Gravitational pull of love

Sometimes a kiss is just a kiss, but sometimes it’s a statement of faith, too.

In “Kiss a Girl,” a song Keith Urban co-wrote with Monty Powell and included on his “Defying Gravity” CD, there’s more to life than just wishing you could move on and make things better.

“At the core of that seemingly simplistic song, it’s about the courage to love that’s at the heart of this record,” Urban said last week. “Do I have the courage to love someone and let someone love me?

“This record really touches on that. It’s about not wanting to rush into something, but take my time and build on a more solid foundation.”

That’s the kind of foundation the award-winning country singer and guitarist has been busy building for himself in the past few years. Marrying Academy Award-winning actress Nicole Kidman in June 2006 and welcoming their daughter, Sunday Rose, in July 2008 have turned Urban’s life around.

Charlottesville fans can hear the New Zealand native share songs from “Defying Gravity” — his fifth album, and his first to grab that coveted No. 1 spot — during Urban’s concert Thursday at John Paul Jones Arena. Sugarland will open the show.

“How love is working in my life is having an effect on everything I do,” Urban said.

Kris Allen, this season’s “American Idol” winner, performed “Kiss a Girl” with Urban on the reality competition show, belting out hopeful lyrics about wanting to take a chance on love to set things right and leave the pains of the past behind. And the way Urban sees it, the song isn’t just for folks who long to get caught up in the thrill of new love.

“It also reminds people that have been in a relationship a long time not to lose the essence of that relationship,” Urban said.

“We move in and out [of relationships] because we’re sort of addicted to that.”

There it is again — that courage theme Urban was mentioning. Sure, love might fill your stomach with butterflies in the beginning, but what you really need to keep love smoldering over the decades is guts. It’s easier to grow comfortable with the status quo and resist the need to grow, to expand, to expect more — partly because the only way to get there involves growing pains. The benefit is in finding out that you are capable of feeling far more love than you’d ever imagined.

“I don’t know how often we kind of check our courage,” Urban said. “When you love somebody, you open your heart — if not all the way, as far as it’ll go. My wife calls it ‘stretching.’ ”

Taking a chance on growing in love has paid off for Urban.

“The title — even that alone — it’s even a metaphor for my journey, everything I’ve been through in the past few years,” Urban said of “Defying Gravity.”

Juggling a successful international career in the midst of a well-publicized struggle with rehab, relapse and recovery required powerful tools.

Faith, hope, determination — and especially love — combined to forge “the power that brought me out of that,” he said.

“And we’ve got to keep moving forward, no matter what we do, no matter what grieving process we go through,” Urban said.

Being in what he called “the hope business” isn’t a bad day at the office, as it turns out. There’s time to hang out with friends.

Thursday’s show teams up Urban and his band with their friends in Sugarland.

The popular duo of Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush has packed the country charts with hits, including “Baby Girl,” “Settlin’,’’ “All I Want to Do,” “Who Says You Can’t Go Home” and “Already Gone.” Two Sugarland albums, in fact, are in this week’s top-10 country album chart — “Love on the Inside” and the live DVD-CD set “Live on the Inside.”

But along the way on his “Escape Together World Tour,” Urban has been joined by a variety of other stars, including Dierks Bentley, Taylor Swift, Jason Aldean, Lady Antebellum, Little Big Town, the Zac Brown Band and Glen Campbell.

“I had a list of a lot of people I’d like to come out with us,” Urban said. “I though, ‘Why not mix it up?’ In the end, it was great for us.”

Urban said he also liked the idea of offering devoted fans the chance to hear something fresh if they caught several concerts during the tour.

Just as you can’t hurry love, you can’t drop a CD before it’s ready. “Defying Gravity,” released in March, took a bit longer to finish than Urban had expected, but he’s proud of the finished product.

“I’m really grateful to my record company for working with me,” Urban said.

“It is serendipitous timing. I’m grateful that the record was captured, the spirit was captured, just the way it was.”

Details

Keith Urban and Sugarland

7:30 p.m. Thursday

John Paul Jones Arena

$74.50 to $59.50

http://www.johnpauljonesarena.com

1-888-JPJ-TIXS