Megan Moroney experienced a full-circle moment when she joined Kenny Chesney on tour last summer as part of his headlining 2024 Sun Goes Down Tour. Now, she and the country crooner are gearing up to release a duet called “You Had To Be There.”
Megan Moroney Goes From Kenny Chesney Fan To Tourmate
The unreleased track highlights Moroney’s journey from being a sophomore in college and attending the East Tennessee native’s 2018 concert to sharing the stage with him as an opening act seven years later. Moroney, who has been teasing the collaboration on her social media pages, shared a snippet of the song in April, writing, “’7 years later got a different point of view…’ 💙🏟️🌴 YOU HAD TO BE THERE FT. KENNY CHESNEY OUT, MAY 9TH.”
In a new video ahead of the highly-anticipated release, Moroney and Chesney tease the collaboration again while seated at a giant kitchen table. In the clip, they tell viewers how the collaboration came together and what inspired Moroney to write the track to begin with.
“So we had a trip planned to come down to the island on January 1, 2025, and I knew that I needed to bring Kenny’sChristmas gift with me,” Moroney explained of how she came up with an idea to gift Chesney a song for Christmas as a way to thank him for bringing her out on tour. “I was like, I’m going to have to get really creative here. So we were down at the beach, and I was like, ‘I think today is the day that we try to write the Kenny song.’”
The Pair Shared The Story Behind The Song
During the writing process, Moroney was unsure whether the song was going to be a duet or if she’d capture the story of going out on Chesney’s stadium tour into lyrics. She said she ended up with a tune right in Chesney’s lane but also included him in the second verse.
“It’s just really authentic to the story of what happened,” she said, describing the track and how it embodies the experiences she had, while out on the road with Chesney, who she now calls a friend. “The first verse is me getting ready for the concert in 2018. I was a sophomore in college when I went and saw him in Atlanta. And the second verse comes around and says, seven years later, got a different point of view, which obviously seven years later, I was on tour with Kenny Chesney.”
Megan Moroney Gifted Kenny Chesney The Handwritten Lyrics
Taking her excitement for the forthcoming release even further, Moroney showcased the gifted lyrics that she presented to Chesney in a post on Instagram.
She also captioned the words: “As y’all know, I write about things that are important to me & the sun goes down tour + becoming friends with @kennychesney last summer was undoubtedly a highlight of my career & my life. I wrote out the lyrics & gifted this song to him for Christmas & thankfully, he loved it… so excited for y’all to hear it on Friday 🤠🌴🏟️.”
In fact, Chesney loved “You Had To Be There” so much that he wanted to re-play the track over and over after hearing it for the first time.
“The first time I heard it was right over there at the bar,” Chesney said in the clip, pointing to a location in the room. “And when it was over, I said, ‘Play it again. Play it again.’ …. We played it like eight times in a row, and I couldn’t believe it because it was a true postcard, if you will, of everything we experienced on the road, the ups, the downs, the Miami trip. I mean, all of it.”
“I feel like it captures, especially too, when you come in, you’re giving advice, I feel like we all learn so much from you and your whole crew from being on tour, and that’s why we sat there,” Moroney added, recalling the days of the tour when she and her crew sat side stage to soak in every moment of Chesney’s show. “I would listen to your songs 8 million times every single night if I could. But on top of that, we’re just learning from you guys who have mastered it and trying to soak in every detail we can because y’all have done it the right way, and we just feel grateful to have been there. Yeah. Best summer ever!”
A Full-Circle Moment For Megan And Kenny
Indeed, Moroney will never forget her full-circle moment with Chesney, but the feeling is mutual for him. He says he’s incredibly moved by her thoughtful gesture to write a song for him, saying it’s “a very special thing.”
“To sit down and give me a piece of their heart and a piece of their soul that we in turn together get to give the world. And I think that’s a very special thing,” he shared. “Nobody, as far as I know, nobody has ever written a song for me [and] if that’s true, I’m really glad that ‘You Had to Be There’ was the first one. I absolutely love it. I absolutely love it. It seems authentic for me to sing on it.”
Megan Moroney’s “You Had to Be There” featuring Kenny Chesney is due out on Friday, May 9.
