"Why Can't We Be Friends?" is a song by the funk band War for its 1975 studio album of the same name. The song has a simple structure, with the phrase "Why can't we be friends?" being sung four times after each two-line verse amounting to over forty times in under four minutes. The song reached #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the summer of 1975. The song is unique as various members of the band exchange vocal duties from verse to verse. It was played in outer space when NASA beamed it to the linking of Soviet cosmonauts and U.S. astronauts for the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project.[2]Billboard ranked it as the No. 23 song of that year.
American pop rock band Smash Mouth covered the song on its debut album Fush Yu Mang on April 7, 1998, releasing it as the band's second single and was also featured in the 1998 films BASEketball and Wild Things.[10] The song was also featured in the Friendships trailer for Mortal Kombat 11.[11] It was also used in a trailer of Ice Age.[12]
Critical reception[]
Larry Flick from Billboard wrote, "Hot on the heels of 'Walkin' On The Sun' comes a wonderfully festive, anthemic rendition of War's pop/R&B chestnut. The song's original funk-flavored arrangement proves perfectly accessible to Smash mouth's pop/ska style. The heartfelt 'let's get along' tone of the lyrics remains as relevant as ever to today's social and political climate, and the band's rousing approach makes the message all the more user-friendly to the pop masses. Another sure-fire multi-format hit from the album Fush Yu Mang."[13]