The song is the narrators' reminiscence of lost love. Lambert sings the first verse, Urban sings the second verse, and both sing the choruses and bridge together. The song is set in the key ofD major with a vocal range of A3–A5.[2]
Giving it 4 out of 5 stars, Matt Bjorke ofRoughstock compared its theme favorably to "Springsteen" byEric Church, and praised the blending of Urban's and Lambert's voices, although he criticized the production as "a bit too busy and loud".[3]
"We Were Us" won Musical Event of the Year at the 2014CMA Awards.[4]
The song debuted at number 49 onCountry Airplay for the week ending 21 September 2013. The next week, it climbed to number 29, while debuting at 24 onHot Country Songs.[7] Its chart run has overlapped with Lambert's single "All Kinds of Kinds", the fifth from her albumFour the Record. The song has sold 566,000 copies in the US as of January 2014.[8] This would be Keith's last top 30 hit on theBillboard Hot 100 until "Blue Ain't Your Color" in 2016.
^Fuse (Deluxe Edition) (CD booklet). Keith Urban. Capitol Records Nashville/Hit Red Records. 2013. B0019113-02.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
