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No Beyoncé song was born in a vacuum. One of her most iconic tunes from the 2000s sounds a lot like a classic rock hit. Interestingly, the Beyoncé song in question was partly inspired by pizza and popcorn.

1 Beyoncé song sounds like a 1980s hit

Beyoncé’s latest album, Cowboy Carter, took a lot of ideas from classic rock. It samples The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” and Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made for Walkin'” on the same track. It also includes a cover of The Beatles’ “Blackbird.” Queen B’s 2000s output was not as indebted to rock ‘n’ roll, but there are exceptions to every rule.

“If I Were a Boy,” Beyoncé’s only hit that could be described as a folk rock song, sounds quite a bit like Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’.” It has a beat that sounds a lot like Petty’s signature hit. It’s hard to listen to one right after the other without noticing the similarities. However, Petty’s song has a much more traditional view of gender.

Queen B’s song was written after someone resisted eating pizza and popcorn

“If I Were a Boy” was co-written by a songwriter named BC Jean. During a 2019 interview with Songwriting, Jean discussed penning the ballad with Toby Gad. “We were walking through Times Square on a lunch break,” she recalled. “Toby carried around a recorder, and any time I said something ‘weird,’ as he called it, he’d record it. 

“I was trying to fit into my skinny jeans, watching my weight and all that stuff, and I was like, ‘Oh man, I wish were a boy right now. I’d eat the pizza and the popcorn,'” she added. “He was like, ‘That’s so weird, how would you sing that?’ He put a recorder in front of my mouth and I sang, ‘If I were a boy’ just like that. We ran back to the studio, and it was what I like to call a therapy session or diary entry because I’d finally decided to open my heart, and 20 minutes later, we had a song.” Interestingly, her memories of writing the song had nothing to do with a certain song by Petty.

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How Tom Petty’s ‘Free Fallin” performed compared to Beyoncé’s ‘If I Were a Boy’

Regardless of whether or not “Free Fallin'” consciously inspired “If I Were a Boy,” the two songs were roughly as successful. “Free Fallin'” reached No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100, spending 21 weeks on the chart. The song appeared on the album Full Moon Fever. That record reached No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and lasted on the chart for 77 weeks. It was Petty’s biggest studio album.

Meanwhile, “If I Were a Boy” climbed to No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed on the chart for 20 weeks. The track appeared on Beyoncé’s most impactful 2000s album: I Am… Sasha Fierce. The album topped the Billboard 200 for one of its 193 weeks on the chart. It remains Beyoncé’s longest-charting record.

“If I Were a Boy” might have taken some ideas from “Free Fallin'” — but it remains a beloved song in its own right. After all, it’s pretty hard to think of a single Beyoncé song that doesn’t have numerous fans.

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