Songfacts®:

• Penned by Eric Church, along with Ryan Tyndell and Jeff Hyde, "We Were" is a reflective ode to a teenage romance.
  
  We were leather jackets hangin' onto a Harley
  Two heartbeats in the moonlight
  We were both feet hangin' out over the edge of a water tower skyline
  At least there's a little bit of sweet in the bitter
  Though part of me is always gonna miss her
  I am who I am
  I just miss who I was when we were
  
  The song finds Keith Urban remembering fondly the less complicated times of his youth. The country star misses the freedom that he had. "I like the idea that life just happens," Urban said of the song's message. "At some point, in the moment or not, you just gotta go with it."
• Urban said the first time he listened to "We Were," he immediately gravitated to its emotive and picturesque lyrics detailing young love. "I not only heard it, but I saw it," he explained. "It made me feel something."
  "The imagery is so strong - a stamp on the back of a hand, a Saturday night cover band, the girlfriend (or boyfriend) we ran with and a fake ID (which, of course, I never had)," Urban continued. "So many of us can relate, or likely will relate, at some point!"
• Urban co-produced the songwith frequent collaborator Dann Huff. The pair co-produced all of Urban's 2000-2010 albums and Huff also contributed to the country star's Ripcord and Graffiti U records.
• The song should not be confused with Urban's similarly titled Fuse track "We Were Us." That one was a duet with Miranda Lambert.
• Keith Urban and Eric Church's paths have crossed before, notably in 2013 when Church supplied guest vocals on the Fuse track "Raise 'Em Up." Church co-wrote "We Were," but Urban didn't know that when he heard it.
  
  "It got sent to me, not by Eric, but by someone who finds songs for me," Urban told Bobby Bones on his radio show. "I didn't know he was a writer, which was really cool, because it wasn't until we recorded the song, it was all done, and I found out after the fact."
  
  After Urban found out that Church was the co-writer, he called to tell him he'd just cut "We Were" and had no idea he was a writer on it. Church was thrilled that Urban had recorded the song. Even better was the fact he didn't know he'd co-penned as it meant he really loved the track.
• Church didn't realize just how perfect the song was for his buddy until after Urban recorded it. "That was the coolest thing for me is I didn't send Keith the song and say, 'Here's a song I wrote.' He found it, and honestly, it fits him more than it fits me," the songwriter said.
  
  "There's a line in there about 'two heartbeats in the moonlight. Leather jackets on a back of a Harley.' I don't ride a Harley. That's a line, call it 'poetic license.' That's where it came from," Church continued. "He and Nicole used to do that when they first started dating, and they were touring, they would jump on his Harley and they would put on their leather jackets and they'd go ride up in the countryside before the show. I did not know that until after he cut that song."
  
  He concluded: "I truly believe songs find the path that they're supposed to find, and that one was supposed to be with him."
• Keith Urban later released a couple of different versions of "We Were." He dropped an acoustic remix of the nostalgic track on August 2, 2019; a couple of months later he teamed up with Eric Church for a duet rendition of the tune.
• This was the first single released from The Speed of Now Part 1. The album topped the country charts in USA, Canada and Australia maintaining a streak of four consecutive debuts at #1 for Urban in those territories.