SONGFACTS: See You Again - Furious 7

• This track was recorded by Wiz for the Furious 7 soundtrack. The Pittsburgh rapper previously had success with "We Own It (Fast & Furious)," a collaboration with 2 Chainz for Fast & Furious 6, which was an international hit. Wiz also contributed "Go Hard or Go Home," for the Furious 7 album.

See You Again - Furious 7

• The song plays at the end of the film when we see Vin Diesel and Paul Walker drive their separate ways.

• Wiz is accompanied on the track by Charlie Puth, who delivers the melodic accompaniment to the Pittsburgh rapper's rhymes. Puth, who also co-wrote the song with Justin Franks (DJ Frank E), penned Trey Songz's baby-making hit, "Slow Motion."

• Wiz Khalifa's former wife, Amber Rose, filed for divorce on September 24, 2014, citing "irreconcilable differences." A bitter custody battle over their son ensued, which was only resolved after the model heard this song. According to TMZ, the following lyrics softened her heart:

          How could we not talk about family when family's all that we got?

          Everything I went through you were standing there by my side

          And now you gonna be with me for the last ride

          After Rose heard the tune, she tearfully rung Khalifa and they agreed to work together as parents to care for Sebastian.

• Furious 7 sees the late Paul Walker in one of his final roles (he died in a car accident in 2013), and this song closes the film as a final tribute to the late actor.

       Producers of the film were looking for a song that would be an "earnest and celebratory" goodbye to Walker, and put out the call for demos. Charlie Puth wrote the song thinking about his friend who passed away, and envisioning Vin Diesel sending a final text message to Walker, writing, "I'll tell you all about it when I see you again."

• The marketing thrust behind the song focused on its tribute to Paul Walker, but Puth occasionally talked about his personal inspiration: his friend Vail Cerullo, who died in a motorcycle accident in 2012. The two met when they were both students at Berklee College of Music; Cerullo told Puth that he would someday write a #1 song, and even predicted that it would be in a movie.

         When Puth teamed up with Justin Franks to write the song, Franks revealed that he, too, lost a friend in a motorcycle accident.

• The video, directed by Marc Klasfeld, combines footage of Khalifa and Puth performing the track with footage from the movie. The visual also pays homage to Paul Walker, by showing him in several nostalgic Fast and Furious flashbacks. The song was released before the movie came out, but the video was held back until after the film was released so as not to leak the footage.

• This made a speedy leap from #10 to #1 on the Hot 100 the same week that the Furious 7 soundtrack jumped to the summit of the Billboard 200 albums chart. The last time a soundtrack was the #1 album while one of its songs was also at peak position on the Hot 100 was on the charts dated January 18, 2003. That week, the 8 Mile soundtrack was at the top of the Billboard 200 while the movie's star, Eminem, was ruling the Hot 100 with "Lose Yourself."

• The song debuted on the US chart at #100. Five weeks later it had climbed to #1, the fastest ever rise from the Hot 100's bottom position to the summit. Wilbert Harrison's "Kansas City" was the previous record holder, having reached #1 six weeks after starting at the chart's lowest position.

          "Again" was just the tenth #100 starter to climb all the way to the top. Coincidentally, one of the other nine was Khalifa's previous chart-topper "Black and Yellow," making him the only act to take two #100 debuters to #1 in the chart's history.

• This broke the Spotify record for the most-streamed track in a single day in the United States when it was streamed 4.26 million times on April 17, 2015. The milestone was overtaken by One Direction on July 31, 2015 when their just-released single, "Drag Me Down," was played 4.75 million times globally on July 31, 2015.

• Charlie Puth penned the song in July 2014 during his second day of writing in LA. He recalled to American Songwriter: "I had come out here by myself just to go to LA and be a songwriter, because that's what I originally intended to do. Though, between you and me, in the back of my mind I also secretly wanted to be an artist, but I thought the best way to go about that was to write songs first. "

         "My first day I wrote my other single "Marvin Gaye," he added. "My second day I heard a message from the Fast and Furious franchise that they wanted a song to honor Paul Walker's legacy for a three minute scene at the end of the movie – the most significant part of the movie. I thought, 'Who am I?' But I took a whack at writing it. I wrote it with my co-writer, Justin, who I just met at the time."

        "When we wrote the song it was so powerful – just crazy human interaction," he added. "We were like, 'How did we just do this so quickly?' We sent it to them and they loved it, they got Wiz Khalifa on it, and the rest is history."

• Puth hadn't seen Furious 7 before he wrote the song. "They just told me about the scenes," he said. "Later on, they wanted us to write a bridge which became [singing] 'So let the light guide your way, hold every memory as you go,' so I actually went to see a rough cut of the movie with the song and – oh, you know what I just realized? When I went to that rough cut I still didn't know they were going to use my vocals on it. They were going to get someone else to sing it – and they had a lot of great people try it – but they showed the movie with me singing the hook. I was like, 'By the way, did you guys put my cut of the vocals in there on accident?' And they're like, 'Oh, no. We're going to use you on the song.' I was like, 'What!? You're going to use me?!'"

• Puth points out that while the song has a specific inspiration, its meaning can change depending on the circumstance: it can be about looking forward to seeing your girl again, or about seeing some friends you haven't seen in a while, for instance.

• Wiz Khalifa recorded his verses in his pal Snoop Dogg's L.A. home studio. "I loved Charlie's voice and the message," he told Billboard magazine. "I've lost a lot of people, so I just channeled that energy."

• The song led the Billboard Hot 100 for 12 weeks. It tied the record held by Eminem's "Lose Yourself" for the longest run at #1 ever for a rap single.

• Eminem and 50 Cent were originally earmarked to record the song. However, Eminem turned it down because of his involvement with the Southpaw soundtrack (he was the executive producer). 50 said during an interview on Boomers & Carton's radio program. "At the time we [Eminem and I] had to make a decision between doing that and the song for Fast & Furious. And that record ['See You Again'] was a huge success for Wiz Khalifa and them. He decided to do Southpaw because he was invested in the project."

• The video debuted on April 5, 2015 when Puth posted it to Twitter and Vin Diesel posted it on Facebook. The Facebook video, promoted by the cast of the film and the artists, was viewed 40 million times in the first 12 hours, setting a record for a Facebook video premiere. The next day, it was posted to YouTube.

• The song's video broke the record for the most-watched of all time on YouTube. At 5:30 ET on July 10, 2017, it hit 2,894,026,649 views, surpassing PSY's "Gangnam Style"'s previous record of 2,894,022,885 views to set the new milestone. "See You Again" averaged about 3 million views a day.

        "I joined YouTube in 2007 hoping to make a video that would reach 10,000 views," said Puth on Twitter. "Just heard about 'See You Again'... wow."

     The clip only had a short run as a record holder. It was dethroned by Luis Fonsi's "Despacito" on August 4, 2017.

(Source: songfacts)