164.
Artist: Kenny Chesney
Album: Greatest Hits II
Wow. There was a time in my life, albeit brief, that I listened to Kenny Chesney pretty much nonstop. It all started with a Tim McGraw CD, but Kenny became my go to guy for country hits.
Several of the songs on this album take me back to specific instances, but the song with the most attachment for me is When The Sun Goes Down. My initial memory of this song is that of singing it to a kid we worked with all of the time just to annoy him. This poor kid, named Justin, worked with us for a while and for some reason became the butt of every joke that happened during the course of a night at Wawa. One night, Justin told us all how much he hated Kenny Chesney and country music in general, and that was all the fuel that the fire needed to just go at him relentlessly. Of course, we all immediately started singing the song, and that continued on for the rest of the 8 hour shift. The next night that we worked with him, he made it seem like he was over the whole “hating Kenny Chesney” thing, so it kind of dropped off, until he accidentally made a comment to me about it.
Now, generally speaking I try to be a nice person, and to do the right thing. I have been the butt of many jokes in my lifetime and I know how that feels, and I know that I didn’t like it, so I try to not be too harsh on anyone without just cause. For some reason, though, during this span of my lifetime, I felt the need to be an asshole all of the time. (Actually, I know the reason. Hanging with assholes will turn you into one, too, if you aren’t careful.) Anyway, as soon as he bought it up again, I decided that was the appropriate time to change my ringtone from whatever song it was at the time to When The Sun Goes Down. We then spent most of the next few days texting and calling my phone to make the song go off, that is, when others weren’t helping the cause unknowingly.
Later that Spring, I attended my first ever Bonnaroo, and still hadn’t changed my ring tone, and I remember being in the middle of a texting conversation and Sandy finally freaking out and telling me that I needed to change my ring tone or put my phone on vibrate because she was ready to smash it. Hahaha. She spent that whole trip making fun of my love for country music as well as Brand New. Guess who listens to country music now?
My other memory of that song still cracks me up to this day, and now that I think about it, I don’t know how funny this will be if you don’t know my sister, but I’m going to tell it anyway because my blog, my rules.
My sister, her bff Kristin and I all went to see Kenny Chesney, Sugarland and someone else who I can’t think of right now during the same summer as all that fun that I just told you about. It is entirely possible that some tailgating may have occurred, and that certain members of our party were completely trashed by the time Kenny actually took the stage. The show goes on, Kenny and the band play all of the latest and greatest, and everyone has a fantastic time. Towards the end of the set, the opening chords of When The Sun Goes Down ring out, and everyone gets all excited, of course. Between screams, my sister turns to Kristin and I and says “imagine if Uncle Kracker came out right now” and we laughed it off, but then mere seconds later who should take the stage but Uncle Kracker himself. I don’t even know if my sister heard the rest of the song because she just kept yelling “it’s Uncle *effing* Kracker!” Sometimes when we are together and that song comes on, I like to yell “it’s Uncle *effing* Kracker” at her, just for fun.
I guess I retained some of those asshole qualities.
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