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Keith Urban Plays Solo Acoustic Cover of Ariana Grande’s ‘We Can’t Be Friends,’ Calls It ‘Audible Heroin’

Canadian star Tate McRae also covered the cool dance-pop track in London last month.

Keith Urban Plays Solo Acoustic Cover of Ariana Grande’s ‘We Can’t Be Friends,’ Calls It ‘Audible Heroin’

Keith Urban at the 2024 CMT Music Awards held at the Moody Center on April 7, 2024 in Austin, Texas.

Gilbert Flores for Billboard

Keith Urban can’t get enough of “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait For You Love)” from Ariana Grande‘s most recent album.

He proved his endless love for the track by playing it during a small club show earlier this week and posting a video of the cover on Monday, in which he croons the heartbreak anthem solo acoustic. “Me and my truth, we sit in silence/ There in the mirror it’s just me and you/ I don’t wanna argue, but I don’t wanna bite/ My tongue, yeah, I think I’d rather die/ You got me misunderstood, but at least I look this good,” Urban sang while bathed in blue light (and slightly changing up a few lyrics.)


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Urban captioned his post, “this song is audible heroin,” after earlier heaping praise on the track written and produced by Grande, Max Martin and Ilya Salmanzadeh that debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in an interview with People last week. “I don’t know what is going on with that song, but I cannot stop playing it. It’s like audible heroin,” Urban said at the time in his first use of the musical drug simile. “Literally, I have to have another hit. I play that thing over and over and over.”

As the magazine reported, Urban got his fix of the tune he further said has some “real celestial magic” on May 6 when Grande performed the song at the Met Gala, which the singer attended with wife actress Nicole Kidman. “That’s my absolute current obsession song right now,” Urban said.

“Ariana has always had that unique vocal gift,” Urban told People. “On top of that, she’s a phenomenal writer and producer. So it was easy for me to stumble upon that new album. I was interested in it before it came out.” Urban is not the only one entranced by the song, as evidenced by fellow Canadian star Tate McRae performing her own stripped-down version of the tune during a gig at the Apollo Theatre in London last month.

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“We Can’t Be Friends” was the second single from Grande’s seventh studio album, which was released in March; Eternal Sunshine was Grande’s sixth LP to top the Billboard 200 album chart.

Check out Urban’s performance below.

This story originally appeared on Billboard U.S.
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Sum 41
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Sum 41

Rock

Sum 41 Release Two Swan Song Spotify Singles Ahead of Final Performance at 2025 Junos

The stripped back version of hit "Landmines" and cover of Rage Against The Machine's "Sleep Now In The Fire" are available now on Spotify as the pop-punk veterans prepare for their last bow.

Sum 41 are making some final noise before they call it day.

The Canadian pop-punk icons have released two Spotify singles ahead of their final broadcast performance at the 2025 Junos this Sunday, March 30.

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