Say Something

Album: The Speed of Now Part 1 (2020)
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Songfacts®:

  • When Keith Urban received this song, the first verse had already been written by Lindy Robbins, Celine Svanbäck, Scott Quinn, and EMAN8. Lindy Robbins had steered the lyrical direction into a social justice call to speak out about things you believe in and want to see changed. Urban told them he'd love to finish the song off with a more personal second verse about being raised in a house with a father who encouraged him not to speak out. His dad had told him to put his beliefs into his music, and live his life by his principles, rather than speaking them out loud.

    Urban told The Boot: "There's a lot of truth in that. It's a little bit like what Gandhi said - you know, when they said to Gandhi, 'What's your message?' he goes, 'My life is my message.' And I've always admired that approach, but there are times when we should be speaking up and saying something.

    And my own connection to that moved toward my family I was raised in and times I wished I'd spoken up in that environment, 'cause we didn't talk about anything. 'When I get close, I close up. Intimacy's so hard for me and I get stuck' - that's how I was raised. And there was so many times we should have said something. We didn't talk about stuff; we just didn't talk about it. We should have said something in the home, so I wanted to make sure that got covered in that song as well."
  • Urban produced the song with Danish songwriter/producer Cutfather, with whom he also collaborated on the Pink duet "One Too Many" and another Danish producer, Jeppe London Bilsby.

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