"The Fighter" is a song co-written and recorded by New Zealand-born Australian country music singer Keith Urban featuring Carrie Underwood as a duet. It was released on 6 February 2017 as the fifth and final single from Urban's 2016 album, Ripcord. Urban co-wrote and co-produced this song with busbee. The song has entered the record charts of Australia, Canada, the United States, Belgium, and Scotland, where it became Urban's first song to enter the Scottish and Belgian charts.
Content
The song is set in the key of B minor with a main chord pattern of Gmaj7–Asus4–Fm7–Bm and an approximate tempo of 132 beats per minute. It is about a man promising that he will defend and support a woman. Urban said of the song's evolution as "I was working with busbee that day; we were in London. I was actually driving to the studio to work on this other song we started, and I had most of it the chorus in my head, and it felt like I had most of the song in my head — the verses just had to flesh out. I walked into the studio and played the chord progression, and he built this track really quickly, and then I could sing over the top of it". He continued and said "it was just a very quick, quick song to write, because I literally thought about Nic and I and our relationship in the beginning, and some of the things we had said all went into that song."
Commercial performance
Before single release
Following the release of the album, "The Fighter" sold 25,000 copies in the first week and debuted at number 25 on the Hot Country Songs chart and also at number 18 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart. In the next week, the song jumped to number 11 on the Hot Country Songs chart and also debuted at number 69 on the US BillboardHot 100, selling 50,000 copies. It debuted on the Canadian Hot 100 at number 75. In Australia, the song debuted at number 30 on the ARIA Charts, becoming Urban's seventh top 50 entry and also his third highest-charting song on the chart. For the week of 10 July 2016, the song climbed from number 27 to number 19, becoming its new peak. The song has been certified Platinum, denoting sales of over 70,000 copies in Australia. It is Urban's third top twenty hit and Underwood's second entry on the ARIA Charts and also became her highest-charting song on that chart.
After single release
The song was released as the fifth official single from Ripcord on 6 February 2017. It debuted at number 44 on the US Country Airplay chart and reached number 2, becoming Urban's 38th consecutive top ten hit which is the longest running streak in that chart's history. It became Underwood's 26th consecutive top ten hit, which is the second longest active streak of country airplay top tens. It re-entered the Hot Country Songs chart at number five, selling 45,000 copies in its week of release and peaked at number two. It also re-entered the US Billboard Hot 100 at number 53 and has reached number 38, becoming Urban's twentieth top 40 hit and Underwood's twenty first, and her first since "Something in the Water" peaked at number 24 in October 2014. On the Canada Country chart, the song has reached number 2 and peaked at number 65 on the Canadian Hot 100. The song has been certified Platinum in Canada for shipments of 80,000 copies. It entered the Scottish Singles Chart at number 52, becoming Urban's first and Underwood's fourth entry on that chart following "Blown Away", "Something in the Water" and "Heartbeat". As of April 2018, it has sold a total of 888,000 copies in the US. The song was certified Double Platinum by the RIAA on August 23, 2019, denoting sales of over 2,000,000 units in the United States.
Music video
On 13 May 2016, following the release of the album, a video was released on Urban's YouTube account. The video, shot with Urban's own camera, shows him and his wife Nicole Kidman sitting in their car as the song plays on the radio. Urban serenades Kidman with the song while Kidman lip-syncs to Underwood's vocals. Urban shared an exclusive 24-hour first look video for the song through his Vevo account. Directed by John Urbano, the video features the two singing the song in a boxing ring, intercut with various people dancing to the song in various outdoor locations at night. The video was later taken down from YouTube after the initial 24 hours.The video was re-uploaded to YouTube on 16 February 2017. On 2 April 2017, another version of the video was uploaded to Urban's YouTube account.
