Megan Moroney’s emo cowgirl Country took the world by storm with its unflinching honesty and sense of humor no matter the moment. With her sold-out AM I OKAY? TOUR underway, the whirlwind songwriter/entertainer decided to drop a few postcards from her last several years.
“You Had To Be There” (Sony Music Nashville/Columbia Records) is signature Moroney. With its sweeping tempo, the rush of being young, spending summer earnings on nosebleed seats to see Kenny Chesney with your friends and some boys slice into the heart of the wide-eyed joy and enduring memories music can provide. Deftly captured by Moroney, Ben Williams, Mackenzie Carpenter and Micah Carpenter, sketch scenes from a big night out with a freshness that matches Chesney’s own “Young,” and then they kept going. Go here to listen now.
“That night was so much fun,” Moroney says. “The stuff you do with your friends marks a summer. If that’s all there was, it was perfect. But last year with Kenny, I saw how his life is creating a string of the most perfect nights for anyone who comes to see him the way we did.”
But being that this is Moroney, there’s always more to the story. Having become the face of dreams – with a strong work ethic – coming true, only the woman who’s nominated for Academy of Country Music’s Female Vocalist of the Year and Album of the Year could write a song that sees the girl in the cheap seats later opening the tour she’d gone to just a few years earlier (Bought some nose bleed seats / Summer money well spent / Parking lot, Take a shot, Steal a kiss / And we’re ready to go … Seven years later got a different point of view / Got a sound check in ten and my own dressing room / Going ‘round the world with the king of no shoes). Reflecting on her “BEST SUMMER EVER,” which she had printed on a t-shirt for her last show on Chesney’s SUN GOES DOWN 2024 TOUR, she wrote the song as a gift for him.
With “You Had To Be There,” produced by Kristian Bush, the current POLLSTAR and Rolling Stone cover girl also profiled in April 28’s The New Yorker delivers an ultimate Cinderella story. Not only does she paint a vivid portrait of life on a fast-paced, sold-out stadium tour, she connects the dots of realizing something bigger than that college student could have imagined, including back-to-back sold-out plays at iconic venues including Radio City Music Hall, LA’s The Greek Theatre, DC’s The Anthem, Nashville’s The Pinnacle, Athens, GA’s Akins Ford Arena, and more, plus festival dates in Panama City Beach, Florida (Gulf Coast Jam); Nashville, Tennessee (CMA Fest); and Wildwood, New Jersey (Barefoot Country Music Festival). Go here to find Moroney’s full list of 2025 tour dates.
“Nobody has more fun, works harder, is more creative – or pranked me harder than Megan,” says Chesney. “When she called to see if I’d sing on her song, a song she said she wrote about me, I paused. Nobody’s ever written a song about me, but nobody’s ever ridden a tiny child’s tractor down my T wearing my clothes before, either.
“The answer was always going to be yes. But what a great thing to sing on a song so well-written, with so much heart and so in the moment. Being out with Megan last year, she really does pack it all into every single thing she does. With her, you do have to be there.”
If a postcard is worth a thousand words, leave it to Moroney and “the king of no shoes” to celebrate with a video that cuts what feels like home movies, big screen footage and freewheeling performance moments adroitly cut together by CeCe Dawson to distill the fun, friendship and joy of unlikely dreams realized. Filmed in the islands, the clip captures the pair's genuine friendship and mutual admiration in a way that underscores everything “You Had To Be There” is about. Watch here.
