Keith Urban was at food court when Taylor Swift first sent 'Fearless' songs

April 15 (UPI) -- Keith Urban says he was at a shopping mall food court when Taylor Swift first sent him her Fearless (Taylor's Version) songs.

The 53-year-old country music star appeared on Thursday's episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, where he discussed how his collaboration with Swift, 31, on the album came about.

Urban recently worked with Swift on the song "That's When." The track appears on Fearless (Taylor's Version), a rerecorded version of Swift's 2008 album Fearless, released this month.

On Ellen, Urban said he was Christmas shopping at a mall in Australia in December when Swift texted him about collaborating.

"So I'm at the shopping mall doing my Christmas shopping and I get a text from Taylor saying, 'I've got these couple of songs I'd like you to sing on. Do you want to hear them?'" Urban recalled.

"I'm sitting in the food court at the shopping center, listening to these two unreleased Taylor Swift songs," he added. "It was an unusual place to be hearing unreleased Taylor Swift songs. But I loved the songs, and luckily got to put a vocal on both of those."

Swift opened for Urban on his 2009 tour during her early career. On Wednesday's episode of The Late Late Show with James Corden, Urban said it was apparent back then that Swift would become a star.

"She just had that ... there's this thing where people are playing into the future. When they play a show you can just tell that their eyes are set way, way ahead of where they're going -- where they are. She had that right from the beginning," Urban said.

"I think truly for me, I think she's one of our generation's great, great songwriters, period," he added.