KENNY CHESNEY - Thinkin' Bout - Blue Chair Records/Warner Music Nashville

As the lead single “Take Her Home” continues to impact country radio, and “Just To Say We Did” engages anticipation for his upcoming album BORN (due out March 22, 2024), country music megastar Kenny Chesney now further teases things to come with the release of “Thinkin’ Bout.”

The song, written by Kyle Fishman & Tucker Beathard, grips the distinctively signature aura of the moodier branded songs that line his past catalog, wrapping its instrumentation into the familiarity of his voice as he balances a somber tone against the heartbreak that he’s brought on himself through the unsatisfying, temporary fix of an on again off again.

Taking us straight into that complicated feeling of when you know it’s wrong for you and you should let go, but can’t seem to do anything more than to keep coming back to it, we find Kenny lamenting through his fractured heart after their latest heated escapade in the sheets, facing hard truths by accepting that he’s “fallin’ in just to fall apart,” “Don't know how not to just yet, just know I need to quit,” etc.

Weighted by the gravity of the situation, the tilts of despair in his voice carry in ways that allow you to feel the pain induced war waging within himself as he matches the pacing of the instrumentation into the chorus, bringing us inside his thoughts as he tells himself that it might be time to start changing his mind about them, that he needs spend some time trying to figure out how to move on:

“Thinkin' 'bout not thinkin' 'bout you

Tryin' to make last night the last timer

Instead of doin' what we always do

Oh, it ain't good we can't say, ‘Goodbye’

Easy come, easy go ain't how it goes down

Keeps me doin' what I'm doin' right now

Thinkin' 'bout not thinkin' 'bout you

Thinkin' 'bout not thinkin' 'bout you”

Though familiar in sonic sound to what we’ve come to expect from Kenny Chesney through previous efforts such as “You & Tequila” or “Better As A Memory,” his consistent ability in finding songs that examine common emotions and then delivering them with proper conviction of maturity is what always keeps the listener drawn in.

“Thinkin’ Bout” is simply the next layer to a resume of songs that continues to add definition to his unmatched ability to walk the line of his signature feels alongside the riskiness of discovering fresh ways within them to try something a different, amping anticipation that much further for when the album drops next month. 

(Review Written By: Jeffrey Kurtis)

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