Keith Urban Shares the Story Behind His Duet with Carrie Underwood

“And just out of the blue that morning I thought I really would love to write a duet that isn’t the traditional guy and girl singing together," Urban shared. 

Written by Lauren Laffer
Keith Urban Shares the Story Behind His Duet with Carrie Underwood
Keith Urban, Carrie Underwood; Photo by Getty Images

Keith Urban has answered all of our prayers… he’s finally releasing his Carrie Underwood collaboration, “The Fighter,” to country radio as a single. The song is the fifth single from his GRAMMY-nominated album Ripcord and was born from an idea that came to Urban while on the way to a writing session.

“I was writing with busbee, and we had written a song called ‘Your Body,’ which is on the album, and the next day I was coming back to finish up the song with him,” Urban explained. “And just out of the blue that morning I thought I really would love to write a duet that isn’t the traditional guy and girl singing together, but the girl maybe asking a question and the guy answering her. The early part of relationships sometimes have that need for reassurance, and that’s certainly been my experience.”

From that, an idea emerged, leading Urban and busbee to pen the unique duet.

“So, the idea for ‘The Fighter,’ came up with the girl is asking ‘What if I fall?’ And the guy says, ‘I won’t let you fall,’ and she says, ‘If I cry?’ And he says, ‘I won’t make you cry.’ And then she says, ‘If I get scared,’ then he says, ‘I’ll hold you tighter and when the world’s trying to get to you, I’ll be your fighter,’ he continued. “So, we wrote the song and busbee sort of sang the girl part in his girly voice, and then we set about thinking about who would be the right voice for this and Carrie – I love, love her voice and always have. And so I sent her the song and fortunately she loved it, and it’s on the record.”

The two superstars will combine their vocal powers this weekend when they make the television debut of the hit on the 59th Annual GRAMMY Awards tonight. The two also recently filmed the music video for the song, as teased with a video on Urban’s Facebook. Look forward to hearing “The Fighter” when it hits country radio next week.