Premiere: Jared Deck reinvents Garth Brooks’ ‘Two of a Kind, Workin’ on a Full House’

Cover songs are always hit or miss. There is no in-between. In the case of Jared Deck‘s latest offering, he brings a fierce, pummeling growl to Garth Brooks’ “Two of a Kind, Workin’ on a Full House.” It’s an easy slam dunk, finding the singer-songwriter swapping out Brooks’ signature twang for his throaty grit.

“She loves me tender when the goin’ gets tough, sometimes we fight just so we can make up,” he sings with a crackling roar. Within these moments, something irresistible happens, and Deck strikes upon a magnetizing performance. Deck, who serves as the State Representative from Norman, OK, proves he’s just as commanding behind a microphone.

“I grew up with this song. In Garth’s version, I hear a youthful joy that envisions love in simple, enthusiastic terms,” Deck tells B-Sides & Badlands. “In my version, I try to portray an older soul carrying that youthful hope into their later years, but it’s heavier now. No matter the tempo, the energy survives.”

With the fiddle (Jake Simpson, The Lil Smokies) initially “setting the scene,” other instruments, including piano (Dan Walker, Heart) and guitar (Clint Pope, Jared Deck), “chatter behind like old folks in a small town cafe,” he continues. “It’s the perfect setting for my telling of the song’s story.”

Deck’s “Two of a Kind, Workin’ on a Full House” anchors his forthcoming Head Above Water, a rich tapestry that “tells a story of trying to get ahead in a just-getting-by world,” he says. “There are so many of us working to keep our heads above water, and it’s witnessing that collective struggle and work to overcome that gives me hope. It’s that shared human experience that sustains me.”

Head Above Water arrives later this year.

Listen to “Two of a Kind, Workin’ on a Full House” below.

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