Halo

This song, which describes a love that is so phenomenal that it is heavenly, was written by OneRepublic frontman Ryan Tedder and Evan "Kidd" Bogart, a prolific songwriter and the son of Casablanca Records founder Neil Bogart - other songs he has co-written include "Take You There" for Sean Kingston and "S.O.S. (Rescue Me)" for Rihanna. In the summer of 2008, Bogart visited his friend Tedder, who was laid up at home after rupturing his Achilles tendon on tour with OneRepublic. As Bogart explained to NPR, the pair went into Tedder's home studio and wrote "Halo" in three hours. Bogart says the song was intended for Beyoncé, and they wrote it thinking about what was going on in her life and her relationship with Jay-Z. Bogart is a big fan of Ray LaMontagne, who has a song on his 2004 debut album called "Shelter." Bogart thought about expressing that same sentiment - being there for someone and being an encompassing halo - in a song for Beyoncé. Tedder came up with some angelic keyboard parts and they quickly had their song. They sent the demo to Jay Brown at Roc Nation (Jay-Z's label/management company), who begged them not to give the song to anyone else, since he thought it was perfect for Beyoncé. The song went "on hold" for Beyoncé, which meant had the rights to it, but when she took a while to record it, Tedder, who wrote "Bleeding Love," told Leona Lewis' management that Lewis could have it if Beyoncé passed. This led to some rumors that the song was written for Lewis, which Tedder and Bogart denied.

The day after they wrote this song, Tedder and Bogart spent another three hours writing a bridge for the song, but this bridge ended up getting dropped from the recording.

In the song's music video Beyoncé gets up close and cosy with the actor Michael Ealy (2 Fast 2 Furious, Seven Pounds). Ealy also featured in the clip for Mariah Carey's 2005 UK hit, "Get Your Number."