Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert Cut a ‘Rug’

It's sure to be one of the most talked-about tunes on Blake Shelton's brand-new album, 'Startin' Fires,' but the singer says 'Bare Skin Rug,' his collaboration with girlfriend Miranda Lambert, has ignited a mini-firestorm already. Shelton reports that getting the song on his album was something of an epic battle.

"I had to kick and fight and cuss and was pretty much told by the record companies that the stupidest thing I could do was put that on an album," he tells the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. "You can't believe what I went through."

Shelton says the process of writing and recording the song was a lot easier, and much more organic. "[Album producer] Scott Hendricks put a couple microphones in front of us at his farm ... lit a campfire, and there were crickets ... We just played it one time and recorded it."

"It's very hillbilly," Lambert adds, with a laugh. "It's definitely different. Everybody probably expected us to come out with a big love song, but this is the opposite."

And while Shelton says he and Lambert are often compared to other country power couples like Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, he hastens to add, "She and I are so different from any of those other couples because we're really not trying to be that. It just so happens that we want to be together here this fall while we're touring. We're not going to make a duets album and we're not ever going to do things like that. We're just going to take it easy."

Blake Shelton's 'Startin' Fires' will be released on November 18.