"The River" is a song by the pop-punk band Good Charlotte featuring M. Shadows and Synyster Gates of the hard rock band Avenged Sevenfold. The song was the first single from the Good Morning Revival album in North America and the second single throughout the rest of the world except for Australia.On December 8, 2006, the second GCTV episode was released on Good Charlotte's website. "The River" was featured in the video and can be heard playing in the background. The song was premiered January 4, 2007, on their official website, and via the band's MySpace.

Track listing

1. "The River" (featuring M. Shadows and Synyster Gates)
2. "The River" (Acoustic Version)
3. "You're Gone"
4. "The River" (Video)

Music video

A music video for the song was shot in mid-December, 2006, in Los Angeles, California with director Marc Webb who has done the Motivation Proclamation and Festival Song videos for the band before. It features Good Charlotte performing alongside the concrete L.A. river bank that runs through the city, contrasted with classic images of the beauty and history of Los Angeles. The video clip shows the two sides of L.A., the excitement and glamour of L.A. that the band witnessed early on in their career and then the deeper/darker hidden side of L.A. that people and the band saw after living there for years. MySpace celebrity Jeffree Star, is featured in the background throughout the video. There are two different videos for the song, one including M. Shadows and Synyster Gates, the other video is the version of the song without the members of Avenged Sevenfold featuring in it. GCTV Episode 3 shows the video shoot of "The River". The video featuring M. Shadows and Synyster Gates premiered on MTV on February 7, 2007. The original version of the video, that does not feature Avenged Sevenfold's guitarist Synyster Gates and vocalist M. Shadows, was briefly shown on TRL.

The music video for "The River" was added to United Kingdom music channels Kerrang! and Scuzz on 13 April 2007, indicating that it was the second single in the UK from Good Charlotte and it was released on 21st May 2007. The video with Gates and Shadows features them morphing into one another, Benji into Joel, Shadows into Benji and so on.

Chart performance

"The River" debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 93 in early February 2007 due to digital downloads, but fell off the chart the following week. However, it went back onto the charts a few weeks later, landing at number 89. It is the first Good Charlotte single to land a spot on the Billboard Pop 100.

Chart (2007)	Peak position
Austrian Singles Chart	37
Dutch Singles Chart	40
German Top 100	40
UK Singles Chart	108
U.S. Hot 100	39
Hot Digital Songs	26
Modern Rock Tracks	38
U.S. Pop 100	39

Trivia

• This is the first Good Charlotte video that Marc Webb has directed since 2001.
• This song references "The Prodigal Son", a parable that tells the story of a young man who runs off with his share of his father's inheritance and spends it all at once, having nothing soon after. Only in after he realizes his foolishness does he go back, despairing, to his father, who welcomes him with open arms.
• The first line of the song "as I walk through the valley of the shadow of LA" may be inspired by the line of the 23rd Psalm, "though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death".
• In the video containing M. Shadows and Synyster Gates. Synyster Gates is seen playing his Schecter Signature guitar.

References

External links

• Official Site
• The River on Sony Musicbox
• The River on ProdigyMSN