Garth Brooks has broken his silence after songwriter Larry Bastian, who worked with the country star on hit songs like “Rodeo ...

Brooks would know because Bastian wrote some of his biggest hits — “Unanswered Prayers” and “Rodeo.” Bastian died on Sunday.

He will later be honored with a second service and burial in his tiny Georgia hometown that launched a Depression-era farm boy to the world stage. READ MORE:WATCH: Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood ...

In 2014, when Garth Brooks made the decision to return to country music after leaving the industry for 14 years to raise his children, he found a remarkably different world than the one he'd known.