This Beyoncé Song Was Written in Just Two Hours—Can You Guess Which One It Is?
For the past two decades, Beyoncé has delivered some of the most amazing and inspirational girl-power anthems that have become the biggest chart-topping hits ever released by a female artist.
Her incomparable vocals and empowering messages are what make her tracks as amazing as they are and many of us can agree that there has yet to be a Beyoncé song that has left us disappointed.
Beyoncé’s ‘Crazy In Love’ has an interesting backstory
Beyoncé may be a highly regarded singer, actress, and fashion designer, but she’s also a talented songwriter who’s written a majority of her hit tracks.
Though the singer uses a large team of songwriters and instrumentalists to help give her songs that unique edge and power, Bey is very much involved in the creative process.
While she has gotten to work with some incredible songwriters over the years, a specific writing moment she experienced at the start of her solo career proves that she only uses the cream of the crop when it comes to writing her tracks.
Back in 2002, talented songwriter and US producer, Rich Harrison was having trouble convincing his colleagues that a track he’d been working on was a winner.
Though he didn’t have any lyrics to go with his song, Harrison used a sample of the Chi-Lites’ 1970 song “Are You My Woman? (Tell Me So)” for the hook, which he thought gave the track an old-school feel.
After the record got turned down by music execs, Harrison decided to keep it in his bottom drawer until the right artist came along.
Then enters Beyoncé, who helps Harrison turn this track into the singer’s biggest and most beloved songs to date: “Crazy in Love.”
“From her face, she was kind of like, ‘I don’t know, but I’mma ride with you anyway,” Harrison told MTV in 2004. “I knew I was going to have to sell it a little bit, because when it comes on it doesn’t sound like anything that was being done at the time.”
Though Beyoncé was on the fence about this song in the beginning (she thought it sounded “too retro”), she eventually warmed up to the sample. “I love the idea,” Harrison recalled the singer saying. “Now write the song. I’ll be back in two hours.”
While writing an entire song in 120 minutes sounds pretty insane, Harrison obliged and wrote the verses and the hook, which he admits was difficult to do since he was hungover from the night before.
The only thing left was the bridge, which Beyoncé did, along with vocals, once she returned to the studio.
Harrison didn’t think this song was going to be a huge hit
A few days after Beyoncé and Harrison completed the track in its entirety, Jay-Z laid down the rap verse in, get this: 10 minutes.
When the producer heard Jay-Z’s addition, he naturally freaked out.
“I remember when I first heard Jay’s version,” he recalled. “I was in my car screaming, ‘Whoaaaa!’ “
“Crazy in Love” went on to become the lead single off of Beyoncé’s Dangerously in Love album and was soon the number-one hit in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Though it has since been declared the greatest song of the 2000s and the 21st century, so far, Harrison never thought this track was going to be the massive hit it is today.
“I mean, I wrote it hungover,” he admitted.
Since it’s release, “Crazy in Love” has won three Grammy Awards, 3 MTV VMAs, 1 Billboard Music Award, and many more accolades.
Although Beyoncé has gone on to release hit after hit since “Crazy in Love,” this song is still one her most successful tracks to date and to think, it was only written in two hours.
