OneRepublic Release “West Coast”

Original Story by Aaron J. Sams (2022-02-25)

OneRepublic have released their song “West Coast”.

Sound familiar?

Ryan Tedder, the lead singer of OneRepublic worked with U2 on Songs of Experience and Songs of Innocence. At the time, OneRepublic were developing their own song called “West Coast”. The songwas planned at the time for the band’s 2016 album Oh My My! but was later held back from that album. During the recording sessions with U2, Tedder shared the track, and U2 borrowed a hook from the song to develop their own song, “Summer of Love”.

The OneRepublic song has been released as a standalone single, accompanied by a video. Last March Tedder said of the song, “But then what might be my favourite song on the album, which will be for the summer, is called ‘West Coast’ and it’s like The Mamas and the Papas – ‘California Dreamin’’ and The Beach Boys, but with drums that are like Gorillaz. It’s the craziest, coolest about-face ‘here comes the summer’.”

On the album credits for “Summer of Love” Ryan Tedder and Brent Kutzle from OneRepublic are listed as producers and additional musicians on the track. The two songs share the “I’ve been dreaming of the West Coast” line, but the OneRepublic song continues “Bout some places that I don’t know” where the U2 song goes in a different direction, “Not the one that everyone knows”. There is little overlap in lyrics beyond the chorus. The U2 song refers to the conflict in Syria and the Mediterranean, but the OneRepublic song is a celebration of California. The OneRepublic song has been released in conjunction with Visit California and Microsoft Surface. It has been released on Interscope Records, and can be found on streaming services and online stores now.

Speaking about “Summer of Love” in the past, Tedder confirmed they wrote part of “Summer of Love” while working with OneRepublic in Venice Italy. Tedder said, “Bono and The Edge are like conductors. They listen to the demos and assemble the songs by taking the melody from one demo, the chords from another, the strings from a third demo. With them a song is never finished. You spend three months working on a piece, you leave and everyone seems happy with the result. Bono and the others go to Eze, in France, and they spend three weeks and they call you: ‘Ryan, Ryan, we’re thinking of speeding up the song, and maybe putting something punk on it like a new bass line. Ah yes, another thing, I completely rewrote the lyrics.’ And this thing happens with all of the songs! U2 are the best group on the planet but with them its not uncommon to produce 70 versions of a single song.”

“Summer of Love” isn’t the only song on Songs of Experience that borrows from another song. “Lights of Home” makes use of some elements of Haim’s “Song 5”.

The OneRepublic song “West Coast” can be found here. Links there should lead you to stores where you can purchase the track, or stream it on a service of your choice.

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