Keith Urban, Carrie Underwood Open Up About Success of 'The Fighter'

Keith Urban might be currently celebrating his latest chart-topping hit, "Coming Home," but at a recent Nashville party, Urban was joined by powerhouse vocalist Carrie Underwood, to belatedly toast the success of their No. 1 duet, "The Fighter." The song was written by Urban and busbee, and inspired by Urban's relationship with his wife, Nicole Kidman.

"I want to say a huge thank you to my wife for inspiring the song because it was born – it was so easy to write because it was born of a real conversation that we had had before we got married, and me trying to reassure my wife that I was a good bet," Urban says. "I was a safe place, and that I would take care of her and she could remain vulnerable and precious and that I would try and keep the world away from her so she didn't have to be hardened."

"The Fighter," which says, in part, "Look in the mirror / You're beautiful, so beautiful / I'm here to remind you / You're my only one, let me be the one / To heal all the pain that he put you through," was intentionally vulnerable, in an age where Urban knew that might not be well-received.

"They talk about people saying you've got to have a thick skin, and I don't agree with that," Urban concedes. "I think you should be vulnerable and be a spirit and be real. And maybe if people would stop being so harsh, especially to ourselves sometimes too, you wouldn't have to have thick skins. We could just be a little bit more what we are, which is pure spirit and fragile and real people, human beings, real people.

"So this song was born of that," he continues. "It was born of that. Because I don't want her to get thick-skinned. 'When they're trying to get to you baby, I'll be the fighter,' is really what that thing was about. So I thank my wife for that."

Underwood was grateful to be part of such an important song, but even more grateful to work alongside her good friend.

"I'm honored just to be able to work with such talent," Underwood says. "And the one thing that I've already said about Keith to other people, you've just been doing this. You're a pro – you've just been doing this for a long time. But every time I've been around him he is always listening to new music and he's like, 'What else is new out there? What's going on?' He's a consumer, a lover of music and I just respect that so much and [is] such a great example to the rest of us, just to, how do we grow? And how do we keep pushing ourselves and how do we keep getting better?"

"The Fighter" is the last single from Urban's 2016 Ripcord album. Download the song on iTunes.

Photo Credit: Getty images/J. Merritt