"Peaches" is a song by Canadian singer Justin Bieber featuring fellow Canadian singer-songwriter Daniel Caesar and American singer-songwriter Giveon. It was released through Def Jam Recordings on March 19, 2021, as the fifth single from the former's sixth studio album, Justice, which was released the same day. The artists wrote the song with producers Harv and Shndo, alongside Andrew Watt, Louis Bell, Sean Leon, Harv's wife Felisha King-Harvey of Cherish, Vincent Massi, and Keavan Yazdani. There are two remixes of the song: one that features American rapper Ludacris, American singer-songwriter Usher, and American rapper Snoop Dogg, and the other of which features Nigerian singers Alpha P and Omah Lay that is remixed by Nigerian record producer Masterkraft. "Peaches" marks the first time that Bieber, Caesar, and Giveon have collaborated with each other.
"Peaches" debuted atop the Billboard Hot 100, giving Bieber his seventh number-one hit on the chart, while it gave both Caesar and Giveon their first number-one. Elsewhere, the song topped simultaneously both the Billboard Global 200 and Global Excl. U.S., as well as charts in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Singapore and Slovakia. It also peaked within the top ten of the record charts in the United Kingdom and 20 other countries. It received four nominations at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards: Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best R&B Performance, and Best Music Video.
Background
Bieber started to write the chorus of "Peaches" while hanging out with Shawn Mendes and Andrew Watt at the latter's house. Watt showed Bieber around his home studio and told him to "go play the drums". After having recorded a drum beat, Bieber sat down at the piano and played some chords, which they also recorded and looped. Watt then recorded some bass and guitar and Bieber started "just talking words back and forth for fun". After the session, Bieber asked Watt to send him the demo so he could work on it some more by himself.
Bieber posted a snippet of the song of him singing the chorus while playing the piano on his Instagram account on September 7, 2020. Record producer Shndo later listened to it and decided to further produce the song. He screen-recorded the Instagram video, recorded some drums over it in the music software Ableton and decided to speed up the song. Record producer Harv then added some more instruments to the song.
Shndo and Harv presented the song to Bieber, who loved it and later re-recorded the chorus and wrote a verse before sending it back to the producers to work on it some more. On the same day, Bieber contacted Giveon, who accepted to be a part of the song. Bieber later asked Daniel Caesar to also be a part of the track.
Composition and lyrics
"Peaches" is a laid-back pop, R&B, and pop soul ballad that cruises along over a mid-tempo funk groove and laced with a West Coast bounce. It has been described as "colorful", "sun-dappled" and "slinky". Musically, the song is set in the key of C major and has a tempo of 90 beats per minute. It follows a simple four-chord structure of F major–E minor–D minor–C major. Bieber's voice has "a bright, pliable timbre" applied to it in the chorus and his verse, delivering his lines with a "pop twang". Caesar croons over his verse with a "smooth" delivery, while Giveon's vocals have a "silky baritone" to them. The track opens with a muted, "battered upright" piano part that becomes the song's backbone before introducing "leisurely" licks produced by an electric guitar. Additional synth layers are present at a chorus breakdown after the third verse, consisting of a string pad, synth lead and a subtly reversed pad. The song closes out instrumentally with a synth solo.