Back before Chris Stapleton became a household name in 2015, (it should’ve happened much sooner but that’s a story for a different time), he was writing hits, lots of ’em. One of those was Kenny Chesney’s “Never Wanted Nothing More,” which he co-wrote with Ronnie Bowman.
Released as the lead single from Chesney’s 2007 Just Who I Am: Poets & Pirates album, it’s one of the more iconic tracks in all of Chesney’s repertoire. It’s also the fastest charting song of his career, hitting #1 on the Billboard Country charts in just 8 weeks.
To this day, one of my all-time favorite Kenny songs, but back in 2012, Stapleton performed an acoustic version of the song which will immediate have you wondering if Chris should get in the studio and just record all these big hits he wrote.
Even stripped down to just an acoustic guitar, Chris’s voice really brings something special to the song. An instant mood booster, this song will forever be a big ol’ middle finger to your bad day. Put a little pep in that step… you know what I mean?
And for Chris, the song put more than a little pep in his step, and some cash in his pocket… it bought him a house. He explains that they sat down to intentionally try and write a radio hit, and Chris has even admitted in the past that it almost never works quite that way. I mean, if you could just sit down and write a certified #1 every time you tried, everyone would do it, right? But this time… it did:
“This is a song I wrote with a good friend of named Ronnie Bowman, it’s actually the first song we ever wrote. We sat down and said, ‘Hey why don’t we write a song that’s like a hit’ and what do you know, we did it.
And then this happened… bought me a house, thanks Kenny Chesney.”
Grab a beer and enjoy.
And of course, the studio version from Kenny Chesney:
