted too far to the side of independence, alienating his fans and leaving himself isolated and alone.