Kenny Chesney And Grace Potter: The Story Behind 'You And Tequila'

When Kenny Chesney was on tour in 2003 with Deana Carter, he heard the 'Strawberry Wine' singer perform her song titled 'You and Tequila' night after night. When it came time for Chesney to put together songs for his latest album, 'Hemingway's Whiskey,' he felt the urge to record the tune, asking Grace Potter to duet with him on the song.

Carter wrote the lyrics of 'You and Tequila' with Matraca Berg many years ago, after Berg had a late night out on the town. "I went to her house to write one morning, and she had been out the night before," Carter tells Taste of Country. "I can't remember if it was margaritas the night before or what [laughs], but she was just kind of hurting that day. I said, 'Yeah, it's just like men ... they get in your blood! I can't drink tequila hardly because it will just get in my blood and it won't go away. It's like a guy,' or something like that. We just started talking about it and writing it organically like that."

"She had this friend who had been in a recovery program," Carter continues. "So we were talking about recovery programs and all that kind of stuff like that and saying that 'we need to get on the wagon for a while' or something like that -- girl talk, you know [laughs]. She called up her friend and asked what the phrase was about 'one is one too many, and one more is never enough,' which is something people say when they are trying to clean up. So we just paralleled it with emotions and relationships, things like that."

"You and tequila make me crazy / You’re like poison in my blood / One more night could kill me, baby / One is one too many / One more is never enough," Chesney and Potter sing in the chorus.

"There's all these California references in that song, because I wrote that with Matraca after I lived in California for a little while," Carter says. "So while I was driving over Mulholland Drive, I would try to take a picture real quick on my phone of the Mulholland sign. I'd always text them to Kenny, so he'll get these blurry Mulholland pictures on his phone!"

"Baby here I am again / Kickin' dust in the canyon wind / Waiting for that sun to go down / Made it up Mulholland Drive / Hell bent on gettin' high / High above the lights of town," Chesney sings in the opening verse's lyrics.

"Kenny had been through some relationship stuff, and after that he got a house out here in California -- out in Malibu -- and he said he just kind of nursed his broken heart and listened to that song," Carter recalls. "Then he ended up cutting it. I didn't know he was going to cut the song until one of my girlfriends in Nashville told me. I was like, 'What?!' [laughs]. It was so cool! So then we started communicating over it, talking about it, and he said to me that the song meant a lot to him during that time and it got him through a lot. So how sweet, first of all. He's a dear, sweetheart of a friend anyway, so it meant a lot to me that it meant something to him."

Listen to Kenny Chesney and Grace Potter Sing 'You and Tequilla'