Keith Urban is a very successful country music singer and songwriter. Keith was born October 26, 1967 in Whangarei, New Zealand. When he was 17, Keith lived with his parents in Caboolture, Queensland, Australia. His father owned a convenience store. One day, his dad placed an ad in the store window for a guitar teacher. The rest, we know, is musical history.
Thirty-five singles by Keith Urban have reached the US country music charts. Eighteen have gone #1. The young singer has three Grammy award singles.
On June 25, 2006, Keith Urban married American-born Australian actress Nicole Kidman. They have two daughters, Rose and Faith Margaret.
In June 2015, Keith released a new single to critical and fan-held acclaim. In part, the verses go: “I’m a 45 spinning on an old Victrola. . . . I’m Mark Twain on the Mississippi. . . . And I learned everything I need to know from John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16.”
John Cougar Mellencamp is a 64-year-old singer-songwriter. He is called a “roots rocker.” Mellencamp’s songs describe and document “the joys and struggles of ordinary people.” His rock ‘n roll “looks directly at the messiness of life as it’s actually lived.”
Cougar’s most successful hit single is “Jack & Dianne.” The song was released in 1982 and spent four weeks at #1. In its own words, the work is a “Little ditty about Jack and Dianne, Two American kids growin’ up in the heartland.” It is a sadly haunting piece, an aching after the lost days of small town youth, and a deep sigh for a past that echoes ever in your head. “Oh yeah, life goes on, Long after the thrill of livin’ is gone.” That refrain is its own lament to the fading glory of two young people lost in the heartland of their own souls.
Since 1837, John Deere has been tractors — rough engine growls in the cold morning and the endless checkerboard of plowed fields at day’s end. I grew up with the green and yellow of the leaping deer, the company’s mascot for the past 135 years. My Dad worked in their engine works, my relatives ran their equipment, and Uncle Joe favors the Deere on his lands. “Nothing Runs Like a Deere” is the proud slogan of the company and the pure country it serves.
The 1993 film “Pure Country” was not a particularly successful movie, but it was George Strait’s most successful country music album. A theatrical bombshell, it was nonetheless a musical blockbuster; and it contained the #1 song, “Heartland,” with these memorable lyrics: “Sing a song about the heartland . . . Where they still know wrong from right . . . Where simple people living side by side, Still wave to their neighbor when they’re drivin’ by.” The joys of the heartland were there for George Strait; and from his film and music, they continue there for us today.
Keith Urban saw the heartland in the music of his trade and in the equipment that works the land.
The heartland.
The heartland is the Bible Belt, and John 3:16 is the centerpiece of that book. “For God so loved the world” is the start and the heart of the verse. Those words remain to echo long after the thrill of life is gone. They are still running long after the Deere has stopped. They are the singer’s vision that follows the beat of the music and the throb of the land. They are the heartland.
The heartland.
John Cougar, John Deere and John 3:16.
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