Blue Ain't Your Color

Keith Urban's' father, Robert "Bob" Urban, died on December 5, 2015, when the singer was in the midst of working on Ripcord. "Don Williams records, I grew up listening to because of my dad," Urban told The Boot. "My dad's stereo - that's the first thing I think of, is that kind of strong downbeat, backbeat and little in-between rhythmic thing that is very, very Don Williams," he continued. "[It] really informed so much of how I play and how I rhythmically approach records." Urban feels his father's influence is all over Ripcord including this Steven Lee Olsen, Hillary Lindsey and Clint Lagerberg penned waltz-like ballad, which the singer produced with Dann Huff. "['Blue Ain't Your Color'] is a very, very stark, minimalistic way of recording, which really comes from those records that Don and Garth Fundis did," Urban explained. "And to go back now and listen to some of those — which I do pretty often, just to be reminded of how little you need on certain tracks." "Don also had that attitude, too, like, the song is the picture, and the record is the frame. You've got to find the right frame, not too much and not too little, to make the picture really work," he added. "So for the songs that don't need much, like 'Blue Ain't Your Color,' my dad's record collection obviously has informed that a lot."

Keith Urban fell in love with this slow Steven Lee Olsen, Hillary Lindsey and Clint Lagerberg penned track straight away. "I think I was trying to find songs and write songs to what I had done in the past, just that felt different for me. This song called 'Blue Ain't Your Color' came along, and it was just one of those that I loved immediately," he recalled. "I loved the lyric. I loved the melody, the feel, and it's basically a waltz, you know, like a one, two, three, two, two, three, a one, two, three, two, two, three." "But I didn't want it to feel like a waltz, you know?" Urban added. "So, when we recorded the song at Starstruck Studios here in Nashville, we kept it a little more robotic sounding, so it wasn't a straight band. It was a little more machinery, rhythmically, and I think it kept, hopefully for me at least, it kept it in a unique place that allowed the story to have a lot of space."

Directed by fashion photographer Carter Smith, the stylized black-and-white video stars supermodel and actress Amber Valletta, who portrays a brokenhearted woman in an empty bar. Throughout the clip, Urban and his band perform the song on the bar's tiny stage. However at the end of the visual we see Valletta's character on her own, giving the impression the music was just in her head the whole time. Amber Valletta has been a successful model since landing her first American Vogue cover in 1992. She has also appeared in television shows such as ABC's Blood & Oil.