Wow
By: Beck Hansen, Cole Marsden Grief-Neill

Written by: Beck Hansen, Cole Marsden Grief-Neill

Versions:
  1. Wow
    Available on Colors and 1 other release.
    Credits
    Beck Hansen: Producer, Vocals
  2. Wow (TOKiMONSTA remix)
    Credits
    TOKiMONSTA: Remix
  3. Wow (Guau! Mexican Institute of Sound remix)
    Credits
    Mexican Institute of Sound: Remix
 
Lyrics:
Wow [Version (a)]:

Giddy up!
Giddy up!
Giddy up!
Giddy up!
Giddy up!

Wanna move into a fool's gold room
Swimming pools full of animal jewels
All the rules that you choose to use to get loose
With the luminous moves
Bored of these limits

Let me get, let me get it like wow
It's like right now
It's like wow
It's like right now
It's like wow
It's like right now
It's like wow
It's like right now
Oh wow

It's my life, your life
Live it once, can't live it twice
So nice, so nice
Smooth like a tidal wave
Take you on a getaway
My friends, your friends
Living every day like it's just about to end
Now we're pissing in the wind 'cause it's so pinefresh
Right now, yea I want to get it like...

Wow
It's like right now
It's like wow
It's like...
Giddy up
Wow
It's like right now
Oh wow
It's like right now

It's your life
Falling like a hot knife
Call your wife
Secular times, these times
My demons on the cellphone to your demons
Nothing's even right or wrong
It's irrelevant, elephant in the room (goes boom)
Standing on your lawn doing jujitsu
Girl in a bikini with the Lamborghini shih tzu

It's your life
You gotta try to get it right
Look around, don't forget where you came from
It's just another perfect night
We're gonna take it around the world
We're gonna take it around the world
Ride these wild horses
Ride these wild horses
We're gonna take it around the world

Wow
Wow
Giddy up
Giddy up
Wow what a beautiful day
 
The Song:

We first learned of "Wow" through a tweet by rapper OG Maco. Maco posted a screenshot of an email Beck had sent him thanking for the work he had done on "Wow," commenting that it made him hear the song in a whole new way.

On June 2, 2016, Beck released "Wow" along with the announcement of his (as yet unnamed) new album. "Wow" will be on it. Unlike the rest of the upcoming album, "Wow" was not co-produced by Greg Kurstin, but just Beck himself.

OG Maco is not on the initial, main version of "Wow," so maybe a remix or something will be released eventually. Similarly, Beck has told other interviewers that he had thought about getting Chance The Rapper or Vince Staples on the song, but nothing ever came of those ideas.

Beck also talked about "Wow" on KROQ, saying it was improvised off the cuff. He had been working on one song and ended up finding a new riff, which he turned into "Wow." After creating the "mostly free-form" rap, Beck said in Q Magazine, "later I did try and write something that was more finessed, but it didn't have the same energy. So I left 'Wow' as it was."

Beck initially did not plan to release the song, nor to give it to the label in any way. But the story he has told is that his kids and their friends all loved it, and basically told him "put this on the album!" They changed his outlook on it, and so he included it on the album, and then his label picked it as the first single. (Or second, if "Dreams" counts coming out a year earlier.)
 
Live:

Played live 146 times:
Earliest known live version: September 15, 2016
Latest known live version: August 18, 2023