THE 1000 BEST SONGS IN THE WORLD EVER.

23-Beyonce featuring Jay-Z-Crazy in Love.

2003-Number 1 single.

Best Bit-At 0.01. When Beyonce was first offered the song she said, ‘No one uses horn riffs in the 21st Century.’

Beyonce Giselle Knowles-Carter (see also best songs 800) was born on September 4th, 1981, in Houston, Texas, United States, her success has led her to be fondly known as ‘Queen Bey.’ With record sales in excess of 200 million records she is one of the best selling artists of all time, and is the highest earning black musician ever, when taking into account her other business ventures, tours and endorsements. Away from her singing career Beyonce has also starred in 10 films between 2001-2019, and she has also directed four other films between 2014-2020.

Prior to launching her solo career in 2003, Beyonce had been a member of the American R&B girl group ‘Destiny’s Child’ from 1990, through until 2006, releasing five studio Albums between 1998-2004, and 23 singles between 1997-2005. In America on the Billboard Hot 100 with ‘Destiny’s Child she achieved 13 top 40 hits, with four of those songs reaching Number 1. While in the UK, Destiny’s Child have charted on 16 occasions, and reached the Number 1 spot twice, for the solo discography of Beyonce, see best songs 800.

‘Crazy in Love’ is the debut solo single from Beyonce, and was the first of five singles released from her debut solo studio Album ‘Dangerously in Love,’ from June 2003. The songwriting credits for ‘Crazy in Love’ are shared by Rich Harrison, Beyonce, Eugene Record, and Shawn Carter, (Jay-Z) with Harrison and Beyonce being the songs co-producers.

The aforementioned ‘horn riff’ in question was a sample from the 1970 song ‘Are You My Woman? (Tell Me So’) by the American R&B/Soul group ‘The Chi-Lites, (Billboard Hot 100 Number 72) that song was written by Eugene Record (1940-2005) who was a member of that band, and therefore he receives songwriting credit on ‘Crazy on Love’ for the sample. The brains behind developing the ‘horn riff’ sample into ‘Crazy in Love’ was the work of the songwriter and music producer Rich Harrison, who also wrote many of the songs lyrics, and played all of the instrumentation on the track. The songs ‘bridge’ was written by Beyonce, who it is said was inspired by looking at herself in the mirror, as she was not wearing matching clothes and her hair was untidy, she kept saying, ‘I look so crazy right now.’ The songs ‘Rap’ which was provided by Beyonce’s then boyfriend Jay-Z (see also best songs 636-477 and 267) was an afterthought, and not added until the track was complete, it is said that Jay-Z improvised his verse in around 10 minutes.

The success of ‘Crazy in Love’ put to bed the worry that Beyonce’s solo career wouldn’t be able to match the success that she had enjoyed with her previous group Destiny’s Child. The song went to Number 1 on Billboard and also in the UK, with the American ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine in 2021 declaring it the 16th greatest song of all time on their ‘500 Greatest Songs List,’ earlier in 2018 the same publication had named it the best song of the 21st Century so far.

Beyonce has spoken about ‘Crazy in Love,’The song talks about how, when you’re falling in love, you do things that are out of character and you don’t really care because you’re just open. The song came from me actually looking crazy one day in the studio. I said, ‘I’m lookin’ crazy right now,’ and Rich Harrison, the producer, was like, ‘That’s the song!”

‘I look and stare so deep in your eyes, I touch on you more and more every time. When you leave, I’m begging you not to go, call your name two, three times in a row. Such a funny thing for me to try to explain, how I’m feeling and my pride is the one to blame.’