American Kids

This Rodney Clawson, Luke Laird and Shane McAnally penned tune celebrates the spirit of America's young people. Chesney first came across the song on a writing trip with McAnally, who wrote his previous hits "Somewhere With You" and "Come Over." "When I heard it, I knew I was gonna cut it," Chesney said. "It was unlike anything I'd ever heard - and I listen to a lot of songs. The rhythms, the images, the way the melody moved… It just grabs you and holds on, but even more importantly, it feels really good."

Clawson, Laird and McAnally wrote this song in a non-linear fashion, each adding words and phrases as they formed the song's lyric. McAnally says that in the end, the successive images give you the feeling that you're watching a slide show.

The song contains the line, "A little messed up, but we're alright." Chesney reflected: "Hey, life is hard. People work long hours, have all kinds of stuff going on in their personal lives. But if there's one thing I've seen over the last 10 years, looking out at the faces in the crowd: you can't keep my fans down. These are people who no matter what are in love with life, and they're gonna find the good times no matter what." "It's not a perfect world," he added. "We are all a little screwed up, but we're all okay. I love the idea of the screw up as part of it, because honestly it makes the parts that're great, that much better. You appreciate those things that much more."