"We Were Us" is a song written by Nicolle Galyon,

Jimmy Robbins James Michael Robbins (born September 3, 1989, in Raleigh, North Carolina) is an American record producer and songwriter, best known for his work in contemporary country music. Career In addition to having penned ten number-one singles, he wo ...

, and

Jon Nite Jon Nite (born March 19, 1988) is an American singer/songwriter. He is Grammy-nominated, and has won CMA and ACM awards. He has written over 30 Billboard Airplay hits including 18 No.1's with billions of streams in multiple genres. Nite's songs ...

and recorded by New Zealand-born Australian

country music Country (also called country and western) is a popular music, music genre originating in the southern regions of the United States, both the American South and American southwest, the Southwest. First produced in the 1920s, country music is p ...

singer

Keith Urban Keith Lionel Urban ( né Urbahn; 26 October 1967) is an Australian and American country singer, songwriter and guitarist. Recognised with four Grammy Awards, he has also received 15 Academy of Country Music Awards, including the Jim Reeves Int ...

as a duet with American

singer

Miranda Lambert Miranda Leigh Lambert (born November 10, 1983) is an American country music, country singer. Born in Longview, Texas, she started out in early 2001 when she released her self-titled debut album independently. In 2003, she finished in third place ...

. It was released in September 2013 as the second international single and third overall from Urban's 2013 album '' Fuse''.

Content

The song is the narrators' reminiscence of lost love. Lambert sings the first verse, Urban sings the second verse, and both sing the choruses and bridge together. The song is set in the key of

D major D major is a major scale based on D (musical note), D, consisting of the pitches D, E (musical note), E, F♯ (musical note), F, G (musical note), G, A (musical note), A, B (musical note), B, and C♯ (musical note), C. Its key signature has two S ...

with a vocal range of A–A.

Critical reception

Giving it 4 out of 5 stars, Matt Bjorke of ''Roughstock'' compared its theme favorably to " Springsteen" by

Eric Church Kenneth Eric Church (born May 3, 1977) is an American country music singer-songwriter. He has released seven studio albums through Capitol Nashville since 2005. His debut album, 2006's '' Sinners Like Me'', produced three singles on the ''Billb ...

, and praised the blending of Urban's and Lambert's voices, although he criticized the production as "a bit too busy and loud". "We Were Us" won Musical Event of the Year at the 2014 CMA Awards.

Personnel

From liner notes to ''Fuse'': *Nathan Chapman — drum programming,

bass guitar The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an Electric guitar, electric but with a longer nec ...

acoustic guitar An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked, its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, ...

, keyboards *Miranda Lambert — vocals * Keith Urban — vocals, acoustic guitar,

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external electric Guitar amplifier, sound amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar. It uses one or more pickup (music technology), pickups ...

, ganjo

Music video

The music video was directed by Reid Long and Becky Fluke and premiered in November 2013.

Commercial performance

The song debuted at number 49 on

Country Airplay Country Airplay is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States since October 20, 2012, although the magazine also retrospectively recognizes the Hot Country Songs charts from January 20, 1990, through October 13, 2012, ...

for the week ending 21 September 2013. The next week, it climbed to number 29, while debuting at 24 on

Hot Country Songs Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States. This 50-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly by collecting airplay data along with digital sales and streaming. ...

. Its chart run has overlapped with Lambert's single " All Kinds of Kinds", the fifth from her album '' Four the Record''. The song has sold 566,000 copies in the US as of January 2014. This would be Keith's last top 30 hit on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 until "

Blue Ain't Your Color "Blue Ain't Your Color" is a song recorded by New Zealand-born Australian country music singer Keith Urban, and written by Steven Lee Olsen, Hillary Lindsey and Clint Lagerberg. It was released on August 8, 2016, as the fourth single from Urban's ...

" in 2016.

Charts and certifications

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

{{CMA Musical Event of the Year 2013 singles Keith Urban songs Miranda Lambert songs Male–female vocal duets Songs written by Jimmy Robbins Song recordings produced by Nathan Chapman (record producer) Capitol Records Nashville singles 2013 songs Songs written by Jon Nite Songs written by Nicolle Galyon