Blake Shelton‘s new single, “Happy Anywhere,” is another duet with his longtime love, Gwen Stefani. “Happy Anywhere” follows the couple’s platinum-selling, multi-week No. 1 hit, “Nobody But You,” and Blake admits he questioned, at least briefly, if it was a good idea to release two duets in a row.
“I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a discussion about, is it weird to do two in a row?,” Blake acknowledged on the Bobby Bones Show. “At the end of the day, I just want to put out the best music I can, the best songs that I can. Especially for right now, with the message of this song, it just seemed like, ‘Who cares? This is a song we want to release right now, and we’re bogged down here together.'”
“Happy Anywhere,” which says in part, “But since I met you, I swear / I could be happy anywhere / Any map dot location / You’re always my destination / You’re the only thing that I’m chained to / I could be happy anywhere / I could be happy anywhere with you,” may seem like it was inspired by the coronavirus pandemic, since the two have been spending their time at Blake’s Oklahoma ranch. But the 44-year-old says “Happy Anywhere” was actually finished before “Nobody But You.”
“‘Nobody But You’ was a big song for us, but we actually recorded ‘Happy Anywhere’ before that. We were waiting for the right time to release it, and I knew that time was now,” Blake told People. “We’re all still socially distancing, so there’s no better time to be happy anywhere with the person or people you love. It doesn’t matter where in the world you are — as long as you’re with them, you’re happy.”
Blake previously revealed it was Gwen’s brother Todd who shot the “Happy Anywhere” video, all from Blake’s Oklahoma ranch.
“Gwen’s brother was in quarantine with us here, and I have some video equipment that I’ve gathered up over the years,” Blake recounted. “We were able to make this homemade music video. We had a blast with it.”
Although Blake and Gwen have two songs at country radio right now, the 44-year-old says it is unlikely they will ever do an entire album of duets.
“I don’t think so,” Blake conceded. “It’s hard for me, honestly. The more time goes by, I’m starting to wonder, why do an album at all? I’m having a blast putting out just singles. People just stream music right now, or get it on iTunes or whatever. I would rather just record a bunch of music and release them all as singles. They don’t have to be radio-promoted singles, but just get music out there as soon as you can.
“So I don’t think so,” he added. “Maybe by the end of 10 or 20 years here, we’ll have enough duets together that we could put them all together and release them as some kind of hits package.”
Blake’s instinct about putting out “Happy Anywhere” seemed to be correct. One week after it’s release, “Happy Anywhere” was the No. 1 on iTunes all-genre chart, and was the most-added song at country radio.