“Don’t Happen Twice”
Kenny Chesney
Written by Curtis Lance and Thomas McHugh
Radio & Records
#1 (1 week)
June 1, 2001
Billboard
#1 (1 week)
June 9, 2001
His label did a great job with Greatest Hits, positioning Kenny Chesney well for his next act: country superstar who sings about tropical islands.
He was still pretty landbound here though, as “Don’t Happen Twice” captures Kenny Chesney at the moment he was modeling his entire career after Tim McGraw so blatantly it would make Linda Davis blush.
This single is the worst offender of that brief career era, a line by line rewrite of “Something Like That,” a hit that I find overrated to begin with. You can see the songwriters’ stitching everywhere. It feels less like a fully realized song and more like a Songwriting 101 class exercise.
Thankfully, Chesney’s superstardom will be peppered with a few truly great singles, and love ’em or hate ’em, all of the singles after this are going to sound like Kenny Chesney record, as this is his last big hit before he firmly establishes his own identity.
“Don’t Happen Twice” gets a C.
Every No. 1 Single of the 2000s
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There are a handful of massive country stars that I just don’t get the hype and Kenny is one of them. However, he always sings pretty well. I give this a “B-“.
At every stage of Kenny Chesney’s unlikely ascent to superstardom, I scratched my head and wondered what I was missing about this guy. It wasn’t as if there was a lot to hate aside from the occasional cringe novelty song (“She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy”) or complete dud that should never have been allowed to occupy scarce space on the charts (“Keg in the Closet”), but there was little to justify him being a top-tier hitmaker. Even on his better songs, there was an air of familiarity to the storytelling or strict adherence to exhausted formulas done less well than the flagship versions, further beset by mediocre vocals and uninspired beats and melodies. I actually preferred when Chesney leaned into the beach vibe because at least it gave him an identity which I always found lacking in the first half dozen years of his career. And I’ll also compliment his songwriting whenever the subject matter was revisiting home, ironically nailed best on songs that he wrote that were hits for others (“Turning Home” by David Nail, “Half of My Hometown” by Kelsea Ballerini).
Kenny’s big hit in the spring of 2001 represented a perfect example of my confusion about why he was such a big deal. The video featuring Tim McGraw was an interesting anecdote as I’m surprised Tim didn’t strangle him rather than hug him for stealing his hit. I always considered “Something Like That” a textbook study of an uptempo first-time love song executed brilliantly, whereas Kenny’s ripoff was a textbook example of turning something shiny and polished into uninspired wallpaper. “Don’t Happen Twice” had everything “Something Like That” had except for energetic vocals, memorable lyrical touchstones, and an engaging beat. The guitar work during the bridge of “Don’t Happen Twice” was pretty good. I’ll pay it that much of a compliment.
After an extended stretch of solid #1s in a row in early 2001, the streak was bound to end at some point, and it definitely ended here.
Grade: C
“At every stage of Kenny Chesney’s unlikely ascent to superstardom, I scratched my head and wondered what I was missing about this guy.” – To be fair, can’t we say this about a lot of male country singers, not to mention our current President they all seem to love? Anyway, I think it just comes down to mediocre white men loving other mediocre white men.
Contemporary male country singers, at least those who rose to the level of superstardom, fit the profile you’re describing more than they did 25 years ago. Most of the stars back in 2001 impressed me more than Kenny Chesney did. But now, Chesney impresses me more than guys like Aldean and Hubbard.
Hmm…I (mostly) liked Chesney up to and including his Greatest Hits era. Once he went “supernova”, so to speak, I found him less enjoyable; the new template was in place, and he hasn’t
veered much from it since (though I can’t see he hasn’t released ANYTHING I haven’t enjoyed–I didn’t mind There Goes My Life and I liked Out Last Night quite a bit). As for Don’t Happen Twice, I wouldn’t place it fully in the “pass” column, but I preferred his prior single I Lost It far more.
I wish “I Lost it” had gone number one so I could write about the Pam Tillis harmony vocal that does so much of the heavy lifting!
Is there another artist whose Greatest Hits album was their true breakout like Kenny? Obviously he had enough hits from the 90s to warrant a GH package, but this took him to the next level. I wore this album out as a kid – I’m surprised I Lost It didn’t go #1 (it certainly did in my house). While nostalgia clouds my feelings for this song, I think the comparison to Something Like That is correct and not something I would have thought about at the time.
Chesney has a great ear for material. In the earlier phases of his career, he was able to mine sounds and eventually craft an identity that made him into the star, and now hall of famer, that he is. But also evident is that Chesney recorded many songs, hits or not, that were written by excellent songwriters and had greater lyrical depth. This song falls into the former category, but the artistic pivot is a more accurate reflection of him as an artist, and I find that side of Chesney more enjoyable on the whole. But I suppose as a Floridian, I find myself in settings where Chesney is the appropriate music more often than others.
I agree with Bob, I didn’t think this was derivative of “Something Like That”. It has a couple similarities, but none to the point I found it derivative to an “I Still Miss You”/”Every Time I Hear Your Name” level. And I dig the hook. I agree that “I Lost It” and “What I Need to Do” are better songs, and I applauded him for taking a chance on re-releasing “The Tin Man”, but this one just never felt bland or derivative to me.
This is a weird period for Kenny, as he was trying to break free of ’90s formulae but hadn’t yet settled on his beach bum persona yet. I think “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems” is the clear point where his current sound started to take hold.
