Songoftheday 4/17/24 - I've been up to my neck working six days a week, wearing holes in the soles of the shoes on my feet...

 

 

"No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems" - Kenny Chesney

from the album No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems (2002)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #28 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 8

Today's song comes from Kenny Chesney, who had settled in on a younger version of a beach bum persona that Jimmy Buffett perfected on his No Shoes No Shirt No Problems album, which had already spun off three big country hits that made the top-40 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 with "Young", "The Good Stuff", and "Big Star". A fourth, "A Lot Of Things Different", went top ten on country radio and #55 on the Hot 100, while album cut "Live Those Songs" got enough unsolicited airplay to pop on to Billboard's Country Songs chart for a week at #60. 

The fifth and final single from the record was the title cut "No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems". Written by Casey Beathard, the song is just as straightforward as the title taken from a slogan from a plaque sold at your local Marshall's. Putting himself in the place of an overworked man who is finally getting away from it all (or at least dreams about it), the lyrics are at least a different kind of branding than the redneck style pervading the genre at the time. The production from Kenny along with Norro Wilson and Buddy Cannon is serene enough to lull you into a nap at the beach and it's nice to see the violins and Caribbean rhythm instruments mingle before it kicks it up into a western swing style. With a music video that seems like an advert for an all-inclusive resort, Kenny found himself deep in his niche...

"No Shoes" became the fourth top-40 hit from the album on Billboard's Hot 100 in August of 2003. The song spent five weeks at #2 on the Country Songs airplay chart, kept from the top by the even more beach friendly "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere" by Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffett.

Kenny will be back to the series.

(6/10)

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

Here's Kenny performing the song in concert...

Up tomorrow: this singer/songwriter has the cure for what ails ya.