Kenny Chesney has spent the last four years listening, writing and consuming songs from good friends, young writers, Songwriter Hall of Famers and old favorites. Raised on Music Row’s dynamic creative community as a young kid coming out of East Tennessee, the spirit of songs being born has fueled the most iconic rise of a country star in the 21st century – and that hunger for the best of distilling life into lyrics, hooks, bridges and melodies still drives the eight-time Entertainer of the Year.
As his Sun Goes Down 2024 Tour featuring 23 stadium shows with a handful amphitheaters draws closer, the wildly euphoric performer is also on the brink of releasing BORN. Fifteen songs that in many ways survey all the things that have defined the soundtrack of coming of age in the middle of America over the last two decades, the March 22 album surveys the things Chesney’s music embodies. To that end, the songwriter/superstar mines the complicated tangle of knowing it’s time to move on and not being able to quite let go with the introspectively pensive “Thinkin’ Bout” for his latest grat track to coincide with BORN pre-orders going live.
“The hardest part of letting go,” says Chesney, “is actually letting go. All that chemistry, all that intimacy, all that doesn’t need to be said is such a big thing... Whatever’s wrong, obviously it’s not gonna change. But it gets late, you get thinking – and next thing you know, you’re tumbling back into something that just can’t be. I love this song, because it gets into that space where you’re thinking about knowing you shouldn’t do this, shouldn’t think about that person, and that’s when maybe the letting go can really start to happen no matter how good it feels or how much you make each other laugh.”
Leaning into the more wistful part of Chesney’s baritone, it’s a lived-in vocal that is equal parts conflicted and seeking. An honest reflection on the “grey area” of letting go of something that once burned so hot, it manifests all the diverging realities at play. For the man who made yearning such a potent emotion with “Anything But Mine,” “On the Coast of Somewhere Beautiful” and “Better As A Memory,” “Thinkin’ Bout” is another entry in Chesney’s songs of broken, but brave hearts.
The man the Wall Street Journal called “The King of the Road” brings the feel good and excitement of his stadium shows to his upcoming album. As he explains, “Those songs say so much about who we are, how we try to live and see the world. If I were going to put three songs that match up with everything that’s going to be on this album, these three tracks would be the ones. The road band was smoking, No Shoes Nation was all in – and those songs say so much.”
As “Take Her Home,” the lead track that celebrates taking a risk and finding your life lands in the Top 20, there’s plenty more good music to come. With “Just To Say We Did” also already available, “Thinkin’ Bout” adds a more dimensional look at the 15-track package that delivers everything No Shoes Nation has come to expect from the only country artist who’s been in Billboard’s Top 10 Touring Acts of the Last 25 Years for the last 15 years.
“I love this song,” offers the superstar who can go as deep into songs as he goes hard onstage. “There’s a space where you know what to do, but you just can’t quite... and you know. To capture that in a song when you can barely explain how it feels in real life? That’s an incredible thing, so for anyone struggling with moving on, ‘Thinkin’ Bout’ is for you.”
Top tier fan club members and anyone who has already purchased tickets to the Sun Goes Down 2024 Tour received an email with a link to purchase the special BORN Tour Edition with three extra live tracks, as will people buying tickets going forward. For everyone else in No Shoes Nation, your pre-order of the straight-up BORN begins now. It’s been four years, but the next chapter of an ongoing conversation about life, love, fun and the lack thereof arrives March 22.
