“It’s not that it’s gone… it’s that it happened.”
It’s 2021, and Kenny Chesney continues to prove that he can keep up with the times as he gears up to release yet another single.
The eight-time entertainer of the year has rocked the country charts since his first No. 1 single, “She’s Got It All” in 1997, and now 24 years later, his song “Knowing You” from his 2020 album Here And Now is officially ready to hit country music radio.
Written by longtime Chesney collaborator Brett James, along with Adam James, and Kat Higgins, “Knowing You,” is a “classic country waltz” that celebrates the life of special individuals in your own life who have passed away, or moved on to another stage in theirs
As Kenny Chesney explains:
“We all have those people in our lives who set you on fire with possibilities, make everything mean more in the moment and forever after that. It’s so technicolor and alive, you may not even realize you were in it. But when it’s done, you have to smile because you’re so much more for knowing them, so much more for because of everything you shared.
Maybe they left you to chase a dream, maybe circumstances pulled you apart, maybe they died, but wherever they are, you know they’re bringing all that to that place… because that’s what they do. It’s what they did for you, and you can only be grateful for what you experienced.”
The song itself brings back the original sounds from some of his early 2000’s hits, with songwriting that incorporates flashes of his love song “You Save Me,” the timeline aspect of songs like “There Goes My Life,” and the nostalgic setting of “Anything But Mine.”
“But God, we were so alive
I was a kid on a carnival ride
Holdin’ my breath ‘til the moment
When you were gonna leave me too soon
But I’d do it all over
‘Cause damn, it was good knowin’ you.”
And Chesney agrees. For him “Knowing You” feels like coming home:
“It sounds like coming home in a lot of ways. This is the essence of all the music that country is. When you hear this, something inside tingles, because it’s more than production tricks, the guitars, or how hard the drums hit, it’s just so pure. Country at its very best is true, it’s from the heart. ‘Knowing You’ is just that, it’s all heart.
With that tempo (and the way the guys played it) there is so much room for the memories, the feelings, the details of not what just happened, but how you were changed in such powerful ways. To have a song that leaves so much room for dreaming, for remembering? That amazed me, and it seems so important right now.”
“Knowing You” officially hits country radio today, February 22nd.
