‘You Had To Be There’ by Megan Moroney & Kenny Chesney - Lyrics & Meaning

After becoming good friends on the Sun Goes Down Tour last summer, during which the duo treating us to a slew of joyful on-stage link-ups, Kenny Chesney and Megan Moroney finally gave us the news we'd been waiting for - they'd be dropping a collaboration.

‘You Had To Be There’, which arrived on Friday, May 9th 2025, finds Moroney painting a warm, nostalgic picture of saving up to go and see Chesney in Atlanta back in 2018, before fast-forwarding to the full-circle moment she got to perform with him.

Heartwarmingly, Megan Moroney penned ‘You Had To Be There’ as a 2024 Christmas present for Kenny Chesney, with Moroney admitting she was deeply nervous to debut the track for the No Shoes Nation legend. Thankfully, he loved it - as do we.

When unveiling ‘You Had To Be There’, Moroney explained, “As y’all know, I write about things that are important to me & the sun goes down tour + becoming friends with @kennychesney last summer was undoubtedly a highlight of my career & my life. I wrote out the lyrics & gifted this song to him for Christmas”.

It opens with a galvanising guitar riff that swells over the course of Megan Moroney's first verse, before the track explodes into a full-blown, Chesney-inspired battle-cry.

With the lyrics revolving around living in the here-and-now and immersing yourself in the euphoria of summer, the energising composition mirrors the thematic joie-de-vivre.

Megan Moroney's sinuous, enchanting vocals leads for most of the song, but when Kenny Chesney's charismatic delivery enters the fray, it complements Moroney's perfectly.

“Five girls in the mirror putting make-up on

There's boys downstairs playing drinking songs

Curled up round a hand-me-down guitar singing oh-oh-oh

Brand new boots that we're ‘bout to break in

Bought some nosebleed seats

Summer money well-spent

Parking lot, take a shot, steal a kiss

And we're ready to go”

Megan Moroney begins by recalling the buzz and excitement as she got ready with her friends to go and see Kenny Chesney perform at Atlanta's Mercedes-Benz Stadium in 2018. She builds out the picture as she references the fact that the seats were right at the back, but this didn't matter, as they still couldn't wait for the show. Moroney shared her booking confirmation via socials when announcing ‘You Had To Be There’, with the Georgia native sat way up in Section 312, Row 20.

“I see the lights

I hear the band

Feels like the whole world's in our hands

Soakin’ it up

Breathin’ it in

One day we'll say, ‘Remember when?’

We were so alive

I swear that night

There was magic in the air

You had to be there”

Anyone who's had the chance to see a Kenny Chesney concert can attest that it is one of the most electrifying, life-affirming experiences out there, with the Island Country trailblazer renowned for his feel-good, carpe-diem-infused catalogue of anthems.

Megan Moroney brings the ambience that pervades Chesney's performances to life through the ‘You Had To Be There’ hook, with the titular lyric capturing the sense that, to really showcase just how spellbinding his show is, you have to see it for yourself.

“Seven years later got a different point of view

Got a soundcheck in ten and my own dressing room

Going round the world with the King of No Shoes singing, oh-oh-oh

Can't tell you how fast time's gonna fly by

Keep your heart on your sleeve and your chin held high

Baby, hold on tight and don't let go”

‘You Had To Be There’ takes a charming turn, as Megan Moroney brings the story forward to 2024, with Moroney allowing the listener into the butterflies she felt as she was getting ready for soundcheck on the Sun Goes Down Tour with Kenny Chesney.

She aptly dons Chesney the ‘King of No Shoes’, a nod to his iconic 2002 hit, ‘No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems’, which in turn spawned the name of his loyal fanbase, No Shoes Nation.

Megan Moroney repeatedly underlines how she has learned a lot from touring with Kenny Chesney, and it feels pertinent that Chesney's lyrics come in the form of advice to Moroney.

He encourages her to hold onto the spirit of that 2018 show - “Keep your heart on your sleeve and your chin held high / Baby, hold on tight and don't let go” - as well reminding her that time flies on by, so squeeze as much out of every second as you can.

“We made the memories

We got the pictures

But you had to be there

You can't fake it

That kind of feeling

You had to be there”

The duo double-down on the core mantra of ‘You Had To Be There’, with Moroney emphasising that, although she'll always have the memories and pictures from that summer night, to really understand just how magical it was, you simply had to be there.

In the lead up to ‘You Had To Be There’s release, Megan Moroney has explained the touching inspiration behind the new track, “As y’all know, I write about things that are important to me & the sun goes down tour + becoming friends with @kennychesney last summer was undoubtedly a highlight of my career & my life. I wrote out the lyrics & gifted this song to him for Christmas & thankfully he loved it”.

