Megan Moroney and Kenny Chesney just announced they have a duet coming.
“You Had to Be There” drops May 9, and Moroney tells Taste of Country Nights host Evan Paul that she was as nervous as she has ever been to ask the superstar if he’d be willing.
In fact, she had to have a few drinks before she could muster the courage to ask Chesney to collaborate.
“There were definitely some pain killers involved — which, pain killers are a St. John’s drink, I’m not talking about taking pain killers,” she says, meaning, no, she didn’t pop a couple of Advil.
“I was planning on showing it to him, like, before we went to dinner, all of us. Once we got there, he’s like, ‘You’re being so weird,'” Moroney recalls Chesney telling her.
So, she spilled the beans: “I was like, ‘Umm, I wrote you a song, here ya go!'”
Moroney says she wrote “You Had to Be There” for Chesney as a thank you for taking her on the road last summer on the Sun Goes Down Tour. The song was her Christmas present to the megastar last year.
Actually going through with the gift took guts, but she’s happy she was brave enough. At the dinner table that night, she told him: “‘Just know that I appreciated you so much for taking me on tour, and that’s what this song means to me.'”
“‘We don’t have to cut it if you hate it,'” Moroney told Chesney. “‘I don’t wanna make you feel weird, I promise.'”
Moroney has become a star on the rise, partially because Chesney amplified her talent on such a large stage in 2024. Now, she’s on her own headlining tour: The Am I Okay? Tour has dates throughout the rest of the year.
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We ranked the Top 25 Kenny Chesney songs using chart data, streaming and airplay numbers and staff/reader opinion. The year listed alongside the title is the year it was released as a radio single. The No. 1 song on this list exemplifies the best of what the Tennessee native is capable of.
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