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Song Stories - "I'm In"

Georgia Middleman.JPG
The first time “I’m In” performed well on the charts was in 2000 when The Kinleys recorded it. It was perfect timing for co-writer Georgia Middleman, as she needed a new car to replace hers, which was on it’s last leg. Fast forward 10 years later and Keith Urban scored a No. 1 hit with the same song. Perfect timing, as Middleman says she’s ready for another new car.
 
“I’m In” was written by Middleman and Radney Foster. It was originally released on Foster’s 1999 album, See What You Want to See, which unfortunately had a short life due to his record label restructuring. The Kinleys version, which Foster also produced, went to No. 35 on the charts in 2000.
 
CountryHound spoke with Georgia Middleman recently about the song and how it came about. Middleman and Foster were both working as songwriters and mutual friends introduced them with the thought they should write together. Middleman said she was a little nervous about the writing engagement as Foster had already had some commercial success.
 
The night before the two were scheduled to write, Middleman decided to go see a movie in hopes of stimulating some song ideas. She went to see Goodwill Hunting, starring Robin Williams and Matt Damon. There was a line in the movie where Williams said to Damon if he wanted help improving himself, “I’m in.” And that’s how the idea was born!
 
Middleman said she and Foster composed half the lyrics the first day. Middleman told CountryHound, “Radney and I had half the song written, and then he stopped and said, 'What are you doing tomorrow?'  I said 'Writing.'  He said 'Me too. Cancel it. I'll cancel mine.' And we did! He said he was in the process of recording his record for Arista-Austin and this song would fit really nicely on it if we could get it finished. So the next day day, we finished it, and the next week he was in the studio recording it. I tell you timing is everything. Which was ironically, the title of the next song Radney and I wrote. But it's true; timing is everything...it was Radney's recording that Keith would eventually hear and make him want to record the song 10 years later."
 
Middleman when on to say that the way she understands it, Urban and his wife, Nicole Kidman, were riding in their car in Australia one day and heard the song. Urban told Kidman he wanted to cut a song like that, to which Kidman replied he should cut that one, and he did. 
 
Middleman said, "Keith is a real champion of songwriters. I had never met him before he recorded 'I'm In,' but he, knowing how important the life of a song is to a writer, e-mailed me & Radney at different times to update us on the progress of the record as it went up the charts. He's a busy man, but he made time to do that. Because of that, it felt like a real shared experience between the artist and the writers. In a business that's so left to chance and things that are out of your control, for Keith to do that added that little bit of humanity that made this a really special experience."
 
And it’s been a lasting relationship between Foster and Middleman. She now sings back-up with him.
 
And thanks to Urban’s Nicole Kidman-influenced decision to cut the single, whenever someone asks who’s written a No. 1 song, Middleman and Foster can say “I’m In.”