Our desire to cover this song began with our oldest daughter suggesting it to us. We love its love story and the image of riding alongside each other, figuratively and literally, as we travel through life. Released on Beyonce's 2024 album, Cowboy Carter, "II Most Wanted" is notable in several ways.
1) The title uses a Roman instead of Arabic numeral at its beginning. II=Two :-)
2) The song is a collaboration between Miley Cyrus and Beyonce, an unexpected vocal pairing that is rich and beautiful. The collaboration began with Cyrus writing the song circa 2020 and resulted in a Grammy winning duet.
3) Cyrus (entrenched in country music from birth) had been writing the song over a period of a few years when Beyonce reached out to her about collaborating on her country album (venturing into country music was new for Beyonce). This is the song that Cyrus picked for the collaboration. Cyrus talks about it in this 2024 interview.
4) People have noted that the song interpolates the 1975 Fleetwood Mac classic, "Landslide," written by Stevie Nicks. Interpolation means that the writer takes an existing song and makes it into a new one, using either lyrics or notes from the original. In this case, "II Most Wanted" uses the same chord progression as "Landslide."
5) The lyrics tell a simple but powerful love story with evocative images, with a willingness to ride alongside each other through life expressed in these words, "I'll be your shotgun rider, till the end of time." They remind us of the thrill of driving across the country and riding as a passenger with the windows down.
6) The title is reminiscent of the female "most wanted" duo in Thelma and Louise, the 1991 film that put Brad Pitt on the radar and stoked the desire to hit the open road in many Gen Xers like us. In the album's press release, Beyonce explains how she was inspired by cowboy culture and films about the West.
in peace and love, "backseat baby" Vicki and daring driver Dean
Love, The Villones