No beer in Mexico this time! Country superstar Kenny Chesney‘s new song “Noise” isn’t a breezy beach tune. It’s a comment on all the white noise in our lives — and the video reflects that. He tells Us Weekly what inspired the lyrics and accompanying visuals for the track.
The “Noise” video opens with Chesney singing in the foreground while multiple images — including pictures of Kourtney Kardashian, Donald Trump, runway models, plastic surgery, cartoons and much more — rapidly flash across the screen behind him. “It ain’t nothing but noise,” Chesney repeats throughout the song.
“We had snake handlers, fashion shows, talking-head newscasters, type falling into words, clocks sweeping, Richard Nixon, Botox, wrecking balls, vintage things, a Kardashian, all building to that crescendo [leading up to the end of the video],” Chesney, 48, explains. “For me, it was easy: Get in front of the green screen and try to bring that emotion to the performance.”
Chesney, who released his last studio album, The Big Revival, in 2014, explains his mission to Us. “This is a song I really feel. … It was written from a threshold moment in my life, so it’s not hard to get to that place when I’m singing. I know what this song is about, and all I had to do was tap into it,” he says. “That was the point: to get it to where, in that three minutes, you felt all that urgency. All that being overtaken by the random sensory stuff that floods us every day.”
The final moments of the video conclude with a few more organic scenes: frolicking on the beach, enjoying the view from a hot-air balloon ride, reaching the peak of a mountain with glorious outstretched arms and more.
“We created an ending to suggest how to undo [the noise],” Chesney tells Us. “To give you a pause and a breath and a refuge. I can’t say those final images, which you notice linger a little longer on the screen, are the answer, but I think they will lead you to a place of more peace.”
Watch the exclusive video above.
