Urban wrote "Somebody Like You" with John Shanks, a producer who has worked with a wide variety of artist, including BBMak, Melissa Etheridge, Kelly Clarkson, Stevie Nicks and Unwritten Law.
Urban said that he wrote this song because he was trying to love himself like the others around him loved him.
This song was a huge country hit, staying at #1 on the Country chart for six weeks.
According to the liner notes, Urban played lead guitar, banjo, EBow and cardboard box on the track.
The song's music video was directed by Trey Fanjoy, who also helmed the clip for Urban's late 2000 single "But for the Grace of God." Urban's ex-girlfriend, supermodel Niki Taylor appeared in the visual.
Keith Urban admitted during his 2018 South By Southwest session "Creation and Connection" that when he wrote this song, he "sucked at relationships." The singer explained:
"I would write these songs about love and relationships; I remember writing 'Somebody Like You' and I remember playing it for my girlfriend at the time and she just looked at me and said, 'You're a f---ing hypocrite' - and I couldn't argue that. And I realized I was writing from all these place of the kind of person I wished I could be. I wasn't that person but I wanted to be. It was only a song but my real life was a disaster."
In 2001 Keith Urban flew to LA to write with John Shanks. He'd never met the songwriter/producer before and was very nervous about writing with someone he didn't know. The country star told Audacy's Rob + Holly that he thought a drink or two beforehand would give him some Dutch courage. "I swing by the Irish Pub at 9 a.m. and had a pint of Guinness, and that was really good," he recalled, "so I had a second one and that was even better, so I had a third one, just to be sure and then I went to my writing session."
When Urban arrived at their session, he was feeling totally relaxed. He and Shanks got everything done except the verses, so Urban took the work tape home to his hotel room. Once there, he devoured a bottle of Crown Royal and wrote the first and the second verse to "Somebody Like You." He woke up very blurry-eyed the next morning and thought, "That's not a bad song."
After John Shanks played a little drum loop he created, Urban pulled a six-string banjo out of the case. "The first thing that I played was that opening riff of the song and I started singing a melody, and the words started coming fairly quickly," he recalled in 2023. "It was one those pretty easy to write songs, and I think it's just where I was in my life at the time too. It really captured probably more of the person I wished I could be. I wasn't that person in the song, but I wanted to be, and I felt I was getting close to being that person. So, it's a truthful song. It came from a truthful place, and I'm still incredibly grateful for it."
When Capitol Records executive Mike Dungan first suggested pairing Keith Urban with producer Dann Huff, Urban was openly resistant, saying Huff's productions just weren't his style. To test the waters, Urban insisted on controlling every variable for their first session: he chose the studio, engineer, and band, and allowed Huff to pick only the song. That song? "Somebody Like You."
The session clicked so unexpectedly well that it sparked a years-long creative partnership. Despite their clashing instincts - Huff came from a perfectionist pop background, while Urban favored a raw, punk-like spontaneity - their musical friction proved alchemical. Huff described the breakthrough
to Premier Guitar as "like it dropped from the sky," and said the tension between them created a middle ground neither had reached before. Their collaborative legacy would span six consecutive albums and reshape the modern country sound.