Kenny Chesney then took to the comments to endearingly gush, “What a gift Megan. You are one of the most thoughtful humans I’ve met. So excited for everyone to hear it”.

During a mock interview shared ahead of ‘You Had To Be There’s arrival and recorded in Saint John in the US Virgin Islands, Megan Moroney regales viewers with the tale of how the song originated, “So we had a trip planned to come down to the island on January 1st, 2025, and I knew that I needed to bring Kenny's Christmas gift with me. So I was like, I'm gonna have to get really creative here”.

The ‘Tennessee Orange’ chart-topper went on, “So we were down at the beach, and I was like, I think today is the day that we try to write the Kenny song. And I didn't know if I was gonna write it as a duet or if I was just gonna write a song about the tour, or whatever it was, but we ended up writing Kenny into the second verse”.

Moroney then reflected, “It sounds like a Kenny Chesney song, and it's just really authentic to the story of what happened. The first verse is me getting ready for the concert in 2018, I was a sophomore in college when I went and saw him in Atlanta, and the second verse comes around and says, ‘Seven years later, got a different point of view’, which obviously, seven years later, I was on tour with Kenny Chesney. So I said on stage every night that it was such a full-circle moment”.

Moroney concluded, “We all loved the song, I had no idea if Kenny was going to like the song, but I was like I'm gonna write it down on a piece of paper and that'll be my gift to him, and I'll play it for him when we get there. And we got here, and like, for the first four hours I was being so weird because I knew I had to show him the song, but I was so nervous, because I was like, how do you show Kenny Chesney - who has eight million hits - a song that you wrote. He ended up loving it, and then we listened to it like 8,000 more times that trip, and I'm just grateful that my songwriters and I captured what I feel like the vibe was of that tour. It was really special, and it really did feel like a ‘You Had To Be There’ moment, because whenever I talk about it, I feel like I can't capture how amazing it was”.

Kenny Chesney echoed Megan Moroney's sentiments, and stressed how moved he was by the song, “The first time I heard it was right over there at the bar, and when it was over I [said,] ‘Play it again’...You're right, we played it like eight times in a row. And I couldn’t believe it because it was a true postcard, if you will, of everything we experienced on the road, the ups the downs...all of it. The thing about it is, I didn't know Megan, you know, when we first went on the road. We went to breakfast one time...we met and that was like in February, and I didn't see her again until April. It was little by little every week, Megan along with her whole road-crew, we just became really great friends, and you never know if that's gonna happen or not. So, when you hear someone that went out on the road with you, that cared so much about it, and cared so much about the experience and what it meant to be up there on-stage...But it just meant a lot to me”.

The ‘No Shoes Nation’ figurehead warmly toasted, “Then, to care about the friendship that much to sit down and give her a piece of her heart and a piece of her soul, that we in turn together get to give the world, and I think that's a very special thing...As far as I know, nobody has ever written a song for me. And if that’s true, I’m really glad that ‘You Had To Be There’ is the first one. I absolutely love it”.

(Megan Moroney, Kenny Chesney, Both)

“Five girls in the mirror putting make-up on

There's boys downstairs playing drinking songs

Curled up round a hand-me-down guitar singing oh-oh-oh

-

Brand new boots that we're ‘bout to break in

Bought some nosebleed seats

Summer money well-spent

Parking lot, take a shot, steal a kiss

And we're ready to go

-

I see the lights

I hear the band

Feels like the whole world's in our hands

Soakin’ it up

Breathin’ it in

One day we'll say, ‘Remember when?’

We were so alive

I swear that night

There was magic in the air

You had to be there

-

Seven years later got a different point of view

Got a soundcheck in ten and my own dressing room

Going round the world with the King of No Shoes singing, oh-oh-oh

Can't tell you how fast time's gonna fly by

Keep your heart on your sleeve and your chin held high

Baby, hold on tight and don't let go

-

I see the lights

I hear the band

Feels like the whole world's in our hands

Soakin’ it up

Breathin’ it in

One day we'll say, ‘Remember when?’

We were so alive

I swear that night

There was magic in the air

You had to be there

You had to be there

Oh, you had to be there

-

We made the memories

We got the pictures

But you had to be there

You can't fake it

That kind of feeling

You had to be there

-

I see the lights

I hear the band

Feels like the whole world's in our hands

Soakin’ it up

Breathin’ it in

One day we'll say, ‘Remember when?’

We were so alive

I swear that night

There was magic in the air

We were so alive

I swear that night

There was magic in the air

You had to be there

You had to be there

Oh, you had to be there

You had to be there

And oh, we were there

We were there

We were there

You had to be there”

For more on Megan Moroney, see below: