Songfacts®:

• Most songs with "Tequila" in the title - particularly the 1957 stomper by The Champs, are party tunes, but not "You And Tequila." This one is sad and reflective, with Kenny Chesney trying to get over a girl like and alcoholic gets over a tequila habit. His 2010 version is the most famous, but the song was originally released by Deana Carter on her 2003 album I'm Just A Girl. Chesney - who actually listens to his opening acts - heard it when he brought Carter along on his 2003 tour, where she performed it night after night. Her version wasn't released as a single, but Chesney's was, and it became one of his most popular songs.
• Deana Carter wrote the song with her frequent collaborator Matraca Berg - they also wrote Carter's hit "Strawberry Wine" together. Inspiration hit when Berg was nursing a hangover, and Carter came over to write. "She was just kind of hurting that day," Carter told Taste of Country. "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."
• The song is a duet with Grace Potter, who at the time was active with her band Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. Chesney told Billboard magazine about the collaboration: "This song makes me believe in music even more. I'd never met Grace Potter until she came into the studio. She grew up in the woods in Vermont. I grew up in the woods in East Tennessee. We come from completely worlds, different backgrounds, probably religious beliefs, we haven't talked about it. I don't know what her political beliefs are, I don't know nothing about any of that. I know she's a great person and I know that she is a hell of a singer. I heard her voice and I knew I would love to sing with her one day. I didn't know it would be on this, or this soon.
  
  At the end of 2007, I rented a house North of Malibu, California, for about two months. I was exhausted, I didn't want to talk to anybody, I didn't want to listen to music, I just wanted to be still for a minute. Every day I would drive close in to Santa Monica, meet some friends, eat dinner, and I'd drive back up the PCH with the windows down. That time of year is really chilly, I'd watch the sun set. It's beautiful, I loved it. I would turn on the radio every now and then and I would hear these songs. I heard an Eagles song, I don't even remember what the song was. But I remember thinking, 'Wow, I think I like music again.'
  
  When I heard 'You and Tequila,' it put me in that spot. That's when I thought of Grace, because I listened to her music a lot on the boat, a lot on the bus, her live record especially. She has a song called 'Apology' that still kills me. I got in touch with her and sent her the song, I had already recorded it. She called back the next day and said 'I want to make this happen.' When she came in and we put our voices together, wow. I love the song, Matraca and Deana wrote it, but, boy, it's relatable, so universal. To have Grace on it, that will be with me forever."
• Potter told Rolling Stone that on hearing the song, she immediately wanted to be part of it. She said: "I love singing beautiful songs, that's all I care about. This is the first time that on the very first listen I immediately picked up the phone and said 'Make this happen.'"
• In an interview with NPR, Chesney said "You And Tequila" is a "struggle song." He added, "There are some commonalities about getting someone out of your mind and drinking and trying to quit. I spent a lot of time [driving the Pacific Coast Highway]. I'd go to friends in Santa Monica about sunset. I would drive back up to the house, had the windows down. I'd listen to a lot of Eagles songs and some Tom Petty. When I heard this record and this song, it just put me in this place."
• Grace Potter and Kenny Chesney became fast friends. "Our friendship started in the studio that day," Potter said on the Off The Record podcast in 2026. "I was wearing some kind of animal print, and he had never seen anything like it. He was just in his very unassuming black sweater, black beanie hat, super shy, hands in the pockets. I was used to this bubbly, public-facing person, and he was this humble guy who was very quiet and very relaxed and happy to have me in the studio. There was a wonderful instant connection. Our first bond was over the TV show Eastbound & Down. To this day he calls me April. Whenever he wants to get ahold of me and I'm not answering him, he'll just text again, 'April.'"