Songfacts®:

• The title track of Kenny Chesney's When The Sun Goes Down album, he recorded the song as a duet with singer-songwriter Uncle Kracker. Released as a single on February 2, 2004, it spent five weeks at #1 on the Country chart.
  
  The song is right on brand for Chesney, telling the story of a night on the beach with good music and great friends.
• Better known as a hip-hop flavored rock artist, "When the Sun Goes Down" was Uncle Kracker's first appearance on the Country chart.
• "When the Sun Goes Down" was written by Nashville songwriter Brett James, whose resumé also includes writing credits for Jessica Andrews' "Who I Am" and Martina McBride's "Blessed." He later co-penned Kenny Chesney's 2009 hit "Out Last Night."
• Brett James recalled in a video interview that he was driving home in his truck having just written a song with Holly Lamar, when "this crazy little ditty" popped into his head. He thought it was "a nursery rhyme, kind of silly thing," but when he got home James "couldn't get this little earworm" out of his head.
  
  The next day, James demoed the "crazy little ditty" without having second or third verses. He didn't write them until he was actually sitting in the vocal booth.
  
  "It was a 20-minute song," James said. "You hear about those, but it was a 20-minute song. I didn't take it too seriously. Just write this, it is fun, I like the idea. I put it on my record, and the next thing you know I hear Kenny and Kracker are doing it. The next thing you know, it's #1."
• Chesney paid tribute to the song's co-writer Brett James, who died in a plane crash two months earlier, when he performed "When the Sun Goes Down" at the CMA Awards in 2025. As he sang, photos of James appeared in the backdrop with the message "Thank you, we miss you."