Grat Track Drops Tonight at 11 p.m. CT / Midnight ET as the Polemic to “Thinkin' Bout”
Kenny Chesney knows everybody has had that one person who triggers a “Thinkin' Bout” situation; it’s why he wanted it as the third grat track from BORN, his first new music in four years. Already cited as one of Spring’s most anticipated albums in any genre by Esquire and one of Holler’s “Country Albums to Look Forward To,” the 15-track project reflects the myriad facets of the East Tennessee songwriter/superstar’s enduring appeal.
Beyond the swirling tension that makes “Thinkin’ Bout” so deadly accurate about the tangled emotions that make letting go so complicated, there is the notion of how people tumble into things to begin with. And then, beyond both realities is the space where the theoretic hunter is happy and game to the “the game.”
The hands-in-the-pocket ambling ramble, co-written with longtime collaborators Ross Copperman, Shane McAnally and Josh Osborne, sweeps through a series of professions that make it easy to be the number dialed when the girl is bored, has had a few or just “got a mistake you wanna make again.” No expectations, no reason to make it more than killing time and having fun, “Guilty Pleasure” offers a no-strings-attached liaison that’s easy come, easy go.
“I have absolutely never heard a song like this... ever,” Chesney says, “and I’ve heard a lot of songs! It’s such an unusual, fresh way to come at something you think you know and have heard everything all about. And then something falls out in a writing session, everyone looks at each other – and you all say, ‘OH! We’re writing that.’”
With a feel-good groove, a change-up rhythm that stops and starts like window shopping and a vocal that works the lower part of Chesney’s register, it’s pure pleasure. Line after line, reality check after expectation rejection, “Guilty Pleasure” creates a zone of reality free convergence with an amour who offers, “If you ain’t found the one yet, I can keep being the one between the guy of your dreams and some guy in a bar/ I’m a secret you keep, yeah, I know what we are...”
“To me, that outro... “A little guilty pleasure never hurt nobody, no, no...” is pretty true. There are plenty of nice girls out there who haven’t met the one. The guy in this song gets that, understands that before that guy shows up, he can be a good time and fill the void until he does. No trouble, no drama, just whatever it is, whenever it is, all good.”
The tropical steel guitar-soaked “Guilty Pleasure” joins the moody “Thinkin’ Bout,” the seize-life-by-the-moment “Just To Say We Did” and the major life turns in three verses “Take Her Home,” currently climbing the country charts, to provide a sense of all that BORN, arriving March 22, contains. All the moods, all the styles, all the embracing life to its fullest and most engaged right where you are.
With his Sun Goes Down 2024 Tour kicking off at Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium on April 20, the BORN Tour Edition is also available for pre-order through a link provided via email to ticket buyers and top-tier fan club members. Containing three live tracks, it adds the pulse of No Shoes Nation to a collection of songs designed to offer a look at shrugging off the things that pull you down and celebrating the euphoria of being in the moment with people you connect with.
