‘Shot a Car Into Space’ by Kenny Chesney - Lyrics & Meaning

‘Shot A Car Into Space’ takes a completely different turn from some of the more emotional songs on Kenny Chesney's Silver Sands Marina, looking instead at money, what happens when people suddenly have a lot of it and the fairly ridiculous things we can convince ourselves we need once enough stops feeling like enough.

The title appears to be a not-so-subtle nod to Elon Musk sending his Tesla Roadster into space aboard a SpaceX rocket in 2018. From there, Chesney moves through a series of increasingly extravagant examples of what people do with their money, before eventually revealing just how little he thinks he needs himself.

‘Shot A Car Into Space’ keeps things light, setting all that social commentary against a traditional country shuffle that stops the song ever feeling like a lecture about money.

There's an almost mischievous quality to the arrangement, with Chesney sounding more entertained by the absurdity of it all than angry about it. The rhythm bounces along underneath him as each example becomes slightly more ridiculous than the last, giving the song the feel of somebody sitting around pointing out the strange things people do once money enters the equation.

That lightness is important. Chesney isn't delivering some grand anti-wealth statement, and the song never sounds judgemental enough to spoil the joke. Instead, the easy country groove lets the punchlines do most of the work, right through to Chesney deciding that half an acre, a working truck, cable TV and a good dog will do him just fine.

For a song called ‘Shot A Car Into Space’, it isn't really about Elon Musk at all.

It's about our relationship with money, and how quickly having more can turn into needing more. Every verse introduces somebody with wealth, or at least the appearance of it: a billionaire capable of sending a car into space, a mysterious man with an enormous house and a hairdresser who wins the Powerball only to burn through the money and end up back where she started.

“Blue collar, white collar
Don't make a difference to a green dollar”

It might be the whole song summed up in two lines.

Money doesn't care where you came from, and having lots of it doesn't necessarily mean you'll know what to do with it. In fact, Chesney's chorus suggests the cycle works in precisely the opposite direction:

“The more ya got, the more ya spend
Then you gotta get it all over again”

There's something clever about the way the examples keep getting bigger too. We move from an expensive stunt to a huge house, through a lottery fortune and eventually arrive at somebody buying an entire island in the middle of the sea.

That's where Kenny taps out.

“Half an acre and a good dog is plenty 'nough for me”

It's the simplest thing anybody says in the song, but also its answer to everything that came before it. While everybody else keeps finding increasingly extravagant ways to spend what they have, Chesney measures wealth differently: a little land, a truck that runs, something to watch on TV and a dog.

So it turns out Kenny Chesney probably could find a billion ways to spend a billion dollars. Shooting a car into space just wouldn't be one of them.

Chesney hasn't gone into great detail about the meaning behind ‘Shot A Car Into Space’, but the song has been described in his official notes for Silver Sands Marina as a piece of “wry social commentary”, delivered over a traditional country shuffle.

That sense of humour was something Chesney deliberately wanted to make room for across the album.

“Some of these songs are unlike anything people have heard, or haven’t heard in a long time,” Chesney explained ahead of its release. “Some of them go deep, some of them will make people turn it up, a few will make them laugh…”

‘Shot A Car Into Space’ certainly falls into that final category, using humour and increasingly ridiculous examples of what people do with their money to make its point without ever taking itself too seriously.

I heard about a fella sent a car into space
I wonder what it’s like to have money to waste
I bet I could blow a billion in a million different ways
But I probably wouldn’t use it to shoot a car into space

There’s a guy up the road got a great big house
Never seen him go in it, never seen him come out
Don’t know what he does, but he did it somehow
‘Cause he’s sitting up the road in a great big house

Blue collar, white collar
Don’t make a difference to a green dollar
The more ya got, the more ya spend
Then you gotta get it all over again

There’s a woman does hair down at the Holly Hills mall
And back in ‘97 she hit the power ball
Only took her two years and she got rid of it all
Now she’s back doing hair down at the Holly Hills mall

Blue collar, white collar
Don’t make a difference to a green dollar
The more ya got, the more ya spend
Then you gotta get it all over again

Somebody bought an island in the middle of the sea
Half an acre and a good dog is plenty ‘nough for me
I got a truck that runs good and some cable TV
What would I do with an island in the middle of the sea

Whatchu want with an island
In the middle of the sea

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