HomeEF CountryRead & watch Keith Urban talk 'Brown Eyes Baby' with Kelleigh Bannen

Read & watch Keith Urban talk ‘Brown Eyes Baby’ with Kelleigh Bannen

Keith Urban joins ‘Today’s Country Radio with Kelleigh Bannen’ to talk about the release of ‘Brown Eyes Baby’, Keith’s ‘beginner’s mind’ approach to songwriting and touring with Florida Georgia Line’s Tyler Hubbard.

Tune in and listen to the episode in-full anytime on-demand at apple.co/_TodaysCountry.

We’ve selected some of the highlights from the episode below to give you a taste of what to expect…

Keith Urban on why he recorded ‘Brown Eyes Baby’

It’s one of those songs that I just… I trusted it. The first time I heard it, it resonated with me lyrically, melodically. I know the guy in the song. I guess that’s, for me, what I’m always most going to gravitate towards in a song, is the story and the person. The characters, really. The characters in this song.

Keith Urban on the meaning behind ‘Brown Eyes Baby

It’s really about wanting to bring out the best in somebody and wanting to help them bring that back out in them. And particularly personalities and characters and colors that we’ve lost. For whatever reason, life gets in the way. Heartbreak, responsibilities, call it what you will. A lot of that gets lost. And in the case of the girl in this song, a lot of that has gotten lost. But it’s all in there waiting to be rediscovered and brought back out. And so, all I want to do is help her try and find that girl again.

Keith Urban on writing with Florida Georgia Line’s Tyler Hubbard

First of all, I’ve always loved [Tyler’s] voice. We got to write together a few months ago for the first time. And we wrote a song that he ended up recording that I’m very excited about. And it was really great being in a writing room with him. I was curious about his process and his way of approaching things. And I was really impressed with his compositional skills as a writer. He’s really, really good. Yeah, really good. That’s a good example of a day where I brought in an idea and Tyler had this complete other idea. Had the title. And so, then we just start jamming music and melodies and riffs and things, and this song emerges out of it. So, I loved it. I hope we get to do more of that.

Keith Urban
Credit: Apple Music

Keith Urban on Cutting Songs He Didn’t Write

What it does is it puts me in the same place as the audience because they weren’t in the room either and they don’t know why the song was written. They just know what it means to them. Does it connect with a story inside of them? So I’ve become that when I’m hearing a song that I didn’t write, whether it’s ‘You’ll Think Of Me” or “Stupid Boy,” or something like that.

Keith Urban on Having a Beginner’s Mind

I still feel pretty much the same as I did when I moved to town. Truly, anybody who knows me will verify this, I’m not aware of anything I’ve done, because I’m only interested in this next thing, whatever this next thing is. And I know that all of that, what did someone say one time, you don’t have 20 years experience, you have one year’s experience 20 times. And I think that resonates with me because I have a beginner’s mind. I have a mind that approaches things with no clue how to do this. I walk into a writing room and I go, “I don’t know, let’s get in the sandbox and start building something and see what it is. Who knows?” Sometimes I go into a writing room and I’ve got a very clear idea on what I want, but somewhere along the line, the muse just goes in this totally other direction.

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