Open Your Eyes

Album: Love in the Future (2013)
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Songfacts®:

  • This song was the first non-original ever recorded by John Legend for one of his solo albums (his 2010 set of covers Wake Up was a collaborative project). The tune was originally sung by the '70s Blue-Eyed Soul artist, Bobby Caldwell, then later sampled by Common on his "The Light" cut. Producer Dave Tozer told SonicScoop: "Most people know the Common song more than the original, but this is covering the original Bobby Caldwell song, and the chorus has some of the flavor of the Common version. So this is the third time around, which encompasses some of the original and is also a nod to the Common version."
  • The expressive guitar solo was played by veteran producer Mike Dean, who worked with Love In The Future co-producer Kanye West on his Graduation, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and Yeezus albums. Tozer told SonicScoop: "That's one he did on an earlier version of the song, interestingly enough, and we actually recut it a couple of different times. In the end we went back to the early original version, because we felt like it has the magic. That was done in a session in Hawaii, one of the earlier sessions with Kanye."

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