Why Can't We Be Friends? (song)
| "Why Can't We Be Friends?" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Single by War | ||||
| from the album Why Can't We Be Friends? | ||||
| B-side | "In Mazatlan" | |||
| Released | April 1975 | |||
| Format | 7" | |||
| Recorded | 1974 | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 3:50 | |||
| Label | ABC, United Artists | |||
| Writer(s) | Papa Dee Allen, Harold Ray Brown, B. B. Dickerson, Lonnie Jordan, Charles Miller, Lee Oskar, Howard E. Scott | |||
| Producer(s) | Jerry Goldstein | |||
| Certification | Gold (RIAA) | |||
| War singles chronology | ||||
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"Why Can't We Be Friends?" is a song by the band War. The song has a simple structure, with the phrase "Why can't we be friends?" being sung four times after each two-line verse amounting to over forty times in under four minutes. The song reached #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the summer of 1975. It was played in outer-space when NASA beamed it to the linking of Soviet cosmonauts and U.S. astronauts for the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project.[1] Billboard ranked it as the No. 23 song of that year, on its year-end,Top 100 songs list.[2]
Chart performance
Weekly singles charts
| Chart (1975) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Canada RPM [3] | 6 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot 100 | 6 |
| U.S. Billboard R&B | 9 |
| U.S. Cash Box Top 100 | 5 |
Year-end charts
| Chart (1975) | Rank |
|---|---|
| Canada | 75 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot 100 [4] | 23 |
Inclusion in media
The song is played during the freshman hazing scene in Dazed and Confused. It also plays over the main credits in Lethal Weapon 4, was also covered in BASEketball, Bridge to Terabithia, and played in The Final Destination. A clip of the song is played as Homer Simpson's entrance music in Season 8 Episode 3 of The Simpsons, "The Homer They Fall". The Smash Mouth version was used for commercials and TV spots for Ice Age (2002 film). The song was also used in the intro video of the video game Operation Flashpoint: Red River. The opening of the song was used in a trailer for W. Kamau Bell's "United Shades of America" show on CNN.
Smash Mouth version
| "Why Can't We Be Friends?" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
.jpg) | ||||
| Single by Smash Mouth | ||||
| from the album Fush Yu Mang | ||||
| Released | April 7, 1998 | |||
| Format | CD single | |||
| Recorded | 1997 | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length |
4:46 (Album Version) 3:17 (Radio Edit) | |||
| Label | Interscope | |||
| Writer(s) | Papa Dee Allen, Harold Ray Brown, B. B. Dickerson, Lonnie Jordan, Charles Miller, Lee Oskar, Howard E. Scott | |||
| Producer(s) | Eric Valentine | |||
| Smash Mouth singles chronology | ||||
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American pop rock band Smash Mouth covered the song on their debut album Fush Yu Mang on April 7, 1998, releasing it as their second single.[5]
Chart performance
| Chart (1998) | Position |
|---|---|
| Australia (ARIA Singles Chart)[6] | 67 |
| Dutch Singles Chart | 89 |
| New Zealand Singles Chart | 39 |
| Swedish Singles Chart | 29 |
| U.S. Billboard Alternative Songs | 28 |
References
- ↑ Gabriel San Roman (December 23, 2010). "WAR Is the Answer (and the Question) for Lonnie Jordan". OC Weekly. Retrieved February 5, 2013.
- ↑ Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1975
- ↑ http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/films-videos-sound-recordings/rpm/Pages/image.aspx?Image=nlc008388.4009a&URLjpg=http%3a%2f%2fwww.collectionscanada.gc.ca%2fobj%2f028020%2ff4%2fnlc008388.4009a.gif&Ecopy=nlc008388.4009a
- ↑ http://www.musicoutfitters.com/topsongs/1975.htm
- ↑ "Music — Why Can't We Be Friends? - Single by Smash Mouth". Amazon. Retrieved March 9, 2016.
- ↑ "The ARIA Australian Top 100 Singles Chart Week Ending 24 May 1998". ARIA. Retrieved February 4, 2016.
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