Kelsea Ballerini Covers Keith Urban’s ‘Female,’ Calls It ‘Brilliant Truth’ [Watch]
Country artists love to encourage each other, and on Friday morning (Nov. 10), Kelsea Ballerini gave Keith Urban's new single "Female" a social media pat on the back, sharing her own interpretation of the song.
"The reason I love country music is because we have songwriters like @nicatnitemusic @shanemcanally and @rosscopperman who write lyrical and brilliant truth and artists like @keithurban who are bold enough to put it out into the world," she writes alongside her cover, which she posted to Instagram. "Bowing down to this one. #female."
"When you hear somebody say somebody hits like a girl / How does that hit you? / Is that such a bad thing? / When you hear a song that they play saying you run the world / Do you believe it? / Will you live to see it?" Ballerini sings softly in a shortened version of Urban's original.
Urban released the studio version of "Female" on Wednesday (Nov. 8) morning and performed it that night on the CMA Awards. The song hit him the moment he heard it, and he knew he had to cut it.
"I got to hear it fresh out of the oven, and it was instant love for me. I know all three of [the writers] and I think obviously the tone of times right now was weighing on all of them, and compelled them to write this song," Urban tells Rolling Stone Country. "It affected me not just as a husband but also as a father of two young girls, and a son. I had a heart reaction — my first thought was that it was a gospel soul prayer mantra, all rolled into one."
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