Kenny Chesney has released plenty of hits in the past three decades. Few artists have as many singles out as Chesney does. With that in mind, there are a few undeniable hits Chesney has recorded over the years. We found three Chesney songs that every fan can sing word for word.
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“When The Sun Goes Down”
Chesney released “When The Sun Goes Down” in 2004 with Uncle Kracker. Brett James wrote the song, which is so popular that it is the title of his 2024 tour. Chesney and James became good friends, a friendship that began with “When The Sun Goes Down”.
“It started our relationship,” James tells The Tennessean. “He was just exploding. His kind of beach thing, he put out ‘No Shoes, No Shirt,’ before ‘When the Sun Goes Down’ and “When the Sun Goes Down”. … It’s been history ever since.”
“American Kids”
Rodney Clawson, Luke Laird, and Shane McAnally penned “American Kids“, which came out in 2014 on Chesney’s The Big Revival album. When Chesney was making the record, he took an entire year off to focus on it. “American Kids” is one of the last songs he added for the project.
“‘American Kids’ was that one thing that I was looking for that was different,” Chesney says (via CBS News). “There’s not that many of those songs around. We’re an industry of chasers and copycats, we really are. That’s just the way it is. And when you hear something completely different… I knew when I heard that song, that I was going to record it.”
“No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problem”
“No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problem” was not only a big hit for Chesney, but it started an entire brand for him. It was written by Casey Beathard and released in 2003 as the title track of Chesney’s sixth studio album. Ironically, Chesney chose to record the song before it was even finished.
Beathard had played a portion of the song for publisher Clay Bradley when the song was still a work in progress. Fast forward a few days, and Chesney was meeting with Bradley when Beathard happened to run into them, and Bradley remembered the song. At first, Beathard declined to play what was the beginning of “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problem” until Chesney insisted.
“Kenny goes, ‘Man, that’s where I am right now in my life,’” Beathard recalls to The Tennessean, after he played Chesney a verse and chorus. “I’ve been just really spending a lot of my time in the Virgin Islands, just getting away, and that’s me.’ He said, ‘Dude, you need to finish that song and get it to me.’”
Photo by Terry Wyatt/Getty Images
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