"America's Song" - will.i.am, David Foster, Bono, Mary J. Blige, Faith Hill, Seal
Promotional Release
U2 Related Content:
- "America's Song" (Studio Version) - will.i.am, David Foster, Bono, Mary J. Blige, Faith Hill, Seal (04:43)
Full Track Listing:
- America’s Song – will.i.am, David Foster, Bono, Mary J. Blige, Faith Hill, Seal
Background Information
“America’s Song” is a patriotic song written by will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas and David Foster. The two wrote the song while eating dinner at will.i.am’s house. will.i.am discusses the birth of the song: “We sat and talked and ate dinner and David actually wrote the chords and it was getting late and David said, ‘I’m going to go home. And I told him ‘I’ll have (the words) for you at 4 o’ clock in the morning.’ And he said, ‘Yeah, right.’ And I said, ‘I’ll bet you a hundred bucks.’” The song was written to fulfill a request by Oprah Winfrey that the two create “an unforgettable anthem for this glorious moment”, referring to the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama.
The studio version of the song was recorded featuring vocals by Bono, will.i.am, Mary J. Blige, Seal and Faith Hill. Bono’s vocals were recorded by will.i.am in mid January of 2009.
The song debuted on January 19, 2009 on “The Oprah Winfrey Show”. She featured a live performance of the song recorded at the Kennedy Centre. Bono wasn’t present at that performance, but was seen singing in the video via a pre-taped recording which showed on the stage behind the performers. Bono performs in front of a large American flag at the Lincoln Center performance which was shown on “The Oprah Winfrey Show”. After the live performance was shown on the show, the song was available for 24 hours on Oprah’s website as a free download, starting on January 20, 2009 as a 192kbps mp3 file. After the 24 hours, the song was made available for sale on iTunes at 256kbps.
This release of “America’s Song” was on a promotional CD released by Interscope Records to promote the song in the days after the Oprah debut of the song. The song was quickly pressed to CDR with a minimal amount of design. No inserts were included with the CD, and like many of Interscope’s rapid CDR promotional releases, there is no catalog number on the disc itself.
Liner Notes
America’s Song:
Written and composed by will.i.am, David W. Foster, Jean Baptiste and George Pajon Jr. Produced by David Foster and will.i.am. Performed by will.i.am, David Foster, Bono, Mary J. Blige, Faith Hill and Seal.