subject: We Are Young Lyrics | Fun. Lyrics [print this page] Before the studio recording, Fun.s frontman Nathaniel Ruess belted out the We Are Young lyrics in a producers hotel room. The producer in question, Jeff Bhasker, had invited the relatively green Ruess to The Bowery Hotel in New York for a ten minute meeting.
Ruess admitted that he made a pit-stop at the hotel bar to loosen up before the nerve-wrecking meeting. When Bhasker invited Ruess to his hotel room, the tipsiness enabled Ruess to fearlessly sing the We Are Young, lyrics of which were still a work in progress at the time. Bhasker , riveted, immediately signed the band.
Bhasker was also impressed with an idea Ruess brought up earlier in the meeting: to combine electronica and arena pop, a call-back to 70s bands such as Queen. Bhasker also brought in Janelle Monae to be featured in the song. She recorded her contributions to the song in a separate studio in London.
Fun. first formed in New York City in 2008. Ruess formed the band after his original band, The Format, split up. Although they hadnt performed together at that point, Ruess, Jack Antonost and Andrew Dost ran in the same music social circles in New York, and were aware of each other.
Ruess admired their work and always wanted to work with them, and the splitting of his previous band The Format made that desire a reality.
The three musicians have very different tastes in music, and implicating these three very diverse tastes creates a unique sound all its own; while Ruess digs early punk-rock and arena / theatrical pop, Dost likes indie and classical music, and Antonoff emulates guitarists Neil Young and Jack White.
fun. released their first album, Aim and Ignite, in 2009 to mostly positive reviews, yet not-so-great sales. Album sales told a different story for their second album Some Nights, which debuted at #3 on the Billboard charts in 2011.
The song would break into the top 100 of the Billboard charts and eventually make its way to #1, in no small part thanks to Glees cover of the song, as well as the songs appearance in a Chevrolet Super Bowl ad. We Are Young made digital sales history, peeking at #1 for six weeks in a row.
In the coming weeks, however, fun.s song would surrender its #1 position for Goytes Somebody That I Used to Know, which would mark the first time in Billboard history that back-to-back indie songs hit #1.
Janelle Monaes featured appearance in We Are Young marks the first time her contributions reached #1 on the Billboard charts. Her first studio album The ArchAndroid, put the R&B artist on the map and became celebrated by fans and critics alike, garnering her two Grammy nominations.
