“There Goes My Life”
Kenny Chesney
Written by Wendell Mobley and Neil Thrasher
Radio & Records
#1 (6 weeks)
December 19, 2003 – January 23, 2004
Billboard
#1 (7 weeks)
December 20, 2003 – January 31, 2004
As we reach the halfway point of the aughts, it’s remarkable to me how the sturdy foundation built by the titans of the later eighties and early nineties still hasn’t collapsed.
A lot of the credit for that goes to the wave of artists that followed those titans. Your Toby Keiths and Faith Hills and Tim McGraws and, yes, your Kenny Chesneys.
I was a fan out of the gate with “Whatever it Takes,” his ill-fated debut single on Capricorn. I kept rooting for him throughout the decade because it felt like he had a really good song sense that helped to compensate for him, not being quite a strong vocalist as the singers he was following.
What that wave of artists was able to do was established a really clear brand that helped balance out the step down in overall talent. Chesney was smart to remember the most important lesson from the 90s. Find good songs that people can relate to, and you’ll transcend boundaries of geography and class and genre. Great music is undeniable.
So it makes sense that at the peak of his popularity, this song would dominate radio so much. Teen parenthood has often been the source of tragedy when covered in country music songs, but it was a growing reality in America at the time that this song was released. For your typical small town southern boy, this was his three chords and the truth.
This song speaks so well to the experience of a young dad who sticks around for his kid, something that more dads his age do these days, a fact often obscured by the focus on marriage and divorce rates. He’s speaking to a generation of young dads here in the wrong language, and it rings with authenticity and sincerity.
If he was a stronger vocalist, this would be a record for the ages. Chesney does best when he works within his limitations, and he struggles with making the melody of the chorus work the way he wants it to. It’s impossible not to think what today’s best vocalists would do with the material, especially Kane Brown and Luke Combs, who love to do songs about fatherhood.
But I think Chesney gets all the credit in the world for having great taste and material and making sure that he always recorded substantive songs that go beyond celebration of the island life. There’s a humanity to his work that I appreciate so much more with time.
Because the bottom did fall out, but he never jumped down into the chasm and started rolling around in the dirt. He just kept recording great songs, and we’ll get to cover a few more of them in this feature that he knocks completely out of the park.
I don’t believe in an A for effort, but this is a gentleman’s B.
“There Goes My Life” gets a B.
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For me, it was back in 1995 when I first saw the video for “The Tin Man” on CMT at my grandma’s. I knew this was a guy worth watching, and I was overjoyed when he re-released that exact song six years later.
I think this song is fantastic, and his vocals don’t degrade it any for me although I can see how one might be wanting in that department. The only song of his where I’ve ever found his voice unpleasant to listen to is “Summertime”, but we’re a few entries away from that one yet.
You could tell he had really found his style at this point, helped a lot by the warmth and energy of Buddy Cannon’s production. It’s easy to see the path between this and his even more emotionally nuanced later cuts like “Better Boat”, or as you pointed out, between this and Kane Brown’s charming sympathetic tales of fatherhood. (“Backseat Driver” was my favorite single of 2025.)