Country Star Keith Urban Releases New Single, ‘John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16’

Three years after Eric Church had a smash country hit about listening to Bruce Springsteen, Keith Urban has followed suit by name-checking John Mellencamp's old moniker in the title of his new single. You can listen to the country star, American Idol co-host and husband of Nicole Kidman's new song, “John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16,” above.

The track finds the New Zealand-born and Australian-bred Urban describing himself as the quintessential all-American boy, equal parts John Wayne, Superman and “blue-jean quarterback saying ‘I love you’ to the prom queen.” He finishes up the chorus by singing that he “learned everything I needed to know from John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16.”

According to the Boot, Urban debuted the cut back in February at the 2015 Country Radio Seminar at Nashville’s legendary Ryman Auditorium. As the singer says in a press release, it “was sent to me a few months ago by one of the songwriters, and I loved it immediately — loved it so much that right before I walked out on stage at the Ryman for CRS a few months back, I thought I’d play the song solo acoustic to see what the audience thought. Flash forward, and there’s no doubt that their response that day helped make it the first single from what will be my next album.”

Urban is expected to perform the song tomorrow at the CMT Music Awards, which will be broadcast on CMT at 8PM ET.

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