Chuck Taylors

Album: High (2024)
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Songfacts®:

  • Chuck Taylor All-Stars are canvas sneakers that have been made since 1917. They're comfortable, fashionable and affordable, making them very popular with young people in America (the rapper Wiz Khalifa is a big fan - he has his own line).

    This song tells the story of a young, Chuck Taylor-wearing couple in a small town. As a sign of their enduring love, they each take off a shoe (hers a size 7, his a 12), which they tie together and throw over a power line, where it will hang there forever, or at least until a utility worker takes it down.
  • Urban wrote this song with Chase McGill, Greg Wells and Jerry Flowers. He's worked with Wells before, and Flowers is his bass player, but this was Urban's first time writing with Chase McGill, who extensive credits include "I Got Better" by Morgan Wallen and "But I Got A Beer In My Hand" by Luke Bryan.

    Urban told American Songwriter how it came together: "The chord progression and the melody, which ended up being the chorus, came to me formed but with no lyric. I had zero idea what the song's about, but it sounded really exciting and I got to the studio, grabbed a bass and said to Greg, just give me a 4/4 drum feel. I sang this melody in front of the guys, and Chase McGill said, 'I've got this idea for a song called 'Chuck Taylors.' I said, 'That's a great title. What's 'Chuck Taylors' about?" And he read me the chorus.

    As he was reading it, I went, 'I think this fits,' and I grabbed the lyric, sang the melody I'd just walked in with, and it was like a hand in glove. They lyrics and melody were meant to go together, and we were off and running."
  • The stacked vocals at the end of the song ("gonna make it, yes, we're gonna make it now") were inspired by the songs on Meat Loaf's classic album Bat Out of Hell (1977). Listen to songs like "Paradise By The Dashboard Light" and "You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night)," and you'll hear what Urban was going for.
  • The image of tossing shoes on to power lines connected with Urban right away - he says they do that in his native Australia too.

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