Griffen Palmer co-wrote all of the songs on his debut Unlearn album, out now, but he’s also written songs for other artists as well. The former Songland winner co-wrote Keith Urban‘s “Polaroid” alongside Steph Jones, Sam Fischer, Mark Trussell and Geoff Warburton, unaware when they were crafting it that it would become a hit single for one of country music’s reigning hitmakers.

“I was writing another song one day, and I got a phone call from [producer] Joey Moi, which it’s also very cool to get phone calls from Joey Moi,” Palmer recalls to Everything Nash with a laugh. “And he said, ‘Hey, what’s going on with this ‘Polaroid’ song?’ And I said, ‘Well, everyone’s calling me about it. Everyone wants to record it.’

“No one was calling me about it,” he continues with a laugh. “He said, ‘Well someone wants to record it if that’s cool.’ I said, ‘Yeah. Who is it?’ And he says, ‘Keith Urban.’ And I said, ‘I’ll have my people call your people.’ No, I said yes immediately and I just couldn’t believe it. I walked back into the room I was writing in, and they were like, ‘How was your phone call?’ I was like, ‘I think I just got a Keith cut somehow.'”

“Polaroid” was Urban’s third single from his 2020 The Speed of Now Part 1 album. Not only was Palmer thrilled to have another artist record one of his songs, but he was especially excited that the artist was Urban.

“It’s very cool,” Palmer says. “I’ve probably been to more Keith Urban concerts than any other concert, so I’m a huge fan. To have a song on that record’s pretty amazing.”

As if having an Urban cut wasn’t enough, the Aussie made sure Palmer and the other writers were able to have a proper celebration, on his dime.

“Keith emailed us a pizza gift card so we could have a pizza party,” Palmer recounts. “He’s awesome for doing that. He didn’t have to do that, but he did, and it was awesome. So we got pizza on Keith. It was a good time.”

The video for “Polaroid” was shot on the West Coast in early 2020, fortuitously right before COVID-19 shut the world down.

“We were lucky with the ‘Polaroid’ video, because we shot it out in Los Angeles, about two weeks before all the lockdown started,” Urban recalled on Australian radio station K-Rock. “We had no idea it was coming, and got that video done, and wrapped. There’s no way we could have done that kind of video now, of course. We were lucky.”

“Polaroid” is available here. Find all of Palmer’s music and upcoming shows at GriffenPalmer.com.