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"Iris"
Single by Goo Goo Dolls from the album City of Angels: Music from the Motion Picture and Dizzy Up the Girl
Released	1998
Format	CD single
Genre	Alternative rock
Length	4:49 (or 3:33 in the short version)
Label	Warner Bros. Records
Writer	John Rzeznik
Producer	Goo Goo Dolls
Goo Goo Dolls singles chronology
Naked (1996) Iris (1998) Dizzy (1999)

Iris is a song by American alternative rock band the Goo Goo Dolls. It was originally written for the soundtrack of 1998 film City of Angels, and was later included on the band's sixth album Dizzy Up the Girl. The acoustic guitar in the song gives a distinctive sound as it is in an odd tuning, with 5 of the 6 strings tuned to D. This gives a ringing effect similar to a 12-string guitar. For information on how to tune a guitar to this tuning, see the "miscellaneous" section of Guitar tunings.

The instrumentals in the song are heavily driven by guitar riffs and cellos, with a steady drum beat beneath. The theme of these lyrics ties in directly to the film, in which an angel falls in love with a mortal woman, and can only stay with her by giving up his angelic nature and becoming mortal.

It was the first song that the Goo Goo Dolls had been asked to write specifically for a film. Songwriter Johnny Rzeznik has been quoted as saying he broke several years of writer's block and several years of sobriety simultaneously the night he wrote this track.

In the music video the band is shown high up in skyscrapers, watching the lives of people through telescopes. This theme reflects on what the angels do in the film. Interspersed throughout the video are clips from the film depicting scenes where the angel is falling in love and deciding whether or not to give up being an angel.

The song was named "Iris" by guitarist/vocalist John Rzeznik for Iris DeMent. Rzeznik found her name while flipping through a magazine, and thought it was a nice name, so he chose it for the song. Prior to this, some fans of the song have speculated that the title refers to the Greek messenger of the gods, Iris. This is thought supposedly because some angels are considered messengers and this song was written for the movie City of Angels (in which the main character is an angel).

Upon its release, "Iris" became second of a string of hits from the film's soundtrack, City of Angels: Music from the Motion Picture. (The first was Alanis Morissette's "Uninvited" and the third was Sarah McLachlan's "Angel".) On the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 the song peaked at number nine for five weeks, and it spent a record eighteen weeks at number one on the Hot 100 Airplay chart. It was not allowed to chart on the Billboard Hot 100 until after it had peaked (amazingly when it was allowed to chart "Iris" still cracked the top 10 at # 9) because no commercial single had been released. "Iris" had also peaked at # 8 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock and # 1 on the Billboard Modern Rock charts.

The song was also a major international hit. "Iris" spent many months in the top thirty on the Ireland singles chart, and despite never charting higher than number five, it is the thirteenth biggest-selling single there.

"Iris"
Single by Ronan Keating from the album Bring You Home
Released	June 1, 2006 UK Release Date August 14, 2006 [1]
Format	CD single
Recorded	2005–2006
Genre	Pop
Length	4:08
Label	Polydor/Universal
Writer	Johnny Rzeznik
Producer	Mark Taylor
Ronan Keating singles chronology
All Over Again (2006) Iris (2006) This I Promise You (2006)

Avril Lavigne performed the song on stage at the Fashion Rocks Awards with Goo Goo Dolls lead singer Johnny Rzeznik. It was the choice of the first dance for her 2006 wedding with Sum 41 lead singer Deryck Whibley. It was most recently featured on the reality show Rock Star: Supernova, performed by Ryan Star.

Irish pop singer Ronan Keating covered "Iris", without Rzeznik's knowledge, including it on his fourth solo album Bring You Home (2006). It was produced by Mark Taylor and received a mixed reception from music critics. It was released as the album's first single in the second quarter of 2006 (see 2006 in music) in Europe only, with the song "All Over Again" released as the lead single in Ireland and the United Kingdom. The single's video was directed by Stuart Gosling of Panda Pictures Ltd. on the helipad of the "7-star deluxe hotel" Burj Al Arab in Dubai. Gosling was also the video's director of photography. New Found Glory also recorded the song for their upcoming album, "From the Screen to Your Stereo Part II".