Keith Urban, ‘You Look Good in My Shirt’ — Story Behind the Song

Keith Urban's 'You Look Good in My Shirt' has a strange history behind it. Written by Tony Martin, Mark Nesler and Tom Shapiro, Urban first recorded the song for his 2002 'Golden Road' album. It was set to be the disc's fifth single, but that plan was scrapped; still, the track made it to No. 60 on the country charts.

Then, in June 2008, Urban released a re-recorded version of the song, which was included on a reissue of 2007's 'Greatest Hits: 18 Kids' album. In September, that version became Urban's eighth No. 1 single on the Hot Country Songs chart.

Martin and Shapiro tell The Boot about writing the song in the interview below.

Martin: I had the title to the song, and Tom had a story idea to go with it. Tom has the best barometer of what people really like. With this song's second verse, Mark and I had something different going, and Tom let us go, but the whole time he was saying, "I don't know." Then Keith called and asked if we could change the second verse. That's when Tom said he had an idea, and we were all ears.

This was supposed to be a single from Keith's 'Golden Road' album. Then the label decided to release 'Days Go By' as the first single from the next album, and it didn't happen. Suddenly, they go back and pull this old song up, release it as a single and add it as an extra track to Keith's 'Greatest Hits' CD. I've never heard of anything like that happening before.

Shapiro: What you hope for as writer is that the vision you had when you demo a song comes across when someone records it. The joy is when the artist takes it to the next level, using the demo as a blueprint but putting their own stamp on it. That's what Keith Urban did with this song.