olly murs wrote the song it's the climb.
who wrote the song it's the climb?
olly murs
before reaching cyrus, the song had been rejected by several country artists. it was eventually picked up by peter chelsom, director of "hannah montana: the movie", who gave it to cyrus to record for the film. chelsom found what would become "the climb" while visiting nashville, tennessee, during a quest to find 11 new songs for the movie. after hearing alexander's music, chelsom asked her to submit songs for consideration. alexander recorded "it's the climb" on a cd and gave it to him. several weeks later, chelsom called to say, "the song was gonna be an integral part of the movie". however, he wanted mabe and alexander to rework some of the song's content and to change the song from third person to first person. alexander felt the changes amounted to a "substantial amount of the song" and commented, "for me, when you change something from third person to first person, it can change the whole meaning of a line." mabe and she "wrestl[ed] over taking words out" and how much they could change while maintaining the song's integrity. after a number of drafts, mabe and alexander finally created a version they felt was "perfect for the movie".
the climb (song)
on the week ending march 7, 2009, "the climb" debuted at number 48 on "billboard"'s hot country songs. it was, incidentally, the same week that "back to tennessee", by cyrus's father, billy ray cyrus, debuted at number 59, the first time a father and daughter had separate charting songs on the chart since johnny and rosanne cash charted in 1990 with "silver stallion" and "one step over the line", respectively. "the climb" eventually peaked at number 25 on the country-genre chart. for the week ending march 21, 2009, the song debuted at number six on the "billboard" hot 100 due to sales of 166,000 digital downloads, thus making "the climb" cyrus's highest-charting effort at the time, surpassing her previous best-charting effort "7 things", which peaked at number nine in july 2008. for the week ending may 2, 2009, the song reached its peak at number four on the hot 100. "the climb" also peaked at number seven on the pop 100 chart, 42 on hot christian songs, and at number one for 15 consecutive weeks on hot adult contemporary tracks. cyrus became the youngest artist to top adult contemporary since leann rimes entered the chart in 1997 with "how do i live". according to "billboard", "the climb" was the eighth best selling digital single of 2009. the single was certified triple platinum by the recording industry association of america (riaa) for the sales of over two million copies. as of january 2014, "the climb" has sold 3,709,000 copies in the united states. in canada, "the climb" entered at number 17 and eventually peaked at number five. the single was certified triple platinum by music canada for the sales of 240,000 digital downloads.
the climb (song)