3 Kenny Chesney Songs That Hit Harder When You Know Their Backstories

While Kenny Chesney has been known to sing some pretty awesome party anthems, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have some tear-jerkers as well. Here are a few Chesney songs that hit, especially once you know their backstories.

“Happy On The Hey Now (A Song For Kristi)” 

Chesney wrote this song as a tribute to his friend Kristy Hansen, who passed away at just 35 years old. The “Hey Now” is a reference to Chesney’s boat of the same name. 

Chesney and Hansen were both part of a group of friends Chesney would hang out with in the Virgin Islands. Hansen’s death was the first loss in that group, which, as Chesney told Billboard, “makes you pause.” 

Chesney also said of Hansen, “Some people are really good at math, good at school. Some have a great business mind, some are great at sports. Kristi was good at life, and that’s what this song is all about.”

“There Goes My Life” 

Written by Wendell Mobley and Neil Thrasher and cut by Kenny Chesney for his album When The Sun Goes Down, this song chronicles the life of a teen dad who initially feels like his freedom is being taken away when his girlfriend gets pregnant. At the end of the song, however, the title’s meaning changes as he watches his daughter leave for college.

This song was actually inspired by something one of the writers, Mobley, went through. The songwriter became a father when he was pretty young, similar to the character in the song, but lost the baby at just 8 months old. On what would have been the child’s 18th birthday, he had the idea for this song.

“The Good Stuff”

“The Good Stuff” is a pretty sad song, but if you know the inspiration behind it, it’s bound to make you even more emotional than it already does. Craig Wiseman and Jim Collins co-wrote this one.

“The security guard where we were writing that day, Rusty Martin, was a friend of ours. He had lost his wife to cancer. In fact, he had moved up [to Nashville] because of that,” Wiseman explained to The Boot. “Jim and I were just about to write another song. We were talking about, what if you just sat there and watched your wife die. We both just sat there and were sort of stunned for a minute. We said, ‘OK, let’s get a cup of coffee and write a song!’”

Photo by: Frank Micelotta/The Walt Disney Company via Getty Images

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