Kenny chesney

I can't believe that I get to stand on the stages I stand on every summer, and get to sing the songs that I sing.

First and foremost, I consider myself a songwriter.

I love you baby goodnight. There goes my life

I live to love and laugh a lot and that's all I need

had no excuses for the things that we'd done, we were brave, we crazy, we were mostly young.

There's this idea that somebody's job could be more important than somebody else's, and to me, that's not true.

Before, I was more concerned with getting on the radio, like many young artists.

Music's supposed to come from the heart. I felt like that if it ever got mechanical, I was going to back away from it.

What good is it if a guy can sing real good but he sits on his ass and doesn't make anybody feel anything? I can connect with an audience every time I play. When I sing, they listen.

I love the fact that I can go out there on stage with a guitar and sing a song that means something to somebody.

We call it drunk philosophy. You have a few beers and you become a lot smarter.

Everything gets hotter when the sun goes down.

It's very hard for me to relax.

I'm a loving drunk. I get sentimental. "I love you guys." I drunk-dial a lot.

No one can make me cry Make me laugh Make me smile Or drive me mad like she does

Live a little, love a lot.

I don't really lose my temper that much, but when somebody mistreats my guys, I just go crazy.

Its five o'clock some where

I want to spend more time with my family.

My fans get enough politics on TV every day. I want them to think for themselves. I don't want them to listen to me.

One of these days we're gonna have to grow up, have to get real jobs and be adults, someday, just not today.

I'm like a shark. I've got to be constantly moving.

I didn't have any clue as to what true marriage meant. I was so used to committing to one thing - music - and then I had to totally commit to a second thing, marriage. I didn't know how to commit to both of them. It was a scary moment for me.

There were [in 21] all those times in my life that I didn't know this was going to happen. I didn't know if anybody was going to care about our music.

I've been in the music business for 15 years. I've seen it all, man. I've just always been scared of coke. When I was on the road and saw some people do it, I was afraid I would really like it. I was afraid of the consequences.

I need to recharge creatively, and get off the clock of having to be somewhere just because, and having to keep juggling all these things.

I'm proud of the fact that I'm at a point in my career that if I want to take a little bit of a left turn and make an album that is more hushed, more acoustic and more personal, that I can do it.

Don't blink. You just might miss your babies growing like mine did. Turning into moms and dads next thing you know your 'better half' Of fifty years is there in bed. And you're praying God takes you instead. Trust me friend a hundred years goes faster than you think So don't blink.

There's something to be said for useless days. You know, those days when you have nothing to do and all day to do it ... Trust me, a beach and a bottomless drink may not cure the world's problems but it can really get your head in the right place. Those are my favorite kind of days.

An important mentor for me, in terms of teaching me that there's a right way and a wrong way to do things, was probably my football coach. And playing football was one of the first times in my life that I realized nothing is given to you. You have to work really hard.

If I'm 40 years old and wearing a 30 waist, that's pretty good.

One word, that's all you said and something in your voice caused me to turn my head. Your smile just captured me.

I took a complete year off the road, but a big part of that year was making 'The Big Revival.' I needed that down time just so I could concentrate. The one thing that starts it all for us is the music. That's what you create in the studio. That's where the magic happens.

I think it is possible to be friends with employees, but there has to be a respect level where you're not taken advantage of, either.

My mind is constantly going. For me to completely relax, I gotta get rid of my cell phone.

I think there is a part of life that I'm missing.

My elementary school is still there [in Luttrell, Tennessee]. I drop by my high school. It's a small community. I say this every night before I do the song 'The Boys of Fall' in the show - I'm really happy about where I grew up and how I grew up.

Being famous is uncomfortable because I grew up very simply. Everything revolved around friends, family, church and sports.

Just because I don't sing about the normal country themes doesn't mean my songs aren't country. I'd rather sing about having fun.

So yeah, it's nothing that I'm doing on purpose, I just think that the more records, the more songs that I write, the more records that I make, you're obviously going to fall into a specific style and thank God it's a style that people are into.

I was definitely born a dreamer. I could never sit still, and I can't now.

The title [of the album 'The Big Revival']alone fit what I was feeling. It defined what I was going through. That year off was a time to revive, to reset, to reclaim, to revitalize and to re-focus. It was a revival of how I made music, how I presented it and my connection with the fans.

Music's my medication.

There were years of that stuff that will never leave me. Never. When the bus turned a million miles - that's a lot of traveling. It's really cool to think about. I'm blessed to have traveled a million miles on a tour bus.

Certain nights, when everything's perfect and we have thousands of people partying their asses off, I break my rule and have a drink onstage. I've never done a show drunk. Well, I take that back. In the early days I did.

it's a smile, it's a kiss, it's a sip of wine ... it's summertime!

I've been focused for a long time. I've given my life to do music. I've sacrificed everything.

Southern girls are God's gift to the entire male population. There is absolutely no woman finer than one raised below the mason-dixon line and once you go southern may the good Lord help you - you never go back

I think people need to live their lives the way they want to, but I'm pretty confident in the fact that I love girls. I've got a long line of girls who could testify that I am not gay.

