“Who Wouldn’t Wanna Be Me”
Keith Urban
Written by Monty Powell and Keith Urban
Radio & Records
#1 (1 week)
October 31, 2003
Billboard
#1 (1 week)
November 8, 2003
This is generic Keith Urban, saved by a memorable production.
Lyrically, “Who Wouldn’t Wanna Be Me” is boilerplate turn of the century country, right down to the pretty girl in the passenger seat with bare knees.
But the production, especially the sizzling guitar work, makes the track come alive. It captures the tension between what he’s lacking and what he has right next to him, and makes it believable that he doesn’t need any worldly possessions to be happy as long as he has his partner.
It still needed to be tightened up. Repeating the first verse at the end was gratuitous and one less chorus would’ve made things more efficient and ensured that the song didn’t wear out it’s welcome.
But I could listen to that instrumental track all day every day.
“Who Wouldn’t Wanna Be Me” gets a B.
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I think this was the first song on which he ever used his “ganjo” or six-string banjo. For that alone I rank it a bit higher.
For some reason, 2003-me really hated Keith Urban and thought that people only liked him because he was attractive and/or they were attracted to the novelty of him being Australian. But the more I revisit his catalog, the more I realize his songcraft and musicianship.
I agree that some of his songs run a bit long, but to be fair, the radio edits mitigate most of that.
Urban had been around a couple of years when this song came out. I had remembered Where The Blacktop Ends from his previous album.
But this is where I became a huge fan of his. The Golden Road album was a huge favorite of mine. I liked the style of his music. Noticing that Urban was the producer and co-writer of the song made me an even bigger fan.
Golden Road was such a stellar album. I really like Keith’s self-titled US debut but Golden Road felt like a much more fulfilled artistic vision. Nobody is more convincing than Urban at the feel-good, uptempo numbers. The rootsy production complementing the driving energy makes this one a winner, even if the lyrics are slight. The perfect song for a windows-down drive.
Your feelings on this one are similar to mine. It’s an affable if breezy lyric heightened by the production and instrumental. It was probably my least favorite of the four singles from “Golden Road” but that’s not intended as an insult because it was a very strong foursome of singles where Urban found his voice and secured his place as one of the genre’s top hitmakers in the decade to come. It’s one of two Keith Urban songs that gets recurrent airplay on the oldies radio station I listen to on my commute. I find that I’m humming it for some time every time it plays.
Grade: B+
Pleasant but nothing special – an easy “B” but the rest of the GOLDEN ROAD album was better
I like the song but not overly rememberable. “B-“
Urban has to be celebrated and credited for having a signature sound and specific energy. I just wish I enjoyed it more. I always found him a more compelling personality than an artist, which is not to discredit his musicianship.
Urban’s singles rarely landed well with me, including this one. Sounds like I should listen to “Golden Road” to sort myself out.