Key Takeaways
- Songwriter Ilya Salmanzadeh revealed that ‘God Is a Woman/ was initially considered for Beyoncé and JAY-Z before Ariana Grande claimed it for Sweetener.
- Grande rejected plans for a rap feature, then wrote the verses, pre-chorus, and layered harmonies in one day.
- The song peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 and went four-times platinum, while another Sweetener track, “R.E.M.,” also evolved from a Beyoncé demo.
Ariana Grande has several chart-topping albums and hits. But one of her biggest songs almost went to someone else.
In an interview on Ross Golan’s And the Writer Is… podcast that dropped on Tuesday, Oct. 13, the host spoke with songwriter Ilya Salmanzadeh — who publishes mononymously as Ilya. Ilya has written for several pop artists, including Grande, Ellie Goulding, Normani, Ed Sheeran, and Khalid. One of the standout tracks on Grande’s 2018 album Sweetener is “God is a Woman,” which was shopped around a few times before it ended up in Grande’s hands.
But in the interview, Ilya revealed that the song almost went to Beyoncé and JAY-Z, who released a joint album called Everything Is Love as The Carters that same year.
“It didn’t happen,” Ilya said when recalling the initial consideration for the husband-wife duo.
Over the years, several demos for “God is a Woman” have leaked to the internet, including versions by Camila Cabello and Rita Ora. But Ilya said he always had Grande in mind.
“When we started again with Ari, we were thinking maybe it could be her singing the chorus, and we’d get a rap feature, but then when she heard the song, she was like, ‘No, we're writing this for me.’ I was like, ‘Okay, fine.’ She just wrote all the verses and the pre-chorus and all those crazy harmonies that are in there. She did it all that day.”
Turns out, “God is a Woman” ended up right where it needed to be. The song has since become once of Grande’s biggest, peaking at No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 and becoming certified four times platinum by the RIAA.
But this isn’t the only Beyoncé demo that ended up on Sweetener. Another song called “R.E.M.” was born from a Pharrell Williams-penned demo that previously went to Bey for her self-titled 2013 album. But before that, Williams shopped the song to T-Pain under the title “Dream” in 2011.
A song can go through many cycles before it ends up on wax. But through what appears to be divine intervention, Grande’s magic touch made these songs some of the biggest in her discography.
