Remember When Kenny Chesney Wrote a No. 1 Hit for Rascal Flatts?
Rascal Flatts scored one of their biggest hits in 2007 with a song titled "Take Me There," but many fans might not realize that Kenny Chesney helped write the song before passing on it for himself.
"Take Me There" landed Rascal Flatts their eighth No. 1 when they released it as the lead single from their Still Feels Good album in August of 2007. It reached No. 1 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs Chart on Sept. 22, 2007.
Chesney told CMT in 2007 that the song is about "meeting someone who still has their guard up from a previous relationship or whatever it is. There’s something inside of her that she’s not showing anybody, about what makes her tick, about what makes her love, what makes her give, what makes her be who she is."
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He'd had the idea several years previously, and came back to it after finding it in a notebook.
"I had three lines written down. … So I called [co-writer] Neil Thrasher and told him about this idea when I found it in my notebook. And he says, 'Let me think about that for a little bit.' He called me back in a couple of days, and the next thing, you hear him on the phone with a guitar: 'Tell me ’bout your mama …' I went “Oh my God!'" Chesney said with a laugh.
Wendell Mobley also came in as a collaborator on "Take Me There," and Chesney says he's actually glad he didn't cut the song, even though it scored a chart-topping hit for another artist.
"I felt that melodically, I had already been there," he tells CMT. "It’s a great song, but it just didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel like it was meant to be on my record. Obviously I was right because Rascal Flatts cut a great [version]. I couldn’t have been prouder of it if I had done it again. I’m glad it got to where it got."
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