Songfacts®:

• Americans will be surprised to learn that Rednex, the faux-hillbilly group responsible for the techno version of "Cotton Eye Joe," has other popular songs. The group is very much a one-hit wonder in the States, but their song "Wish You Were Here" caught on throughout Europe, going to #1 in Germany, Austria, Norway and Switzerland. It's a romantic ballad that sounds nothing like "Cotton Eye Joe," sung by their female vocalist, Annika Ljungberg.
• Rednex is a collective of Swedish producers who use a rotating cast of performers. "Wish You Were Here" was written by Leskela Teijo and produced by Max Martin and Denniz Pop (Dag Krister Volle). Martin was just getting started in a career that transformed the sound of pop music; with big, saucy dance beats and inescapable melodies, he became a hitmaker for Britney Spears, 'N Sync, Katy Perry and many others. Denniz Pop was also on the rise, but died of stomach cancer in 1998. He and Martin wrote and produced the Backstreet Boys hit "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)."
• When it comes to lyrics, the Swedish philosophy is to make them sound pleasing to the ear without much concern for meaning or syntax. The result is lines like:
  
  Don't you know the stove is getting colder
  And I miss you like Hell
  And I'm feeling blue
  
  The song is about missing a person who has been called away, perhaps a soldier at war, and that's the theme they went with for the music video, which seems to be set during the American Civil War. Rednex was based in Europe, but they drew on American imagery.
• "Wish You Were Here" was included on the first Rednex album, Sex & Violins, and released as their third single, following "Cotton Eye Joe" and "Old Pop In An Oak." Formed as a loose collective, they've never kept to a schedule; their next album didn't appear until 2000, and the one after that in 2009. In 2007, the producers who control the group tried to sell it on eBay for $1.5 million, but couldn't find a buyer.
• When Songfacts tracked down Rednex producer Pat Reiniz in 2021, he explained: "Denniz Pop and Max Martin produced 'Wish You Were Here,' which was the third single from the first album. It was a huge hit in Northern Europe, was #1 in six countries, including Germany, and sold more than one million (a lot in those days).
  
  It was Max Martin's first Gold disc and #1 hit. He did the 'musical' parts of the production, the strings, etc. Denniz did the beats. This was in the later stages of the album production so he was not involved in any other songs."
• You wouldn't think Rednex would intersect with Richie Blackmore, the rock guitarist known for his time in Deep Purple and Rainbow, but in 1997 his Renaissance music act, Blackmore's Night, covered "Wish You Were Here" for their album Shadow Of The Moon. In a Songfacts track by track, Blackmore's wife/musical partner Candice Night told Songfacts: ""Wish You Were Here" is a great song that we discovered while we were touring. We heard it done by the Rednex, and it was such a great song that when we heard it, we tried to find out more information about it. It stayed on the charts in Germany for 17 weeks. Ritchie really just fell in love with it.
  
  It's actually one of our favorite songs to do in concert. We always ask the audience for requests, what they want to hear, and it's one of the songs that they always ask for."