Songoftheday 11/30/21 - One word that's all was said, something in your voice called me caused me to turn my head...

 

 

"You Had Me From Hello" - Kenny Chesney

from the album Everywhere We Go (1999)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #34 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 5

 

Today's song comes from country music singer Kenny Chesney, who finally scored his first top-40 crossover hit on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart in the spring of 1999 with the lead single from his fifth studio album, "How Forever Feels".  The second single from Everywhere We Go was the love ballad "You Had Me From Hello". Written by Chesney with Skip Ewing (an artist in his own right that had four top ten country hits in the late 1980's), the song cribs its title from one of the big catchphrases uttered by Tom Cruise in the 1996 movie Jerry Maguire. It's kind of weird that Cruise was saying these lines in the film to Renee Zellweger, who would (very briefly) become Chesney's wife. At least they didn't go with "Show Me The Money" or "You Complete Me", right? With the standard wedding reception-ready lyrics about finally finding the right one at first sight, it's sung earnestly by Chesney, and the production fit in with the generic pop/country power-ballad mix that made Lonestar a big thing...

"You Had Me From Hello" became Kenny's second crossover top-40 hit in America in September of 1999. The song also topped Billboard's Country Singles chart for a week. Internationally, the single also went to #1 on the Canadian Country chart. 

Chesney's follow-up to this smash was a comic turn on "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy", which surprisingly stopped just short of the country radio top ten at #11, while stalling at #74 on the Hot 100. I think it hurt that it was before iTunes came out, and would've certainly racked up sales as one of his fan favorites. His fourth offering from the album, another ballad with "What I Need To Do", returned Kenny to the country top ten at #8, while peaking at #56 on the Hot 100. Kenny will be back to the series.

(7/10)

Up tomorrow: This R&B singer isn't giving up.