Crazy Ex-Girlfriend type TV Show network The CW genre Comedy

Musical

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend might only be in its third season, but it’s already hitting a major landmark: This week’s episode will feature the show’s 100th song, titled “Without Love You Can Save the World.” And considering that the last episode saw Rebecca begin to confront her love obsession, it only makes sense that she’s pondering what her life could be like without the very thing that has driven her for so long. Co-creator and star Rachel Bloom previously told EW that the song represents “a very different outlook for Rebecca.”

“It’s one of the rare songs where the show and the character believe the same thing,” co-creator and showrunner Aline Brosh McKenna says. “Rachel and I also believe that romantic love, while wonderful, can be the world’s biggest time suck/waste of energy. Think of all the hours spent trying to look cute for dates: That time alone could solve many, many problems in the world.”

So, when it came time to sit down and map out the show’s 100th song, it was supervising producer/song writer Jack Dolgen who ultimately came up with the premise during a brainstorm session with McKenna, Bloom, and executive music producer/song writer Adam Schlesinger. “Jack, Adam, Rachel and I were sprawled on the sofas in our writers’ building brainstorming songs for the episode,” McKenna says. “The shoot was coming up fast and we needed another song. Rachel was circling an idea having to do with the irrelevance of romantic love. Then Jack said something very close to ‘without love you can save the world.’ That immediately felt right and the three of them went over to our dining table and started coming up with lyrics. I stayed sprawled on the sofa, occasionally pitching out terrible rhymes which they correctly completely ignored. Then Adam went away and built a brilliant track with his partner Steven Gold. We all loved the idea that the 100th song was a group number to celebrate our amazing cast.”

Dolgen adds, “We wanted a song to convey Rebecca’s point of view that maybe she can have a good life without being obsessed with a man. But it’s Rebecca, so of course, it’s not that simple. She takes it too far and thinks, ‘Hey, I can save the world!’ It’s this big, high energy song and point of view that she inevitably can’t maintain throughout the episode.”

The result is a Hair-esque number, which EW is exclusively premiering in the video above. Schlesinger admits, “I wanted to go with ‘This Is Our 100th Song’ as the title, but I got shot down.”

And speaking of things that got shut down, both Schlesinger and Dolgen revealed a couple lyrics that were ultimately cut. According to Dolgen, “We had a bunch of jokes that were more sex-based. Something to the effect of, ‘You could be giving blood, instead of giving head…aches to yourself!'”

Schlesinger adds, “Jack pitched an alt ending of ‘Change doesn’t start with him, Change starts with C!’ Which was pretty great.”

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend airs Fridays at 8 p.m. ET on The CW.