Every Christmas my hometown radio station would always play 'Christmas In Dixie' by Alabama. I always remember lovin' that song.

I'm uncomfortable with being famous. I hate it. But I love making music. I love getting paid to do it, and I love getting on my boat after I get paid to do it.

I drink a few beers, and I've smoked a little pot. But I'm too health conscious to do it regularly. I run a lot. I don't smoke cigarettes. Pot is the hardest thing I've tried, really.

He had a voice that was the truth, raw and unfiltered. You can't get any realer, any more tortured or any more alive. No one can do what George Jones does, and that's why 50 years later, he still stands out as one of the greatest singers in any genre of all time.

When I try to brush the road dust off of me and untangle all the wires in my head, I'm usually surrounded by music on a boat. But that's not how I wake up every day.

It's tough enough to have a relationship, and it hurts enough to have it not work.

I hate my smile. I always have, even in my school pictures when I was a little kid.

My mom and my real father divorced before I was one. My mom and my stepfather divorced when I was in high school. Then she fell in love with a guy, and the guy died. That was a rough time. She has handled adversity well. That's where I got my work ethic. So my mother's where I got my love of music, but my father's where I got my athletic ability. And my hair loss. And my love of women.

Ive always been drawn to the ocean.

I'm all right. I'm good. There has been better times, but I'll be okay.

I don't really drink before a show. That's my only drinking rule. Especially with today's cell-phone cameras, there's no win to it.

I was on one bus with my band and crew for seven years. I didn't come to town with a karaoke tape. I didn't get on a TV show. There were no shortcuts. Anybody who wants to follow my model is welcome to it. You don't want to follow my path.

the more you live the more things reflect all around you!!!!

Early on I was just a kid in a cowboy hat with a bunch of other guys in a room that were putting out some records. Now thank God, in the past 3 or 4 years, when.. it's really hard to burn an image of a face with a song these days. I think that the songs like 'Don't Happen Twice' and 'Young' were songs that helped me do that and I think that 'I Go Back'(did) that even more.

I needed to be pushed as an artist and as a person.

It's funny to see my friends going through that middle-age thing about losing their hair. I went through it in college. They all say, "Oh my God, I'm getting old. I'm never getting laid again." Shut up. Yes, you are.

I have 120 employees on the road every day, and about 30 other employees off the road.

People who can't kiss had everything given to them.

What you see is kinda what you get with me. I'm a very real person, or I hope to be, anyway. I don't have nothing to hide

Keg in the closet pizza on the floor left over from the night before, where we were going we didn't really care. We had all we ever wanted in that keg in the closet.

When I'm onstage I feel changed.

I have friends who have a normal family, kids and a dog, and I think I would blow my brains out. It's fine for them. But I'm such a free spirit, I feel more alive when I've got somewhere to go.

When I started playing music at East Tennessee State University I would sit on a stool with a tip jar in front of me and play four hours a night at a college bar called Quarterback's Barbecue. I wasn't thinking about doing it for a living. I was just making enough money to go to Taco Bell every day. People were eating chips, drinking beer and not listening to me. I'd had three or four years of people ignoring me, and I'd kind of gotten used to it.

I realized that I wanted to get better in every way. As a person, as a friend, as a songwriter, as a musician, as an artist, record producer, you name it.

Actually, I wouldn't know what to do now if I had hair. I'm pretty comfortable being bald. It doesn't bother me. I've never had one girl tell me she didn't want to have sex with me because I didn't have any hair.

In 21 years there are a lot of ups and downs. There are melancholy times. There are sad times. There are happy times. There are unsure times. There are life lessons.

I felt as a human being I needed to take a pause and reflect on a lot of stuff that's happened. That was really good for me. And to get some of the ringing out of my years from all the amps on stage.

There's this emotion we all feel of being overwhelmed at times, feeling that you can't get ahead. For me it's self-imposed because I'm so driven and I'm always going from project to project.

I live on a boat two months out of the year, and if I did not have that then I don't know how I'd be able to handle all this.... I am a very intense person on stage. I have to remember why I am there, what I am doing. You can spend all day backstage preparing for the show and lose sight of why you are doing this. Off stage, I am a very simple kind of guy. I live my life in flip-flops.

Nothing positive at all in my life came from my marriage, I can tell you that.

I don't think I ever feel sexy. I don't think that's for me to decide, if I'm sexy or not.

There are only so many hours you can sit on the bus and watch TV or play basketball or whatever we do to pass the time before we go out onstage.

I love living my life in flip-flops. I met a guy in the islands a while ago who told me he hadn't worn a pair of shoes in three years! I thought, 'Man, that's the life!'

You'd think I'd have been happiest in my life playing music in front of 50,000 people at Gillette Stadium. But let me tell you, it's an odd feeling to feel alone in the spotlight.

Growing up too fast and I do recall, Wishin' time would stop right in it's tracks.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm a helluva kisser.

