Kenny Chesney Chronicles I: Never Wanted Nothing More

Kenny Chesney disturbs me in a way that I can't quite describe. If pressed to sum up my distate, it would be the concept of a Hat Room. Where George Strait probably has four or five Stetsons that are on pegs in his closet or sitting on his dresser (or so I like to imagine), Kenny seems like someone who has a walk-in closet lair for just his hats. He has a Hat Room.

On the other hand, there are about a half dozen of his songs that I really like. So, I've decided to dissect the lyrics of the ones I really, really detest to find out what it is specifically that I dislike about Kenny Chesney, beginning with his atrocious new single "Never Wanted Nothing More." The song is only about eighteen minutes long, you'd think it was the damn "Ballad of John and Yoko."

"Never Wanted Nothing More" by Kenny Chesney

"I couldn't wait to turn sixteen
And drive all the boys around
Foot on the gas and hands on the wheel
Was all I could think about

A little rust in the bed of that truck
And a four speed on the floor
Five hundred dollars
It was mine all mine
And I never wanted nothing more"

Much like Tom Cruise, Kenny's always good for at least one fairly homoerotic undertone; in this case it's "drive all the boys around." This straddles the line (...like one does) between motherly school bus driver and sexual predator. What boy wants to drive for the sole reason of carting his other male friends around?

Although, I'm sure most girls would be a little wary jumping into a $500 death trap driven by somebody with a Hat Room who thinks double negatives are acceptable. The never/nothing phrasing is so gratuitous, though. It screams "HA! I'm STILL Country, you bastards! I will demonstrate by using UNNECESSARILY POOR GRAMMAR. Country music is mine, all mine!"

"I took Katie down by the river
With a six dollar bottle of wine
Just a fool tryin to play it cool
Hopin' she'd let me cross the line

And I was prayin' that she couldn't tell
I'd never been that far before
The first time's a one time feeling
And I never wanted nothing more
No, I never wanted nothing more"

Enter "The Lady." There's always a girl and she always has some Irish-Catholic name (Mary, anybody?), or else she's almost frighteningly bland (the girl who thinks tractors are sexy and dreams of yards full of children and probably pastures full of grandchildren), possibly both. Frankly, I'm shocked she even let him get near the line after a $6 bottle of wine and a $500 truck ride to the river. Kenny did, however, take the time to pray to our Lord before engaging in premarital sex after getting a girl drunk for the occasion. I'm sure God was thrilled.

"Well, I'm what I am and I'm what I'm not
And I'm sure happy with what I've got
I live and love and laugh a lot
And that's all I need" [Chorus]

Kenny is both what he is and what he isn't. That might confuse you, but once in practice it makes much more sense. For example, he's both not-gay and gay.

"My buddies all tried to change my mind
But I told them that I thought it through
Well Katie laughed and my momma cried
When they heard me say I do"

I hope, for Katie's sake, that these are not the same buddies that Kenny was driving around, but it would explain a lot. I could also see "laughter" and "tears" as appropriate responses to Kenny Chesney getting married. Surely, Renee Zellweger's family both laughed and cried the day they got married, probably more of the latter.

"Her little ring was a little thing
But it was all that I could afford
Now she's mine, all mine
Till the day I die
And I never wanted nothing more
No, I never wanted nothing more"

There's something unnerving about "she's mine, all mine." It sounds a lot like something the Wicked Witch of the West screams before tossing Dorothy down some steps, to be quite honest. Notably, Kenny also refers to his truck as "mine, all mine," which may mean that Katie, too, is cheap and rusty. The phrase also evokes the image of poor Katie, trapped in Kenny's Hat Room with her little ring. While there, of course, she too can reflect on the gratuitous use of double negative until the day that Kenny dies. Presumably, she will endure the rest of her time on earth by contemplating the wonderous moment in which she too is dead.

[Chorus]

"One Sunday I listened to the preacher
And I knew he was preaching to me
I couldn't help it I walked up front
and I got down on my knee

Right then and there I swear
I changed when I found the Lord
Glory Hallelujah Good God Almighty
I never wanted nothing more
No, I never wanted nothing more"

Ah. Here comes the third portion of the song, the part when the clever (or horrendously worded, in this case) phrase is shifted towards the spiritual. It certainly isn't the first time this theme has been employed. I don't particularly take offense with it until "Glory Hallelujah Good God Almighty." It's like this strange tic of words somebody just blindly picked out of a hymnal. It's not a sentence, or a cohesive thought! It's just random words! But then, as Kenny, is sure to remind us, sentence structure is not his strongest skill.

[Chorus]

"I never wanted nothing more
and I never wanted nothing more"

GODDAMNIT, KENNY. LEARN TO SPEAK ENGLISH.