Keith Urban is an Australian singer/songwriter who moved to the United States in 1992. His style of writing is modern country blended with rock, but he is considered country. He currently has four records. One of them, Be Here, has gone triple platinum and catapulted him into the country music spotlight. But, this success did not come overnight, Urban confesses. When asked about the first song he ever wrote, he replied, "I was nine or ten. I made a song up with my brother called 'Good Ole Country Music' [laughs]. It was pretty bad." The artist says that he has never felt like he had a gift for songwriting. He says rather, that it comes in "waves", and it's very sporadic. He may take months off for writing; but when it's time to write, he always creates material. Urban answers the question that many songwriters hear, about the order of lyrics and melodies, "It does change. Every now and then I'll scribble a bunch of lyrics out with really no melody to accompany them...just a meter. But mostly it's melody. Guitar riffs and melodies. Those are the things that usually come first." It seems that with many musicians, the melody is the most important part of the song. It's what captures the listener's attention before the lyrics. Urban believes that the most important topic to himself, is freedom in his music

"Song: The World's Best Songwriters on Creating the Music that Moves Us" is an excellent source to draw professional opinion from. Even though it does not discuss the specifics of actually writing a song, it offers advice and motivation from the successfull musicians of today and yesterday. I recommend and think this is a credible source for anybody looking to write or get into music.

Waterman, J. Douglas. Song: the world's best songwriters on creating the music that moves us. 1st ed. Georgetown,Ontario: FW Publications, 2007. 349-352. Print.