Don't that make you wanna fall in love Don't that look like a picture of us A match made in heaven if there ever was Don't that make you wanna fall That just makes me wanna give you my heart Ever forever needs a place to start Gotta be a sign from up above Don't that make you wanna fall in love

It sounds like a cliche, but it... you do sing about what you know about. And I grew up in a small town, and I grew up in a place where your whole world revolved around friends, family, school, and church, and sports.

I learned from my mom that you should always try to enjoy life, no matter what.

Now I'm a symbol of what to be and how hard to work. I have heads of major labels say, "I wish you could teach our artists how to do it." At one point I was the punching bag of what not to be, and now I'm the model of what to be.

When I'm offstage, I never feel famous. I will never let anybody call a restaurant and say, "We're with Kenny Chesney. Can you get us in?" That's so pretentious. I'm pretty simple except for the fact that I have a really great boat and a little bit of money. When I'm offstage I don't feel like the person everybody sees.

Record labels today are much less patient: Artists have a bad record, and they're gone.

I truly believe that music is the most powerful thing we have.

I wasn't a great student, C average. I was pretty shy, but I drank a lot of beer.

I hate album covers where people are just smiling so big. It's like a neon sign that says PLEASE COME BUY ME.

The thing that I love, especially after sound check, is when I'm in that stadium alone. It's complete silence. I love that.

[Music] is the one thing that connects the dots in all kinds of ways. No matter how you were brought up, no matter what your religious background or political beliefs, people still love to sing along with somebody.

Me and my band and crew have always lived by the code: 'Work hard, play harder.'

I had a notepad and I wrote down 30 things to make myself better just off the top of my head, and the next day I started to do that.

As a songwriter, you're never off - for me, anyway. There's a certain mentality of people that decide, "Oh, we're going to try to write songs from this time of the day to this time of the day." Almost treat it like a real job. I can't do that. I've never been able to write songs like that. You never know when something creative is going to hit you, or emotion or whatever. You can take it, and turn it into something that makes somebody feel something. I love that about my job.

I'm dating a girl who's pretty levelheaded. She's a nurse. She's a real, normal girl. Which is what I need because my life isn't normal.

Her little ring is a little thing, but its all I could afford Now she's mine, all mine till the day I die, and I never wanted nothin' more

I do sing about drinking, but it's in a party way. I don't sing about drinking in a drowning-my-sorrows way, like in George Jones's "If Drinking Don't Kill Me (Her Memory Will)."

Football taught me how hard you had to work to achieve something.

I can stay on my boat for a few weeks if I have a guitar and a girl and a Bob Marley CD. After that, I've got to move around.

Social topics may hit too close to home for people, but then again, if you pull a heartstring, then that's what country music is. It's not just songs about getting drunk and leaving your girl.

The beauty is that it's all a part of this wonderful dream I had in college. It's beautiful to see what it's turned into. It's the journey that I'm most proud of.

I can say that I don't see myself with the foot on the gas pedal as hard as it's been down for 16 years.

My life can be insanely complicated sometimes, and there's a certain simplicity that I crave.

When I'm a ship tossed around on the waves, Up on a highwire that's ready to break. When I've had just about all I can take, baby you save me

One thing that I learned that helped me deal with human behavior is confrontation, and I'm not that great with confrontation at all. But once I started to be O.K. with that, the better everybody's life got.

I didn't need more fame or money. I needed more heart.

I love being able to say a quick thanks to the man above for the music and the fact that we're even in this spot. If you'd told me this in college when I was sitting on a stool and playing for enchiladas and tips, I'd have bet everything against it.

In 1994 I bought my first tour bus. I still own it and believe it or not it's still out on the road on my tour.

I feel that energy up there on stage. The band, the crew and our road family - the look in their eyes - they're so happy to be back doing what we love to do.

I'm very liberal in some ways, and then I'm very conservative in others. I once asked my grandpa, "Are you a Republican or a Democrat?" He said, "I'm a Democrat, but I'm saving up to be a Republican."

I can't see going onstage wearing a long-sleeve shirt in the dead of summer. I work out hard during the day with a trainer who monitors everything I put in my mouth when I'm on tour. When I first got a record deal, you can tell by my early album covers that working out wasn't that much a part of my life.

I think that in the last four or five years I've constantly struggled with the balance in my life.

I meet a lot of characters in the islands, people who're running -- who're happier on a fishing boat than they are back home.When I first got down there,I don't know if I was running from a real bad heartbreak or running to something I thought would make me feel better.But since I've been spending time in the Caribbean, I've come to realize that I've got nothing to run from.

I'm what I am and I'm what I'm not. And I'm sure happy with what I've got. I live to love and laugh a lot. And that's all I need.

On the road, in my bunk, I sleep better than I do anywhere else in the world.

We leaned on family, church, school, friends and sports. That's basically all we had. All those things really shaped my life and shaped me musically. It's why I write the way I do.

I'm glad I took that time to work really hard on the music. I feel the effects of that now in a positive way with my connection with the audience.

I want there to be a level of respect between everybody.

My mother is a very fun-loving person. She has been through a lot in her life. She has had a couple of divorces. When I was in high school she was a single mother. That's when I learned to do my own laundry.

It was satisfying to take a risk and see it pay off.