Granted, even for as much as I'm willing to admit I'm a bigger Kenny Chesney fan than most writers, let's face it, he's no stranger to just lazily making troubles go away in his songs. Heck, his last album was pretty much based around that entire theme! This isn't Kenny's song though, it's David Lee Murphy's. Granted, older country artists trying their hands at staying relevant once more is nothing new (hello there Neal McCoy!), but considering that David Lee Murphy was only really "big" for the span of a year or two, this is shocking.
Of course, even though he came up during the 90's, I'm not surprised to hear something that unfortunately fits in so well at country radio in 2018 with its lackluster production featuring pretty much one riff over a drum machine. To be honest, I'm just surprised that someone like David Lee Murphy is actually turning this into a hit. I know Kenny Chesney is on board, but still, he's the secondary artist here. I also thought I'd be able to skip talking about it when it hit the airwaves, but this thing is already in the top thirty!
Granted, its lackluster production is only something boring about the track instead of something outright bad. There's no beating around the bush here though. The writing is sloppy, poorly framed, and just utterly lazy. It begins with a man drowning his sorrows at a bar until the bartender points to a sign on the wall saying "everything's going to be alright" to help cheer him up. For starters, that's horrible advice. Troubles don't just "go away" with friggin' fairy dust or something. You can tell yourself it will be alright, but the troubles are still there, and you have to face up to them. You can't rely on escapism.
Really, relying too much on escapism is this song's biggest downfall. The only thing saving this song is that it's more boring than outright something to get angry about. Although I do have to wonder, why is this a duet? it focuses on one guy and a bartender throughout the entire song, and yet both singers here take turns playing the part of the guy drowning his sorrows. Granted, the bartender is a female in this song, and it's not like this song would exactly be "better" as a duet, but it at least would have made sense. Instead, it's confusing, lazy, and nothing I'm going to remember soon enough. Both singers are better than this.
Side note: I wonder if these two have heard of Nihilist Arby's?
Grade: D+
Listen: "Everything's Going To Be Alright"
Author: Zackary Kephart