I Want You To Know
by Zedd

Album: True Colors (2015)
Charted: 14 17
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Songfacts®:

  • The first single to be released from Zedd's second studio album is a jubilant track, which features Selena Gomez on vocals. The two artists co-wrote the song, along with OneRepublic frontman Ryan Tedder (Leona Lewis' "Bleeding Love," Beyoncé's "Halo.") and New Jersey-based producer KDrew, who previously remixed Zedd's hit tune "Stay The Night."

    Zedd recalled the story of the song in a Genius annotation:

    "Ryan Tedder was on a plane when he had an idea. He sent me a little demo—'I want you to know' was the only lyric. The rest was mumbling, there was no real song around it. 'You would be the guy to kill this song,' he said. 'You can do it. You have to do this.'"

    "I listened to it and I wasn't really in love with it. But that line—'I want you to know'—stuck in my head, nothing else. So I started making a song for it. I really nailed the production, and I realized the potential of the song. Then Ryan and I started brainstorming singers who could fit.

    I had met Selena randomly and I told her, 'You should play my album, maybe there is something that will fit you.' I played her all the records and she really liked 'I Want You To Know.' We recorded her and I never tried anyone else."
  • Zedd and Gomez first met in 2014 when they collaborated on the My Everything track "Break Free." By the end of the year the pair were seen in public holding hands sparking rumors that they are in a relationship. The song's lyrics are about a harmonious relationship where both people are running "the same course." They prompted Zedd to tweet: "I really wanna call my new song 'Selena Gomez'!"
  • So how did How did Zedd and Selena Gomez first meet? Turns out it was because the German producer had to use the bathroom. "I had the day off… and I decided to go buy stuff for my house because I just moved, so I have an empty house, and I had to pee, " he recalled to Chris Booker of Los Angeles' 97.1 AMP Radio. "I had my engineer with me, so I was like, 'I hope they have a bathroom.' He was like, 'Just go to the studio over there,' which was across the street from my studio. He's like, 'They have a bathroom, just go and use that.'"

    "So I walk in, and John, the head of our label, who had just signed Selena, was there," Zedd continued. "He was like, 'Have you ever met Selena?' That was literally the next thing he said… So he introduced me to her, and was like, 'Hey, she's cool, maybe we should make a song together.' And then like a week later, we start working on a song. All because I had to pee."
  • The song's music video features Gomez portraying a dancer at a disco. She wears three different outfits in the clip, which finds her surrounded by fellow club kids as trippy flashes of Zedd watching the singer's moves on the dance floor flicker in and out. The clip was directed by Brent Bonacorso, whose other credits include Katy Perry's "Unconditionally" visual.

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