The No. 1 Country Hit From 2003 That Kenny Chesney Passed on (And Later Prevented His Single From Topping the Charts)

The only thing worse than turning down a future hit single is watching that single beat your single for a top chart position. In 2003, Kenny Chesney was experiencing both simultaneously. Ain’t that a beach?

Chesney’s string of bad luck—relatively, anyway—started with his team turning down Jim “Moose” Brown and Don Rollins’ track, “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere”. According to Sam Gazdiak of The 9153, Brown hypothesized that Chesney’s team “wanted to not do so much beachy stuff anymore.”

“If we had gotten it to him three years earlier, he probably would have jumped on it,” Brown continued, per Gazdiak’s reporting. “But the timing wasn’t right.”

Why Did Kenny Chesney Actually Turn the Future Country Hit Down?

Although we can only speculate about what went on behind closed doors, Jim “Moose” Brown’s theory that Kenny Chesney didn’t want more beachy songs seems a little off, considering the country singer had just released No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problem in 2002. The following year, he would release a holiday album called All I Want For Christmas Is A Real Good Tan. Then, in 2004, he released his all-time beach classic, “When The Sun Goes Down”.

So, maybe the problem was that Chesney didn’t need more beachy songs. Or maybe the subsequent success of “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere” convinced Chesney and his team that the general public still wanted to keep their mind “On The Coast Of Somewhere Beautiful”. The near miss on Chesney’s part is a classic “chicken or the egg” situation—or maybe the more appropriate term would be “margarita or the salt shaker” or “rum shot or the hurricane.”

“It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere” would go on to become a massive hit for Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffett following its June 2003 release. The track topped the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for two months straight and broke into the Top 20 of the Hot 100 that September. The duet performance even earned a Country Music Association Award for Vocal Event of the Year.

“It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere” Came Out on Top

While Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffett’s “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere” was dominating the charts and radio stations around the country, Kenny Chesney was close behind at No. 2 on the country charts. (Hence, why we called his “bad luck” relative, as a No. 2 single is hardly something to sneeze at.)

Chesney released the title track to No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem as a single in May of that same year, one month before Jackson and Buffett released their song. And unfortunately for Chesney, his track wasn’t able to push “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere” out of the top spot.

During an appearance on Netflix’s Bobby Bones Presents: The Bobbycast, Chesney admitted that the whole debacle “p***ed him off,” considering he was on the same label that released “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere”. He continued, “That record was so hot they couldn’t maneuver it. You know what I mean?”

And indeed, we’d have to imagine that watching “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere”, a song he could have recorded, beating his tracks for the No. 1 spot had to feel as uncomfortable and lousy as sand in your underwear.

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