Keith Urban Failed Music Class In High School

Author Nancy Brooks // Country Writer, Beasley Media Group

June 14th 10:32 AM

Keith Urban is a guitar master and member of the Nashville Songwriting Hall of Fame; however, he failed music class in high school.

Before his CMA Fest performance last week, Keith told us about a special teacher he had in high school that made a difference in his life.

He explained, “I was very lucky to have a great music education program in Australia growing up, just in state schools. You know, basic state schools always had music class. It was a basic room, piano, and a few little instruments floating around.”

Urban told the story of one dedicated teacher. He said, “I had a great teacher; her name was Mrs. Groomer. She was my music teacher in the tenth grade, and she was amazing. She was a great teacher because I couldn’t read music, I couldn’t write music, and I didn’t have any theory. It’s just all by ear.”

He continued, “She tried to put together something where the curriculum wasn’t just based on theory. Because she was looking at several kids in our class, and several of us were going to fail music, she actually wrote us a play. It was called ‘Music Is As Music Was,’ and it was about the history of music.”

“She said, ‘I’ll write a country song because this guy loves country music. ‘This guy loves punk, so we’re gonna talk about punk. And they’ll all perform this, and it’ll be great.’ The school was okay with it, so we did this performance. Then the school changed its mind and said it wasn’t part of the curriculum, so we all failed, and she quit. She was like, ‘This is crazy and makes no sense. ‘”

He concluded with a smile, “So that kind of passion and caring from the teacher is extraordinary.”

The country superstar has already released a few songs from his forthcoming album, which will be released later this year, but before he started that album, he had another album done. Then something happened.

Keith told us in an interview, “The previous album, I felt like I was 98 percent in when I was listening to it, and that may sound like that’s good enough, but not for me. I have to believe in them from top to bottom.”

He added, “There can’t be one that I’m like, ‘Not sure about that one.'”

Urban said, “The album got shorter, forty minutes, top to bottom. The sequencing was important, as to how the album starts and how it ends. The stories, the tempos, the energies, and everything that happened in between are like an eleven-song set list for me. It all made perfect sense to me.”

Nancy Brooks has been working in the country music industry for almost 30 years. She has interviewed pretty much any country star you can think of. In the late 1990s, she started working with Dolly Parton. And yes, Nancy reports that Parton is as sweet as you would think. She loves her life in country music and has been backstage at every CMA Awards show since the late 1990s. Many of her stories are from her one-on-one interviews. She was there at the beginning of the incredible careers of many music superstars today, including Taylor Swift, Shania Twain, and Blake Shelton, and has interviewed them multiple times throughout the years.

6 Keith Urban Music Videos Everyone Needs To See

"One Too Many" Keith with Pink (2020)
The video begins with shots of various wreckage bobbing along the water’s surface, including a guitar, a telephone, sheet music, and other items. Urban is out on the water, using a bobbing sofa as a life raft as he floats along. Then, back on shore, Pink sits alone on the beach, looking out to sea. Keith said of Pink when the song came out, “I’ve always loved Pink’s voice, but her artistry and her multi-faceted ability to create, and her God-given talent, truly makes her one of the greatest voices of our time.”
"The Fighter" Keith with Carrie Underwood (2017)
This duet with Carrie Underwood was a massive hit for Urban in 2017. The two also sang it together on a couple of award shows that year. The video which shows him and Underwood singing together while a young woman, who looks a lot like Carrie but is not, dances around. This video is one of his biggest ones and has over 1.2 million views on YouTube.
"The Fighter" - Viral Video with wife Nicole Kidman (2017)
To promote his song “The Fighter” in 2017, Keith playfully joins his wife Nicole Kidman in their car while the song plays, and they sing it together. Urban has said the song was written about his relationship with Nicole. That video, which was shot on a phone that sat on the dashboard, has been viewed over ten million times. It starts with Kidman saying when she hears the guitar intro, “Oh my gosh, I love this song!”
"But For The Grace Of God" - (1999)
This was one of Keith’s first official music videos and it’s from his first number-one song. The video shows a very young and handsome Urban sitting in a house and singing the song’s lyrics in front of a fireplace. He also walks down a city street at night.
"Wild Hearts" - (2022)
This video really captures the feel of the song (which Keith co-wrote). He said to fans on Instagram when it came out, “To all of the lost ones who aren’t really lost ones, this song is for you. We are WILD HEARTS!” Urban told us of the song, “I’m here to tell you anything can happen in this life if you got the heart and the passion and a God-lit fire inside.”
"Somebody Like You" - (2002)
This song is what Keith says was the turning point in his career when it shot to number one on the country charts in 2002. He said, “‘Somebody Like You’ was one of the most important songs for me that happened and, to a large degree, just sent my career into a whole different speed in a really wonderful way.” The video for the song is also visually stunning, showing Urban playing guitar and banjo and singing in the wild while the sun glares through his silhouette.