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Keith Urban recounts how he landed on Taylor Swift's 'Fearless (Taylor's Version)'

By Megan Armstrong | Last updated 4/15/21

Not everything in Hollywood is glamorous.

Taylor Swift re-recorded her 2008 sophomore album Fearless, titling it Fearless (Taylor's Version) and including six brand-new "From the Vault" songs. The 26-track project dropped last Friday (April 9) and served as her first step toward regaining her masters that were controversially sold.

That part of the story is Swiftian in its grandeur, but the story behind how Keith Urban ended up featured on two "From the Vault" tunes is very unassuming.

"It's the craziest story," Urban told The Ellen DeGeneres Show for Thursday's episode. "We were in Australia. I was doing some Christmas shopping at the shopping mall in December. ... And I get a text from Taylor saying, 'I've got these couple of songs I'd like you to sing on. Do you want to hear them?' I said, 'Sure!' So she sends me the songs. I'm sitting in the food court at the shopping center listening to these two unreleased Taylor Swift songs."

The 53-year-old four-time Grammy winner is a featured vocalist on "That's When" and a background vocalist on "We Were Happy":

Swift and Urban previously linked on Tim McGraw's "Highway Don't Care" in 2013 with Swift singing alongside McGraw and Urban on the guitar:

With its original November 2008 release, Fearless earned Swift the first four of her 11 Grammy Awards—and the first eight of her 41 total nominations. The 31-year-old most recently claimed album of the year for Folklore last month.

Urban put out his The Speed Of Now, Part 1 album last September. "I've got a lot of Part 2 done," he told DeGeneres. "Still writing some songs and recording for it, but at some point, that's gonna come out. Just, not just yet."

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