Songs for the Saints

Album: Songs for the Saints (2018)
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Songfacts®:

  • In the late summer and early fall of 2017, the US Virgin Island of St. John was devastated by Hurricanes Irma and Maria. Kenny Chesney's home on St. John was destroyed and half of the island's 4,500 residents were forced to evacuate. Chesney personally took a trip to help his battered Caribbean friends.

    This is the title track of Kenny Chesney Songs for the Saints' album, which the singer was inspired to write after seeing firsthand how the people of the Virgin Islands came to together after the two hurricanes.

    "This is the song that really holds everything together," Chesney said. "It's a tribute to those islands and their unstoppable spirit. Even as people were coming off the islands - some just to not tax the limited resources - so many of my friends were digging in, trying to figure out what needed to be done and getting on to the work of clearing debris, creating habitable space for those staying and reminding all of us how island strong they all are."
  • Kenny Chesney is donating the money he makes from the Songs for the Saints record to his Love for Love City Fund, which helps the Virgin Islands rebuild after the storms. "I didn't necessarily have a plan," Chesney revealed to ABC Radio, "but these songs needed to be written. And a friend said, 'You should call the album Songs for the Saints, make it something that honors the people and the life on those islands, but also provides for them long after what happened has fallen off the news cycle.'"

    "It hit me," he added, "that was what I was already doing and hadn't realized it."

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