A new single from Keith Urban is here! The Grand Ole Opry member just dropped “Straight Line” as the debut single from his forthcoming new project, one he can’t wait to share with the rest of the world.
“This is the song that kicks off an album I’m jonesing to share with you all,” Urban explains on social media. “I chose it first for a lot of reasons, but particularly because I think it represents an energy and spirit that became a through line of the whole record. I’m gonna cover a lot of themes, emotions and vibes on this album but a very human spirit runs through them all.
“‘Straight Line’ is wanting to break out of a soul-sucking routine that you might be stuck in: maybe in a relationship, a job, with creativity, with yourself…whatever it is !!” he continues. “It’s a message of feeling alive again and getting out from under that dark cloud. If you’ve seen us in concert, I hope it gives you that same feeling. ‘Straight Line’ is out now!”
“Straight Line” is an uptempo, feel-good track, part of an eclectic, genre-bending new record that the 56-year-old says, like most of his recent projects, was largely inspired by rocker John Mellencamp.
“I love John Mellencamp,” Urban said on Criss Angel’s Talking Junkies podcast (via Taste of Country). “Huge John Mellencamp fan. And he did a record called Lonesome Jubilee. Prior to that, he’d had Hurts So Good, more straight rock, and then through Scarecrow, he brings in some fiddles and a few little organic things. Then he does Lonesome Jubilee and he’s got accordion, fiddle, acoustic guitars, but he’s got this rock rhythm section still.
“It was the collision of all these things that, prior to going to that concert that night, I’d been like ‘Man, am I country or am I rock? I don’t know what I am, what I’m supposed to be doing,’” he remarked. “I went to that concert. He walked out onstage. The band was phenomenal. And I saw and heard all that fusion and it was literally like a light went off. I was like, ‘I get it. Don’t think about genre or anything. Just…pull all the things you love, your soup, man, your gumbo, and make your gumbo.’”
Urban previously revealed that his new record was completed in 2023, but he wasn’t able to release it until sometime this year.
“It’s so frustrating sitting on so much,” Urban admitted Access Hollywood. “It is a whole album of new music that I’m jonesing to get out, but it won’t be until early across mid to next year.”
Find “Straight Line” and all of Urban’s music and upcoming shows at KeithUrban.com.