Back before Chris Stapleton became a household name in 2015, (it should’ve happened much sooner but that’s a story for a different time), he was writing hits, lots of ’em. One of those was Kenny Chesney’s “Never Wanted Nothing More,” which he co-wrote with Ronnie Bowman.

Released as the lead single from Chesney’s 2007 Just Who I Am: Poets & Pirates album, it’s one of the more iconic tracks in all of Chesney’s repertoire. It’s also the fastest charting song of his career, hitting #1 on the Billboard Country charts in just 8 weeks. It takes the listener though the various stages of a man’s life… getting your first car, falling in love for the first time, getting married, and perhaps the most moving part, finding Jesus and getting baptized… and illustrates how in each of those moments, the narrator “never wanted nothing more,” but how there’s always more in store up the road.

To this day, one of my all-time favorite Kenny songs, but back in 2012, Stapleton performed an acoustic version of the song which will immediate have you wondering if Chris should get in the studio and just record all these big hits he wrote.

Even stripped down to just an acoustic guitar, Chris’s voice really brings something special to the song. An instant mood booster, this song will forever be a big ol’ middle finger to your bad day. Put a little pep in that step… you know what I mean?

And for Chris, the song put more than a little pep in his step, and some cash in his pocket… it bought him a house. He explains that they sat down to intentionally try and write a radio hit, and Chris has even admitted in the past that it almost never works quite that way. I mean, if you could just sit down and write a certified #1 every time you tried, everyone would do it, right? But this time… it did:

“This is a song I wrote with a good friend of named Ronnie Bowman, it’s actually the first song we ever wrote. We sat down and said, ‘Hey why don’t we write a song that’s like a hit’ and what do you know, we did it. 

And then this happened… bought me a house, thanks Kenny Chesney.”

I would love for Chris to record a full album of songs that he wrote that went on to become big hits for other artists… like a “Chris Sings the Hits” kind of compilation album. Don’t tell me that fans wouldn’t love that.

Check it out:

And of course, the studio version from Kenny Chesney, which don’t get me wrong, it’s a banger, but nobody can touch Chris Stapleton’s voice. Nobody…