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
"Ballero"
(1974)		 "Why Can't We Be Friends?"
(1975)		 "Low Rider"
(1975)

"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".

Cover versions

American pop rock band Smash Mouth covered the song on their debut album Fush Yu Mang in 1997, releasing it as their second single.

Chart performance (Smash Mouth version)

Chart (1998) Position
Australia (ARIA Singles Chart)[5] 67
Dutch Singles Chart 89
New Zealand Singles Chart 39
Swedish Singles Chart 29
U.S. Billboard Alternative Songs 28

References

  1. ↑ Gabriel San Roman (December 23, 2010). "WAR Is the Answer (and the Question) for Lonnie Jordan". OC Weekly. Retrieved February 5, 2013.
  2. ↑ Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1975
  3. ↑ 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
  4. ↑ http://www.musicoutfitters.com/topsongs/1975.htm
  5. ↑ "The ARIA Australian Top 100 Singles Chart Week Ending 24 May 1998". ARIA. Retrieved February 4, 2016.


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