Capitol NashvilleKeith Urban‘s The Speed of Now Part 1 arrives today, shaped — at least partially — by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“I had a record that I could have put out prior to February, March of this year,” the Australian superstar tells ABC Audio. “But I had this feeling that there was just a few songs missing.”

“And the ones that came from just the stay-at-home orders and lockdown and everything just grinding to a halt,” he continues, “the songs that came from that turned out to be the ones I was missing… ‘Out the Cage,’ ‘Say Something,’… ‘Live With,’ all of those songs came from that period.”

While Keith typically prefers to simply follow the muse when making records, this time, he had more of an intention in mind.

“I think my vision was clearer…” he explains, “on what kind of spirit I wanted to manifest — or let manifest, probably.”

“You know, people talk about pushing boundaries, and I think I never think about pushing boundaries,” he reveals. “I think about making sure no one stops — no part of me stops — the thing from naturally flowing… I think about making sure there’s no fences or borders in the way.”

With his tenth album finished, Keith confesses he’s still grappling with the realities of 2020.

“I guess we’re feeling a lot of things,” he reflects. “If anybody’s like me, it fluctuates from moment to moment. I’m walking around, getting on with my life, and then I go, ‘What the hell happened?… Where did everything go?’ You know?”

”’… I feel… just surreal feelings every now and then,” he says, “of this sort of parallel universe: the one we used to be in, the one we’re kind of in, the one that isn’t quite here yet. So we’re sort of in between.” 

By Stephen Hubbard
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