Keith Urban’s “Wild Hearts” is closing in on Top 20 on the country charts, and it tells the story of his own wild heart, which started beating furiously at age five when his dad took him and the rest of his family to a Johnny Cash concert. He said once he was sent the song by the writers – Brad Tursi of Old Dominion, Jennifer Wayne of Runaway June and Eric Paslay – and he asked to rewrite some of the lyrics to reflect his story, it came together really quickly from start to a finished record.

“I got sent the song in early May, and I rewrote the lyrics within a couple of weeks of getting the track without the vocals on it, so I could work on that. And once I got those where I wanted them, I went down into my studio and put down a vocal on the song and then I added guitars and I sort of built out the demo that I got sent,” says Keith. “Everything was done so quick, and then I sent it to my manager to say, ‘Hey, we just did this last week. What do you think about this song?’ And he said, ‘I think we should put that song out.’ I went, ‘When?’ He was like, ‘Now!’ (laughs) He’s like, ‘This just sounds great.’ And we played it for a bunch of different people, and everybody just loved it.”

During this crazy time we’ve all been living for the past nearly two years, Keith feels people have responded to the message of the song. “I think people were responding to the message. It’s a universal want, I think, to have a song motivate us at the times when we need it in our lives. This song was just magical, I think, how quick it was done, how quick it made its way into a finished record to how soon we were releasing it – all very, very fast through for anything I’ve ever done, so I think there’s other powers at work with this song.”

Keith is set to kick off the North American leg of his first world tour in four years, THE SPEED OF NOW WORLD TOUR, June 17th in Tampa, Florida. Prior to the summer/fall run in North America, he’ll be across the pond in the spring with dates in the U-K before heading to his Las Vegas residency in May.