"Fell in Love with a Girl" is a song by the American garage rock band The White Stripes, written and produced by Jack White for the band's third studio album, White Blood Cells (2001). Released as the album's second single in 2002, it peaked at number twenty one on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles, and the same position in the United Kingdom. The song was covered in 2003 as "Fell in Love with a Boy" by Joss Stone and as a lounge song by Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine for their 2002 album Tuxicity. It was also included on a polka medley by "Weird Al" Yankovic, "Angry White Boy Polka", from his 2003 album Poodle Hat.
The May 3, 2007 issue of Rolling Stone magazine listed the song as one of the forty songs that changed the world.[1] In 2011, NME placed it at number 6 on its list "150 Best Tracks of the Past 15 Years".[2]
The single was re-released as a 7" vinyl record for Black Friday Record Store Day 2012 on opaque red vinyl by Third Man Records and later issued on standard black vinyl.
Contents[]
Music video[edit][]
The music video is a LEGO animation directed by Michel Gondry. Gondry's son was featured at the beginning of the video, building LEGO blocks. It was shot frame by frame with each frame having the LEGO bricks rebuilt, sometimes in a complex manner to seem as if it were an actual shot, and then formed together to give the illusion of motion. The video mostly consists of red, white, and black color. The White Stripes couldn't strike a deal with Lego, so they had to buy a large amount of LEGO boxes for the video.[3]
In an interview for The Work of Director Michel Gondry DVD, Jack stated that the White Stripes' long-time collaboration with Michel Gondry started by accident; for "Fell in Love with a Girl", Jack stated that he wanted to work with the director who did Beck's video for "Devils Haircut", referring to Mark Romanek. Their record company mistakenly hired Gondry, thinking he was the director of "Devils Haircut". Jack didn't mind, as he did the video for Beck's "Deadweight", which Jack also liked.
Also revealed in The Work of Director Michel Gondry interview, The White Stripes contacted LEGO Group in hopes of having a small LEGO set packaged with each single of the record, with which one could build a LEGO version of Jack and Meg White. LEGO Group refused, saying: "We don't market our product to people over the age of twelve."[this quote needs a citation] However, once the video became a hit, LEGO contacted The White Stripes again and asked if they could reconstruct the deal to have LEGO packaged with the single. This time, however, Jack White refused.
The The Work of Director Michel Gondry DVD also reveals that one section, lasting only a few seconds, used computer animation to simulate the LEGO bricks.
The video won three MTV Video Music Awards in 2002: Breakthrough Video, Best Special Effects, and Best Editing. It also received a nomination for Video of the Year, but lost out to Eminem's "Without Me".
Pitchfork Media deemed it the best video of the decade.[4] Entertainment Weekly included it on its end-of-the-decade, "best-of" list, saying, "An idea so simple it's a wonder no one thought of it before 2002: rock & roll Legos!"[5]
The video was spoofed on the Family Guy episode "Ocean's Three and a Half".
Track listings[edit][]
- CD single
- "Fell in Love with a Girl"
- "Let's Shake Hands"
- "Lafayette Blues"
- CD single (UK Version – Part 2)
- "Fell in Love with a Girl"
- "Lovesick" (Live at the Forum, London December 6, 2001)
- "I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself" (Live at BBC Radio-1 Evening Session)
The single comes with a multimedia section featuring the "Fell in Love with a Girl" video.
- Part 1 with the identical track listing as the US Version.
- 7" single
- "Fell in Love with a Girl"
- "I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself" (Live at BBC Radio-1 Evening Session)
- This is the same recording of the song that would one year later be an album track on Elephant and eventually be released as a single.
Charts[edit][]
| Chart (2004) | Peak
position |
|---|---|
| UK Singles Chart | 21 |
| U.S. BillboardBubbling Under Hot 100 Singles | 21 |
| U.S. BillboardModern Rock Tracks | 12 |
Joss Stone version[edit][]
| "Fell in Love with a Boy" | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| [1] | ||||||||||||
| Single by Joss Stone | ||||||||||||
| from the album The Soul Sessions | ||||||||||||
| Released | January 26, 2004 (UK) | |||||||||||
| Format | CD single, digital download, | |||||||||||
| Recorded | May 5, 2003; The Studio
(Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) | |||||||||||
| Genre | Soul blues, funk | |||||||||||
| Length | 3:38 | |||||||||||
| Label | Relentless, S-Curve, Virgin | |||||||||||
| Writer(s) | Jack White | |||||||||||
| Producer(s) | Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson,Betty Wright, Steve Greenberg,Mike Mangini | |||||||||||
| Joss Stone singles chronology | ||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
In 2003, English soul singer Joss Stone covered the song, retitled "Fell in Love with a Boy", for her debut album, The Soul Sessions (2003). It was released in early 2004 as the album's lead single.
Critical reception[edit][]
Dorian Lynskey of The Guardian raved that "Fell in Love with a Boy" is the best track from The Soul Sessions as well as "the freshest and most deliciously inauthentic."[6] PopMatters reviewer Jason MacNeil commented that Stone gives the song "a groove-riddled, funky hip-shaker that never loses momentum."[7] However, Jim Greer of Entertainment Weeklyregarded her version as "the only misguided ploy" on the album.[8] Andrew McGregor wrote for BBC Music that it "blends so well into the funky soul landscape that those less familiar with contemporary rock might miss the ironic juxtaposition altogether."[9]
Track listings[edit][]
- UK CD single
- "Fell in Love with a Boy" (Radio Version) – 2:25
- "Victim of a Foolish Heart" (Live at Ronnie Scott's, London, November 25, 2003) – 6:25
- European CD single
- "Fell in Love with a Boy" (Radio Version) – 2:25
- "Victim of a Foolish Heart" (Live at Ronnie Scott's, London, November 25, 2003) – 6:25
- "Fell in Love with a Boy" (Acoustic Version) – 3:30
- UK 7" single
- A. "Fell in Love with a Boy" (Radio Version) – 2:25
- B. "Super Duper Love (Are You Diggin' on Me?) Pt. 1" – 4:20
- UK and U.S. promo CD single
- "Fell in Love with a Boy" (Radio Version) – 2:25
Personnel[edit][]
Musicians[edit][]
- Joss Stone – lead vocals
- Angie Stone – backing vocals
- Betty Wright – backing vocals
- Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson – drums
- Kirk Douglas – guitar
- Adam Blackstone – bass
- James Poyser – keyboards
- Kamal – keyboards
Production[edit][]
- Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson – producer
- Betty Wright – producer
- Mike Mangini – producer
- Steve Greenberg – producer
- Steve Greenwell – engineer, mixing
Charts[edit][]
| Chart (2004) | Peak
position |
|---|---|
| Belgian Tip Chart (Flanders)[10] | 16 |
| Belgian Tip Chart (Wallonia)[10] | 17 |
| Dutch Single Top 100[10] | 80 |
| European Hot 100 Singles[11] | 71 |
| German Airplay Chart[11] | 66 |
| Irish Singles Chart[12] | 46 |
| Italian Singles Chart[11] | 36 |
| New Zealand Singles Chart[12] | 23 |
| UK Singles Chart[12] | 18 |
Other appearances[edit][]
- The Acoustic Album (2006, Virgin)
- This song was released as a DLC song for the music video game Rock band on March 9, 2010.[13]
- American rock band Of Montreal performed a version of the song in May of 2011 for The A.V. Club's A.V. Undercover series.[14]
- In the Academy Award-winning film Silver Linings Playbook, this song is incorporated into the dance routine that Pat (Bradley Cooper) and Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence) perform at the dance competition.