Will.i.am Says U2, Earth, Wind & Fire and Talking Heads Inspired Black Eyed Peas’ ‘I Gotta Feeling’

Will.i.am knows that it takes greatness to make greatness. So he looked to some legendary music artists as inspiration for one of his biggest hits of his career.

During a new episode of the Nile Rodgers series A deep hidden meaning — a songwriting show on Apple Music 1 — the Black Eyed Peas hitmaker, 49, detailed the inspiration behind his group’s 2009 hit “I Gotta Feeling.”

Allegedly, according to NMEWill.i.am. he originally “wrote the chorus” for rock icons U2 and was also inspired by Earth, Wind & Fire and Talking Heads during the song’s creation.

Will.i.am attends the #PRETTY Video Release Celebration hosted by PrettyLittleThing.com on February 22, 2019 in Los Angeles. Aaron J. Thornton/Getty

“David Guetta had a song called ‘Love Is Gone’… So he sent me the remix and it’s the beat for ‘I Gotta Feeling’,” he recalled in the episode, which airs in full on August 10 at 2pm BT. “I approached it like, ‘Okay, if I could approach the chorus, what would Earth, Wind & Fire do? What would U2 do? What would Talking Heads do all at the same time?'”

According to NMEthe producer explained that “the chorus of the song is like an Earth, Wind & Fire vibe, it’s very Maurice White.” He also admitted that the famous “woo-hoo” line of the song is “very bono, U2”. “Actually, I wrote the chorus for U2 because I was working on it at the time [their 2009 album] There is no line on the horizon at Olympic Studios in the UK,” Will.i.am added.

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“At that time, [U2’s] ‘Beautiful Day’ was like, ‘Oh man, if they have another song like ‘Beautiful Day,’ that would be great,” he continued. ‘So I did ‘Gotta Feel Tonight’s Gonna Be a Good Night’ as a response to that, he wrote it from the perspective of Maurice White and then Talking Heads’ ‘Psycho Killer’. And so that ‘Psycho Killer qu’est-ce que c’est?’ Let me borrow that. Let me use that math.”

(LR) Apl.de.Ap, will.i.am and Taboo of the Black Eyed Peas perform during Musikfest on the Wind Creek Steel Stage at PNC Plaza on August 8, 2024 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Lisa Lake/Getty

The Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling” was No. 1 on the chart Billboard Hot 100 in 2009, where it stayed for 14 weeks while spending a full year on the song chart. The song earned a Grammy nomination the following year for Record of the Year, plus an award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals.

Ahead of the release of “I Gotta Feeling,” Will.i.am said Marie Claire that the song is “dedicated to all the party-goers in the world who want to go out and party.” “Pretty much every song on a Black Eyed Peas album reflects our party life,” he added of the group’s 2009 album. END — which included other hits like “Boom Boom Pow” and “Imma Be.”

“It was a conscious decision to make this kind of record,” the band’s frontman continued. “Times are really hard for a lot of people, and you want to give them an escape and you want to allow them to feel good about life, especially at these low points.”

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Source: HIS Education