I feel like I’m way too forgiving on Kenny Chesney at times. The only song of his I actively dislike is “The Boys of Fall”, and he’s had a few I feel are just bland, but this isn’t one of them. It works for me, and I struggle to articulate why.
I have always somewhat liked Kenny Chesney, without being overwhelmed by much of anything he ever recorded. I agree that finding the ‘island vibe’ worked to his advantage as it enabled Kenny to find a formula he could work.
I kind of agree with MarkMinnesota with the quality of 2001 number ones slipping with this selection from Kenny, though I think I’d rate “Don’t Happen Twice” a little higher than a C. I know I don’t usually do grades, but I’d probably give it a B, with the previous Brooks & Dunn song getting a B+. All the other previous 2001 number ones were easily A’s for me.
While I never actually noticed the lyrical theme being similar to “Something Like That” when it was new (though I did notice a similarity in style, sonically), I can definitely see it now. The beat of the song is also similar to McGraw’s “Seventeen” from his A Place In The Sun album, another song about young love. With that said, I don’t mind this one too much at all. Without comparing it to the more popular McGraw hit, I find it to be a fairly solid feel good first love song in its own right. There’s a sort of boyish charm to his voice that helps sell the young love theme for me, and I like how the steel playing from Sonny Garrish balances out the more rock influenced arrangement. And yes, I do admit that it kind of gets bonus points for not including a line as cringe as the “barbeque stain on my white T-shirt” line in the McGraw song. In many ways, this actually felt like the beginning of the “new” Kenny Chesney who would soon be adding more arena rock influences to his sound and start singing more about love as a college or high school aged person as opposed to the more mature, “in the moment” love songs he did previously such as “Me And You,” “When I Close My Eyes,” “All I Need To Know,” “I Will Stand,” “You Had Me From Hello,” “What I Need To Do,” “I Lost It,” etc.
Similar to the previous Brooks & Dunn song, I was pretty much just “meh” on this one throughout its chart run in 2001. It didn’t really move me much one way or another. It did kind of feel like he was taking cues from his buddy Tim McGraw sound wise by adding more rock and pop influences to his sound. Even his stage presence was beginning to look more similar to McGraw’s, which was more evident in the song’s music video, which I remember seeing a lot on GAC. The video also showed me at the time just how thick as thieves he and Tim were as friends, besides them having each other’s back during the then famous “horse incident.” Like many other early 2000s songs I started revisiting by the late 2000s and early 2010s, I began enjoying “Don’t Happen Twice” a lot more by then, and I found myself liking it much better than most of his island/beach flavored songs. I still feel that way now.
Like other commenters, I also really love “I Lost It” and wish that one had gone number one. For a while, Kenny seemed to be on a roll with releasing many beautiful love ballads, and that one was yet another very solid entry, imo. I always have a soft spot for well done “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you” kind of songs, as well. And it was so cool learning from Kevin a while back that Pam Tillis was actually the female harmony singer. I especially love how they sound together during the last “I don’t want to lose it…” at the end before it fades out. The first time I heard “I Lost It” was also the first time I ever saw the music video on GAC around the start of my freshman year in high school in the Fall of 2000, and it was pretty much love at first listen. That was also around the same time I had enjoyed watching the Denzel Washington movie, Fallen, on TV, plus I had started playing this cool 11 level replacement Doom 2 wad called City Of Doom, which featured huge brand new levels set in a city environment. I remember getting excited when hearing “I Lost It” for the first time on the radio while my mom and I were with my dad in his car one afternoon after school in the Fall of 2000. A little while later, I also remember hearing it as we crossed the state line from Maryland to Pennsylvania during one of our trips to York and Lancaster, PA with my step dad. The video still brings back good memories of seeing it that first time, and it’s interesting how it takes place in the islands, despite the song not having much to do with the islands. Guess it shows that his love for that kind of setting was/is genuine. Same with the “How Forever Feels” video.
I also still really love the follow up single to “Don’t Happen Twice,” which was the new re-recorded version of “The Tin Man,” a song that also appeared on his first two albums. Once again, it was love at first listen, and the more traditional style of that song was especially way up my alley then. It always takes me back to when I was just starting my sophomore year in the Fall of 2001. I actually remember hearing on the radio after the September 11 attacks, that the music video for the 2001 version of “The Tin Man” was scheduled to be shot in New York on September 11 in front of the World Trade Center, but the shoot was cancelled the last minute just a few days before. The 2001 version of the song is still my favorite, not only because it was the first one I heard, but also because I love Buddy Cannon and Norro Wilson’s production on it, especially the bigger, heavier sounding drums. I also prefer Kenny’s more mature, smoother vocal on the updated version. It’s a great song either way, though. Wish it was a bigger hit for him!
While I’m not exactly excited about the next phase of Kenny’s career coming up a little later in the decade, there are still a few songs that’ll likely be featured here that I enjoy.
And as it goes with Kenny Chesney, “Boys of Fall” is one on my favourites from him.
It’s such a nothing observation, but I always cared so little what Chesney did or recorded. I questioned his sincerity and commitment to the genre. Despite recording some great songs over his career, he was completely uncompelling to me as an artist and a personality. I was unsure of what he was getting at with his music. I always hoped he would go away until he was filling stadiums, and I realized I was completely out of touch with what the country music audience.
This single does nothing for me. So little, that it barely registers as a memory.