The River (Good Charlotte song)

"The River"
Single by Good Charlotte from the album Good Morning Revival
Released	January 4, 2007 May 21, 2007
Format	CD single
Genre	Christian Punk, Synth rock, power pop, pop punk
Length	3:16
Label	Epic, Daylight
Writer	Good Charlotte
Producer	Don Gilmore
Good Charlotte singles chronology
"We Believe" (2005) "The River" (2007) "Keep Your Hands off My Girl" (2007)

"The River" is a song by the pop punk band Good Charlotte featuring Synyster Gates and M. Shadows of the band Avenged Sevenfold. The song was the first single off of the Good Morning Revival album in North America and the second single throughout the rest of the world except for Australia. It hasn't been released in Australia yet and Good Charlotte have not confirmed if they will release it there. The band's episodes of GCTV, in which the band uploads a video to their website of behind the scenes in the recording studio, photo shoots, etc, feature different songs from the Good Morning Revival album. On December 8, 2006, the second episode was released on Good Charlotte's website. "The River" was featured in the video and can be heard playing in the background. The song was premiered January 4th, 2007, on their official website, and via the band's myspace.

Track listing

1. "The River" (Feat. M. Shadows and Synyster Gates)
2. "The River" (Acoustic Version)
3. "You're Gone"
4. "The River" (Video)

Music video

Music video of "The River"

A music video for the song was shot in mid December, 2006, in Los Angeles, California with director Marc Webb who has done the Motivation Proclamation and Festival Song videos for the band before. It features Good Charlotte performing alongside the concrete L.A. river bank that runs through the city, contrasted with classic images of the beauty and history of Los Angeles. The video clip shows the two sides of L.A., the excitement and glamour of L.A. that the band witnessed early on in their career and then the deeper/darker hidden side of L.A. that people and the band saw after living there for years. MySpace celebrity Jeffree Star, is featured in the background throughout the video.

Synyster Gates and L.A. in the background

There are two different videos for the song, one including M. Shadows and Synyster Gates, the other video is the version of the song without the members of Avenged Sevenfold featuring in it. On GCTV Episode 3 it shows the video shoot of "The River". The video featuring M. Shadows and Synyster Gates premiered on MTV on February 7th, 2007. The original version of the video, that does not feature Avenged Sevenfold's guitarist Synyster Gates and vocalist M. Shadows was briefly shown on TRL, but the shortened clip made its way onto Youtube^[1] The music video for "The River" was added to United Kingdom music channels Kerrang! and Scuzz on 13th April 2007, indicating that it will be the second single in the UK from Good Charlotte and it will be released on 21st May 2007. The video with Gates and Shadows features them morphing into one another, Benji into Joel, Shadows into Benji and so on.

Charts

"The River" debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 93 in early February 2007 due to digital downloads, but fell off the chart the following week.^[2] However, it went back onto the charts a few weeks later, landing at number 89. It is the first Good Charlotte single to land a spot on the Billboard Pop 100.

Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• This is the first Good Charlotte video that Marc Webb has directed since 2001.
• The drum beat at the beginning of the song is identical to Devo's Whip It.
• This song references "The Prodigal Son", a parable that tells the story of a young man who runs off with his share of his father's inheritance and spends it all at once, having nothing soon after. Only in after he realizes his foolishness does he go back, despairing, to his father, who welcomes him with open arms.
• The first line of the song "as I walk through the valley of the shadow of LA" may be inspired by the line of the 23rd Psalm, "though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death".
• In the video containing Synyster Gates and M. Shadows, Synyster gates is seen playing his Schecter Signature guitar.

References

1. ^ Original Version Of Good Charlotte's 'The River' music video
2. ^ Katie Hasty, "Beyonce Stays Ahead Of Fall Out Boy Atop Hot 100", Billboard.com, February 1, 2007.
3. ^ Austrian Singles Chart
4. ^ Polish Singles Chart

External links

• Official Site
• Official Good Charlotte Myspace
• The River on Sony Musicbox
• The River on ProdigyMSN