Lyrical Life Lessons #2: 'Don't Blink', Kenny Chesney

This interview originally appeared in Mindful Melody Issue 9, which you can purchase here.

Maxim Mower

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Last issue, I wrote a piece on Scotty McCreery’s ‘The Waiter’, which tells the moving tale of an elderly man who returns to the same restaurant each Friday to talk to himself. We later find out that he’s actually talking to his deceased wife, as they used to visit that very place every week for their date night.

It’s a heartbreaking story, but every time I listen to it it brings home a very lucid appreciation of the people I have in my life, and it reminds me to try and make the most of the time we have together. It’s a three-minute burst of wisdom that never fails to refresh my priorities and shift my perspective back to what really matters.

So I thought it would be fun to explore some similar songs that have both a beneficial and striking message that captures a particular ‘Lyrical Life Lesson’, that can in turn help us with our mental wellbeing. Forgive me - to use one of Boris Johnson’s favourite phrases - but I suspect there will be quite a few Country songs featuring in this section, simply because of the fact that compelling storytelling is pivotal to so much of the music in this genre.

Following on from McCreery’s ‘The Waiter’, this issue I’ve chosen Kenny Chesney’s philosophical track, ’Don’t Blink’. It opens with Chesney watching a man who’s just turned 102 being interviewed on the news, and the reporter asks him if he’s learned ‘the secret to life’ in the many years he’s spent on Earth.

​His answer is tinged with sadness, as he looks up from his pipe, laughs, and reveals his answer -

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“Don't blink, just like that you're six years old
And you take a nap
And you wake up and you're twenty-five
And your high school sweetheart becomes your wife
Don't blink, you just might miss
Your babies growing like mine did
Turning into moms and dads
Next thing you know your better half
Of fifty years is there in bed
And you're praying God takes you instead
Trust me, friend, a hundred years
Goes faster than you think, so don't blink”

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The details of this man’s story are obviously specific to him, but regardless, the way the lyrics condense an entire lifetime into a few lines makes you realise just how quickly it all passes by. When we’re younger, everyone tells us how life goes by faster than we think, and naturally, we think they’re exaggerating - we have our whole life ahead of us!

And I find it easy to fall into this mindset, particularly given I’m at a stage of my life in my twenties where I’m expected to be thinking ahead to the future - to things like what my career will hopefully look like, where I see myself living, and so forth.

David’s written some powerful pieces on the pitfalls of this way of thinking, and this feels particularly important in today’s world where everything seems to move faster and faster. The final verse of ‘Don’t Blink’ epitomises this sentiment -

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“So I've been trying to slow it down
I've been trying to take it in
In this 'here today, gone tomorrow' world we're living in”

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It’s a really effective reminder for me to bring my focus back to the here and now, and to really cultivate a sense of gratitude for the little things - even something as simple as the feeling of getting to wake up and experience a brand new day.

This also really underlines to me why music can be such an effective tool for helping us with our mental health. We all follow at least a couple of ‘inspirational’ pages on Instagram, and every now and then a motivational quote will position itself on my news feed - something along the lines of “Live for today, not tomorrow” or “The best preparation for the future is to live as if there were none”.

That’s all well and good, and those pages are great for occupying a really positive space and being a beacon of light on social media. But personally, I find that once I’ve read the inspirational quote, it’s in one ear and out the other. It just doesn’t resonate and lodge itself in my head the way that a particular hook or lyric does.

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“I was glued to my TV, when it looked
​Like he looked at me and said "Best start putting first things first”
'Cause when your hourglass runs out of sand
You can't flip it over and start again
Take every breathe God gives you for what it's worth”

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So don’t take my word for it - take my lyric for it (I know, how corny, right?).

​But seriously, I feel like the real message of the song will never resonate as deeply as it will if you listen first-hand to ‘Don’t Blink’. Grab your headphones, connect up your speaker, turn on your radio - and let this issue’s ‘lyrical life lesson’ find its way into your heart and help to keep your feet planted firmly in the present.