When Keith Urban hears a great song that he wants to record, he doesn’t necessarily check to see who wrote it, and that was the case with his new song, “We Were.”
Keith shared with us, “I had no idea Eric (Church) was a writer on it when we went in and recorded it. We actually recorded it last December before Christmas. And then I just lived with it for a while tinkering little bits and pieces over the next hand full of months until we finished it out. And it wasn’t until I was doing label copy and needed to make sure I had all the lyrics right and asked for a copy of there lyrics and that’s the first time I saw the writers on the song.” He notes that he learned the song from the demo recording, not from sheet music.
Urban reached out to his friend and one-time duet partner Church, “As soon as I read the names on the lyric sheet I texted him and I said, ‘Did you write this song ‘We Were’?”
“He texted back ”We Were…’ Is that about something about a water town and something?’ cause he wrote so many songs. I said, ‘Yeah’ he texted back ‘Why?’ and I was like, ‘I just recorded it’ and he’s like ‘What?'”
“I said. ‘Yeah I really didn’t know that you were a writer on it’ and he said, ‘Well that’s the best news ever ’cause that means you really like the song.'”
Keith and Eric recorded a duet together called “Raise ‘Em Up” in 2015.
Urban is currently working on a new album.
-Nancy Brooks