Halo

This heavenly song describes love as phenomenal. ‘Halo’ is about a girl who was hurt enough before to build walls around her to protect herself. After she meets this guy, she is very “cautious” at first tries to “test” this person to see if he is the one (It’s like I’ve been awakened, every rule I had you breaking, It’s the risk that I’m taking). After that, this guy came to some point in her life that now she’s convinced that he is indeed the real thing! And the “halo” revelation is that she finally sees that he’s a good man. So she lets all the walls down without a fight, she trusts him now, she sees the ‘Halo’.
In an interview with Billboard Magazine, writer Ryan Tedder explained how he penned this amazing song with co-writer Evan “Kidd” Bogart, he said: “I was playing a pickup game right before a show in Michigan and I tore my Achilles heel, It was the most intense pain I ever experienced in my life. I passed out. So I ended up going home for two weeks. My wife forbids me from writing or doing any work whatsoever. Evan Bogart and I were super close friends, he was having his explosion as a songwriter, and I texted him and said, ‘My wife’s gone for three hours, will you come over? Let’s write one song.’ Beyoncé had contacted me because of a song on our first album called ‘Come Home.’ So he came over and I said, ‘Dude, Beyoncé wants me to do a song. Let’s do a song in three hours.’ I had this idea for a patch of this weird choir of angel’s thing started playing it and within three hours we had ‘Halo.'”
They wrote the song thinking about what was going on in Beyonce’s life and her relationship with Jay-Z.
Co-writer Bogart wanted to express the same sentiment Ray La Montagne has on his 2004 song “Shelter” since he’s a big fan. After Ryan Tedder and Bogart came finished the song and added a touch of angelic keyboard parts to it, they sent the demo to Jay-Z’s label/management company ‘Roc Nation’. The label thought it was perfect for Beyoncé and begged the two writers not to give the song to anyone else. The song was “on hold” for Beyoncé, which meant had the rights to it, but when she took a while to record it, Ryan Tedder, told Leona Lewis’ management that Lewis could have it if Beyoncé passed. This led to some rumors that the song was written for Lewis, which the two writers denied.

Release Date: January 20, 2009

Songwriter/s: Beyonce Knowles – Ryan Tedder – Evan Bogart

Label: Columbia

Chart Rankings: In the US, ‘Halo’ peaked at number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100, at number 16 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop songs, at number 8 on the Rhythmic Top 40 and reached number 2 on the Pop Songs Charts. It topped the US Hot Dance Club Songs and The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certified it Double Platinum for sales over 3.8 million copies. In the UK, it peaked at number 4 on the Official Charts Company and The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) certified it Platinum for sales over 1 million copies. ‘Halo’ topped the charts in Brazil, Norway and Slovakia. it reached the top 10 charts in several countries around the world including Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, Netherlands, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. it was certified five times Platinum Australia, Double Platinum in New Zealand and Spain, and Platinum in several countries including Canada, Denmark, Germany, Italy and Switzerland.

Artist’s age on Release Date: Beyonce Giselle Knowles-Carter was 28 years old when she released this song.

Cover Versions: Florence and the Machine – Katy Perry – Mike Posner – Angie Miller (American Idol) – Major Lazer and Elephant Man – Robin Stjemberg – Hjaltalin (Iceland) – Jahmene Douglas – Sunidhi Chauhan – Glee cast – Madilyn Bailey – Jasmine Thompson – Ailee (Korean) – Sabrina Claudio – LP – The X Factor Bulgaria – Danny Ntarlas – Peter Katz – Georgiefa (The Voice Kids) – Roxanne Ilano – Alessandra (7 years old) – Hyorin – Connie Talbot – Sarah Engels – Vanessa Axelia – Kosta Hadzekojcev & Katerina Petkovska – Amir Brandon – Chloe X Halle – Leroy Sanchez – Lisa Lavie – Sassa Dagdag – Mark Vincent – other Youtubers covered this song.