This is a famous song all over the world... even though most of the people don't actually know the name of the band who wrote and immortalised this excellent Ska / Reggae tune.
I'd like to present you some history about it... and also three versions of this song:
- the Original... by War;
- a Live Version... by War;
- a Cover Version... by Smash Mouth.
I hope you like them. First, let's take a look at the album cover from 1975, which has the same name as the song:
While they were traveling in Japan in the early 70s, the band had the idea for this song. They met a lot of people from different cultures, races and religions and, after interacting with a lot of people in several destinations, they understood that, deep down, we're all more similar to each other than most of us like to admit.
The words of Harold Brown, the band's Drummer, say it a lot better than I can...
"We're all connected by language, and by our food, and by our culture. Most racists don't know why they're racist. But you pick them up and take them over and drop them in a country, like India or Pakistan, guess what? 'Why can't we be friends?' Because all of a sudden you find out we're more alike inside than we are on the outside. We started realizing that that's really important. You travel all over the world, you can't speak a lot of their language. But one thing they do know, they know your body language, how you may react."
The band took some creative liberties with this song, and instead of following the traditional path, they made it so that every member of the band could sing a verse. The Drummer Harold Brown sings the first lyrics. The phrase "I may not speak right, but I know what I'm talking about" was left to the Harmonica player Lee Oskar, who is from Denmark and wasn't a fluent English speaker at the time. He was just starting to learn English at the time.
Here's the Original Version of "Why Can't We Be Friends?" by War:
As you can see in the videoclip, the same message is passed by the footage. People from different backgrounds are meeting and greeting each other and even playing sports with each other. Happiness binds them all together, in a true Rastafarian spirit.
The main point of this song was, of course, to pass a strong message about the ludicrous attitude of judging others based on our cultural and physical differences.
It's ironic that War started in the early 60s as a black band called The Creators, they struggled a lot to pave the way in the industry and were the first black band to be booked on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. As the years passed, the band integrated white musicians such as Eric Burdon, who was their lead vocalist on two albums.
Here's the Live Version of "Why Can't We Be Friends?"... also played by War:
This live videoclip is from 2018 and it is wonderful to see them playing with all this energy, after all these years. Just look at the smiles on their faces.
"We Are Righteous, that's what War stood for. It was trying to bring everybody together through our music." ~ Harold Brown
The song hit the world it a bang (no pun intended) when NASA beamed it to the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975. Soviet and U.S. astronauts joined together in on a common mission and seeing their song being picked up by NASA made the elements of the band really proud.
The Vocalist Leroy Jordan recalls what he felt when he watched the mission on television - with his track playing from outer space.
"My mind was blown when I heard it playing in space. I love space travel. I haven't done it physically, but my music has."
That's a sweet way of looking at it! 🙃
In 2005 this song was used in radio commercials during Baseball broadcasts. The intention was to bring together the adversaries from different teams, so they could get along while listening to the track.
Smash Mouth is an American Rock band from San Jose, California.
Reggae is not what they usually play but they did a really good job covering this song. This is not just a cover. Being a Rock band, Smash Mouch changed the pace of the music, so both the instruments and vocals are a lot faster than the original. It's a nice personal touch that adds a few pinches of originality to the song.
And finally, I leave you with the Cover Version of "Why Can't We Be Friends?"... by Smash Mouth:
Smash Mouth kept the same upbeat feeling of the original videoclip... but the images are a bit more sassy - as well as modern, of course. After all, nearly 40 years separate the two versions. Society changed a lot... and that is well visible by comparing both videoclips.
Facts and Trivia were taken from SongFacts and OC Weekly. I hope you enjoyed the songs... and this post.
