Songfacts®:

• Silk Sonic is a R&B duo comprising Anderson Paak and Bruno Mars. The pair are no strangers to working together; Paak was the opening act for Bruno Mars on the European leg of his 2017 24K Magic World Tour, and the pair worked on material for Chic's It's About Time album with Nile Rodgers and Disclosure's Guy Lawrence at London's legendary Abbey Road Studios. Silk Sonic released "Leave The Door Open" as their debut single on March 5, 2021.
• Throughout the steamy tune, Paak and Mars try to persuade a woman to come over to their home, telling her they will leave the door wide open for her to come in at any hour. They lay out their playful invitation with some cheeky come-ons and an assurance that she will have a good time.
• Anderson Paak and Bruno Mars are both known as lovers of '60s and '70s R&B, and this song employs the romantic lyrics, smooth vocals, lush instrumentation and showy groove changes of that music. Paak described this ode to stylish yearning to Radio.com's Julia as "a statement piece." He added:
  
  "When we got together we were like 'what's the song that kind of puts everything on the table and kind of wraps up the whole vibe that we're going for, and what's the one that we could really take a chance on?' I don't think there's anything like it right now."
• For Mars, this was his first new body of work since the release of his 24k Magic album in 2016. Since then he had limited his output to several features for other artists, such as Cardi B and Ed Sheeran.
• Mars and Paak wrote the song with Dernst "D'Mile" Emile II (The Carters' "Boss," Khalid's "My Bad") and Mars' regular collaborator Brody Brown. Mars and D'Mile also produced the track.
• The song leads the duo's debut album, An Evening with Silk Sonic, which features funk musician Bootsy Collins as a special guest host. After Paak and Mars threw names around like "RoboCop Funk" and "Turkish Gold," it was Bootsy who came up with the band's moniker.
• Mars and Florent Dechard directed the retro video, which shows Silk Sonic performing the slow jam along with their backing band in a studio as several women dance to the tune.
• Mars and Paak performed this song at the Grammy Awards in 2021, where they also paid tribute to Little Richard with a medley of his songs. Paak's song "Lockdown" won for Best Melodic Rap Performance that night.
• The song topped the Hot 100, giving Mars his eighth #1 single and Paak his first. Paak's previous best chart position was the #89 he achieved with his feature on Eminem's "Lock It Up."
• The song came from a series of jam sessions after Bruno Mars introduced the concept, The four writers all played different instruments:
  
  Mars: guitar
  Anderson Paak: drums
  Brody Brown: bass
  D'Mile: piano
  
  "That was one of the things we were playing around with over time, like different variations of it," D'Mile told Genius. "It took a year probably to get it to the point of it being ready to come out. What everybody hears is the result of hard work."
• The staff of Billboard voted this their #1 song of 2021. They said: "Dripping with both humor and sex appeal, 'Door' is an instant slam dunk by the R&B super-duo, as they lovingly recreated the lush sounds of '70s soul, but with enough modern finesse to still conquer audiences not even born until decades later."
• "Leave the Door Open" won R&B Song of the Year at the 2022 iHeartRadio Music Awards. Silk Sonic also took home the prizes for R&B Album of the Year for An Evening with Silk Sonic, and Best Duo/Group of the Year.
• This won Record Of The Year and Song Of The Year at the Grammy Awards in 2022, beating out nine other nominees in each category, including "Drivers License" by Olivia Rodrigo and "MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)" by Lil Nas X. "We are really trying our hardest to remain humble at this point, but in the industry, we call that a clean sweep," Anderson .Paak said in accepting Record Of The Year.
  
  It was a big night for Silk Sonic; "Leave The Door Open" also won for Best R&B Performance (splitting the award with "Pick Up Your Feelings" by Jazmine Sullivan), and they also opened the show with a performance of "777."
• D'Mile became the first songwriter in Grammy history to win Song of the Year two years running with "Leave The Door Open." He previously won in 2021 for H.E.R.'s "I Can't Breathe," which he co-wrote with the singer and Tiara Thomas.