Peace Be Upon Us

Album: Detours (2008)
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Songfacts®:

  • Bass guitarist and producer Mike Elizonda played on this. Elizonda is best known for his collaborations with Dr Dre, Eminem and 50 Cent, including co-writing Eminem's hit single "The Real Slim Shady." Sheryl Crow told Billboard magazine about how she came to write this song and why she invited Elizonda to play on it: "I play bass and so does Bill (Bottrell producer of Detours), but I don't play like Mike. On the song 'Now That You're Gone,' both Bill and I were like, 'we need a real bass player on this.' We called Mike and he brought down two pieces of, like little germs of music and one of them was this little figure for 'Peace Be Upon Us.' I started working on melody for it and lyrics and kept getting hung up.
    In the morning when my son Wyatt's up really early, that's when I found I could kind of be clear. I started singing a bunch of syllables that just sounded great and I told Bill I wish I could just sing these syllables and he said 'well, why don't you?' I said I don't want to waste it and then it occurred to me that maybe it should be a different language. It became 'what if the song's about peace,' because it already had a Middle Eastern feel."

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