Keith Urban soars into the top spot on both the Mediabase/Country Aircheck and Billboard country charts with his latest hit, “You Gonna Fly.” The song is from his album, Get Closer, which also produced “Put You in a Song” (No. 2) and two other No. 1 hits, “Without You” and “Long Hot Summer.” The tune is one of a few Keith didn’t write, but he fell in love with it the first time he heard it. “I loved it straight away,” recalls Keith. “‘One, two, three, baby, don’t think twice’ – love that. I’m in! There’s just so much about the song that I loved immediately. I like the swagger, that’s…I like the guy in the song, you know?” 

The song, which features background vocals from Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild and Kimberly Schlapman, as well as Sarah Buxton, took a while to come alive in the recording studio for Keith. “It’s got a sort of a rock sort of riff thing about it, because Jaren Johnston who is one of the co-writers of it and the lead singer of American Bang, and they’re just a straight up rock’n roll band,” says Keith. “And so, this song had that Black Crowes-y thing about it, and it just didn’t feel…right. We’d recorded it fully, and I had sung it a bunch of times, and I wasn’t centered with it, you know? Then it dawned on me that we went straight ahead into that sort of rock world, which, I don’t know, it just didn’t feel authentic for me. And so, I thought, acoustic instrumentation with electrics is really at the core of what I do, so we built the track back up, reprioritizing all those instruments – you know, the mandolin and the 6-string banjo and acoustics, in amongst all the electrics and so on. Musically, the song just fell into place much better for me.”

• If you’re looking for some new music from Keith, check out the soundtrack for the new film, Act of Valor, due in stores Tuesday (February 21st). He wrote and recorded the song, “For You,” for the movie.

AUDIO: Keith Urban talks about his latest No. 1 single, “You Gonna Fly.”

Keith Urban (You Gonna Fly) OC: …song, you know? :17

“‘You Gonna Fly’ is a song I didn’t write. It was brought to me, and I loved it straight away. ‘One, two, three, baby, don’t think twice’ – love that. I’m in! There’s just so much about the song that I loved immediately. I like the swagger, that’s…I like the guy in the song, you know?”

AUDIO: Keith Urban talks about the recording process for his latest No. 1 single, “You Gonna Fly.”

Keith Urban (You Gonna Fly) 2 OC: …on the track. 1:10

“We recorded the song and we dismantled the song, and rebuilt it back up again. It was one of those interesting things where, musically speaking, it’s got a sort of a rock sort of riff thing about it, because Jaren Johnston who is one of the co-writers of it and the lead singer of American Bang, and they’re just a straight up rock’n roll band. And so, this song had that Black Crowesy thing about it, and it just didn’t feel, I don’t know. We got in the studio, and it justt kept, it didn’t feel right. We’d recorded it fully, and I had sung it a bunch of times, and I wasn’t centered with it, you know? Then it dawned on me that we went straight ahead into that sort of rock world, which, I don’t know, it just didn’t feel authentic for me. And so, I thought, acoustic instrumentation with electrics is really at the core of what I do, so we built the track back up, reprioritizing all those instruments – you know, the mandolin and the 6-string banjo and acoustics, in amongst all the electrics and so on. Musically, the song just fell into place much better for me. And I thought the cherry on top was to have Karen [Fairchild] and Kimberly [Schlapman] from Little Big Town and Sarah Buxton come and sing on the track.”