Singer-songwriter Keith Urban lived out a fan’s biggest dream – and a country musician’s, too – when he collaborated with his lifelong idol and one of his biggest influences, Don Williams. He was featured on Williams’ track “Imagine That” off his 2012 studio album And So It Goes. It was one of two Don Williams duet tracks, with the other one recorded with bluegrass fiddler Alison Krauss titled “I Just Come Here for the Music.”
“Imagine That” was written by Kieran Kane and Jamie O’Hara and was produced by Williams himself, along with Garth Fundis, under Sugar Hill Records. Williams and Fundis have had successful collaborations, co-producing 30 hit records from the ‘70s until the early ‘90s. And it was Fundis who invited Urban to join them on their new record.
In an interview with NPR, Urban shared an excerpt of what went behind the scenes. He said that while they were working, Williams (who was in his 70s then) felt that the track needed something more. He then tapped his hands on the console, which Urban described as an “almost flipped sense of where the backbeat was,” and then proceeded to play the pattern.
At first, Urban was admittedly skeptical, thinking it wouldn’t work. But as soon as the percussion player did what Williams told him, it felt right. “There’s the sound. There’s the Don thing.” He marveled at the Gentle Giant’s intrinsic sense. The two then recorded it together on separate mics.
For You
And the end product was a tune that would put you into Last Song Syndrome for days on end.
Meaning Behind the Song
The song had an upbeat sound, but the lyrics were actually melancholic. It talked about the longingness of a love that was already gone. As it went, “Imagine that, how sweet it’d be / To have you here again with me / Oh, Lord, I wish I had you back.” It also harnesses the power of memory and how the protagonist turns that longing feeling into a recreation of the moments they had together, singing, “But all I can do is imagine that.”
As for the song’s music video, Don Williams opted for a laidback concept – sort of a nostalgic film. It was just him and Keith Urban jamming together with their guitars. In between, they had some private conversations. And then, as it approached the end, they let the fans in on a snippet of what they were talking about.
If you want to know what that was, then go ahead and check out Don Williams and Keith Urban’s track “Imagine That” in the video below.
