Songfacts®:

• This is the first single by American rapper Lupe Fiasco from his third studio album, Lasers. It was released on October 26, 2010.
• The song was produced by Kane Beatz and written by Lupe Fiasco and Jonathan Keith Brown. The latter, who additionally contributed backing vocals, is also known as JRGETMONEY.
• The song's melody is based on Modest Mouse's 2004 hit "Float On" and the chorus is sung to the same rhythm.
• Lasers is a backronym for "Love Always Shines, Everytime Remember 2 Smile."
• Fiasco endured a public battle with his label, Atlantic Records, over the direction of L.A.S.E.R.S., including a fight over his lead single. "I was literally told for 'The Show Goes On' that I shouldn't rap too deep," he told the Chicago Tribune. "I shouldn't be too lyrical. It just needs to be something easy on the eyes. Like a record company telling Picasso that we don't need these abstract interpretations of life, where people have to sit down and look at it and break it down. It was better to paint the Upper West Side lady and her poodle so everyone could look at it right away and understand what was going on. I felt like I was painting poodles."
• Originally intended for release in June 2009, Lasers was held back by Fiasco's label for a perceived lack of hits. The album finally debuted after fans across the world protested, but Fiasco has disassociated himself from this song and claimed in interviews he was told how to rap on it. He told Complex Magazine: "There's nothing really to tell about that record, to be honest. I didn't have nothing to do with that record. That was the label's record. That wasn't like I knew the producer or knew the writer or anything like that. That was one of those records the record company gave me, [they even gave me] stuff they wanted me to rap about. It wasn't like, 'Hey I did this and I went to a mountain and found inspiration and it was this.' I had to do 'Show Goes On,' that was like the big chip on the table. I had to do it and it had to be the first single if the record was going to come out."
  The song includes intriguingly the line "They treat you like a slave, put chains all on your soul."
• Hiro Murai directed the video, which shows Lupe backstage preparing for a performance. The clip is intended to illuminate all of the mechanisms involved in getting the star to the stage. Fiasco explained to MTV News: "We already know what the performance is, we already know [who] you are, let's give it a little more of a personal feel, so we can see the route taken behind the scenes, literally, from the dressing room to the stage. We already know what is onstage. We already know what the public life is, so let's see what goes on behind the scenes. And [the video] speaks to a lot of the stuff on the album, beyond 'The Show Goes On.'"