Kenny Chesney Releasing New Song 'Carry On' Tonight

Official Announcement | Published: May 07, 2026 2:09 PM EDT

(EBM) Kenny Chesney returns with new music tonight at midnight with the release of his new single "Carry On". If Kenny Chesney waits two years to drop new music, you know he's on the hunt for something specific. Always one to lead with positive energy, bringing people together and a musical cocktail that merges his own vast musical taste, the songwriter/superstar from East Tennessee wanted a song that lifted you up, offered empowering perspective and delivered a chorus you could carry around like a lucky charm.

Turns out, he had the song all along! "Carry On," capturing a bar stool conversation with a salty barmaid on a slow afternoon, was originally slated for Chesney's next songwriter-driven island project. But the chorus kept rising up, and the more the man the LA Times called "the People's Superstar" listened, the more he realized its message - the common sense wisdom and bridge that admonishes "If it feels good, do it, if doesn't then don't..." - was everything he wanted to say.

"Sometimes you lock in, thinking a song is supposed to be one place," Chesney offers, "and you miss where it might fit better. But the more I looked, the more I kept coming back to 'Carry On,' because even more stripped down and acoustic, you couldn't miss what that chorus was saying. Like 'American Kids' or 'Get Along,' this is one of those songs that no matter what's happening in your life, it lifts you up higher and tells you to get out there and really live."

Having created a catalog of hits that believe the glass is half full, Chesney's "Carry On" puts his signature tradition on blast. Electric guitars cascade into an intoxicating melody that offers a little bit of the tropics, a little bit of the bluegrass where Billboard's Top Country Artist of the 21st Century was raised. But mostly, it delivers that spark meant to be chanted, howled or sung top volume.

Begging for arms-around-each-other shout-alongs during days on the water, nights out with friends and tailgates everywhere, the chorus delivers everything people need on a Tuesday morning ride to work or a white-hot Saturday night:

"Carry on karaoke, it don't matter if you can't/carry a tune in a bucket anyways
Carry on, who cares what the naysayers say/if it's Saturday night get carried away
Carry on, carry on, you can't carry nothing with you and it won't be long...
til it's six carrying you home... til then you gotta carry on..."

As much blessing as benediction, it's the kind of summer anthem that urges people to turn it up, drive a little faster, laugh a little louder, stay a little longer and then get up and seize the day.

Co-producing with Buddy Cannon, Chesney returned to the studio, put their recording back on - and decided to ramp up the guitars, dig the groove a little deeper - and have even more fun with it. As he explains, "Once I realized what 'Carry On' could be, the song fell into place... Some songs are just fun to cut. As much as I loved what it was, when we started tracking, I realized this was the song I'd been looking for, the one that captures everything about how I try to live my life - and the way I think all the people who love these songs live their lives, too."

Designed to inspire through tough times, good times and all the other times in between, "Carry On" is classic Chesney with a twist. Conjuring a slow afternoon with a barmaid who'd done some living, it's a character sketch, a life lesson and a Polaroid from the kind of sandy bar that remains Chesney's native habitat. Pre-save the song here