Keith Urban Freezes a Moment in Romantic Time With ‘Polaroid’

Check out the surrealist video for his latest new track.

Written by Chris Parton
Keith Urban Freezes a Moment in Romantic Time With ‘Polaroid’
Keith Urban rehearses for “We Were” for “The 53rd Annual CMA Awards” live on Wednesday, November 13, 2019 at Bridgestone Arena in Downtown Nashville. Photo courtesy of CMA

Keith Urban captures a blink in time with his new track, “Polaroid,” and then brings it back to life with its trippy video.

Part of an upcoming studio album, the Technicolor track is filled with syncopated beats and vivid vocals that match the song’s warm and fuzzy, fond-memory feel. Written by a group of pop hitmakers — including Sam Fischer (Demi Lovato, Jessie J), Steph Jones (P!nk, Selena Gomez), Geoff Warburton (5 Seconds of Summer, Shawn Mendes), Griffen Palmer and Mark Trussell — the cozy anthem describes a budding romance, caught forever by the flash of a camera.

Meanwhile, a surrealist video directed by Dano Serny finds Urban living that moment out, exploring a living photograph taken at a backyard pool party — frozen for eternity inside a virtual polaroid picture. Apple Music’s Zane Lowe on New Music Daily, Urban says the song take him back to his earliest days in Nashville, living rough and fast with his fellow musical dreamers.

The concept of the Polaroid I thought was great because when I first moved to Nashville, my band and I lived in this just rundown, piece of crap house and we had parties all the time and somebody gave us a Polaroid camera and we’d take pictures of everybody and put them up on a wall and everything,” he said. “And when the lyric came — and I didn’t write this song, somebody sent me, some friends of mine sent me this song and I just loved it right away. And the idea that this couple in this photograph who were at a party that they didn’t really want to be at, but they sort of ran into each other and someone said, ‘Hey, smile.’ And they snapped them. And then all these years later, they’re still together. And who would have thought that someday I’d be more than just a boy in a Polaroid with you, which I thought was just such a great lyric.”

“Polaroid” marks the second new track off Urban’s next studio album, expected to arrive in the fall of 2020. He’s already treated fans to the tender-blues single, “God Whispered Your Name,” which is currently inside the Top 15 at country radio, and recently took part in the star studded One World: Together at Home charity concert.