Green Light (Beyoncé song)

"Green Light"
Song

"Green Light" is an R&B/funk song written by Beyoncé Knowles, Sean Garrett, and Pharrell Williams for Knowles' second solo album, B’Day (2006). Co-produced by Pharrell and Beyoncé, it was released as fifth UK single on July 30 2007. The Freemasons remix of "Green Light" was on the BBC Radio 1 A-list by July 18 2007.

According to thelondonpaper, the "uh-oh-oh-oh-oh" vocal in the song is an imitation of the 2005 Amerie single "1 Thing" in which Amerie does similar runs. Amerie said that she was flattered by it and that she liked the song. During Destiny's Child's final tour a clip of the Amerie song was played during the female dancers break.

The only known official remixes to the song are the Freemasons remix, and the Swizz Beatz remix featuring Young Buck simply called "Go!".

Music video

File:Greenlightcap.jpg

Knowles in the Melina-directed music video for "Green Light" (2007).

The music video for "Green Light" was directed by Melina and co-directed by Knowles herself. Shot in early February 2007, it was one out of eight previously unseen clips to appear on Knowles' B’Day Anthology Video Album (2007). A one-minute music video for "Kitty Kat" serves as the introduction for this video (only using the intro, third verse, and an extended chorus).

The clip was inspired partly by Madonna's music video, "Human Nature" but mainly by Robert Palmer's 1985 music video "Addicted to Love" because of its "stone-faced models pretending to play guitars." Knowles called it the toughest video to shoot because of the pointe shoes she had to dance in and described it as a "modern version" of Palmer's video. "I was pretending to be a rock star!", she said in an interview with MTV News. "The set reminded me of Vanity 6. I play a little bit of guitar ... [it] felt good in my hands." Beyoncé invited her all-female tour band, Suga Mama to make their second appearance in a video after appearing in "Irreplaceable" (2006).

The video was popular enough in the United States to reach the iTunes Store Top 10 R&B/Soul Videos chart, before any promotion or single release for the song. The video has reached the Top 100 Video downloads for all genres.

Formats and track listings

Freemasons EP

1. "Green Light" (Freemasons radio remix) – 3:19
2. "Beautiful Liar" (with Shakira) (Freemasons club mix) – 7:31
3. "Déjà Vu" (featuring Jay-Z) (Freemasons Radio mix) – 3:15
4. "Ring the Alarm" (Freemasons club mix - radio edit) – 3:27

Chart performance

With the album version of the song being available digitally as soon as the album was released, it debuted on the UK Singles Chart at number 152 after the video aired in July 2007. The album version peaked at number seventy-seven one week before the Freemasons remix became available. Because of heavy radio airplay of the Freemasons remix, as soon as it was available, the song climbed sixty places to number seventeen the following week, and then to number twelve, giving Knowles her eleventh top twenty hit in the UK. "Green Light" became Knowles's highest charting single on downloads alone on the UK Singles Chart without a prominent featured artist. The UK commercial CD single was cancelled at the last minute.

The album version was released in the Netherlands where it debuted on the Dutch Singles Chart at number 30.

Charts

Chart (2007)	Peak position
Chile Top 100 Singles Chart	86
Euro 200	2
Irish Singles Chart	46
Dutch Mega Top 50	11
Lithuania Airplay Chart	21
Netherlands FMC Urban Top 50	1
Polish Airplay Chart	2
Romania Airplay Chart	69
Russian Airplay Chart	8
Singapore Airplay Chart	7
UK Singles Chart	12