One Week
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| "One Week" | ||
|---|---|---|
 |
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| Single by Barenaked Ladies | ||
| from the album Stunt | ||
| Released | 1998 | |
| Format | CD, 7", 12", cassette | |
| Recorded | 1998 | |
| Genre | Alternative rock | |
| Length | 2:52 | |
| Label | Reprise Records | |
| Producer(s) | Barenaked Ladies, David Leonard, Susan Rogers |
|
| Chart positions | ||
| Barenaked Ladies singles chronology | ||
| "Brian Wilson (2000)" (1997) |
"One Week" (1998) |
"It's All Been Done" (1998) |
"One Week" is a 1998 hit single by Barenaked Ladies. It is often regarded as the song that propelled the band to superstar status outside Canada. One reason for the song's popularity was the large number of pop culture references worked into the lyrics. It remains the band's biggest hit to date.
The song gained renewed popularity when it was featured in an ad for the Mitsubishi Lancer, with groups of young people in the car seeming to sing along until they could not keep up with the rapid-fire lyrics. It was featured in the third installment of Big Shiny Tunes.
"One Week" was also parodied on "Weird Al" Yankovic's 1999 album Running with Scissors as "Jerry Springer", with lyrics making fun of the Jerry Springer television talk show.
Ed Robertson wrote the ideas for the non-rap 'choruses' with the concept being the structure of a fight where the protagonist knows they are wrong and is just trying to save face. He wanted to come up with a rapping verse for the song but all attempts failed. Bandmate Steven Page suggested he simply improvise the rap as the two commonly did onstage every night. Robertson heeded the advice and set up a video camera. He improved the song at a slower pace to make rhyming easier and arrived at about four minutes of rap. He sent it to Page who told him not to change a word. Two minutes of the improvising was almost directly compiled (with very little, if any, tweaking) into the verses song. As it is improvised, it is not intended to directly have any relation to the plot of the chorus sections. The liner notes from Stunt contain some of the additional lyrics that did not make it into the recorded version.
In recent performances, the band has developed an acoustic, bluegrass version of the song. It is used in a new performance setting they developed in 2003, in which they play acoustically while they stand around and sing into one omni-directional microphone.
Although the song topped the U.S. Hot 100, it peaked at number nine on the Canadian Singles Chart partly because of limited promotion.
Contents |
[edit] Lyrical references
[edit] Verse 1
- Aquaman - superhero
- Chalet Suisse - French name of Swiss Chalet, a Canadian restaurant chain
- Wasabi - Sushi condiment
- LeAnn Rimes - Country music singer
- Bert Kaempfert - songwriter, one of the top music producers in Germany
- Vertigo - the sensation of spinning or whirling that occurs as a result of a disturbance in balance (equilibrium), also the name of the 1958 Alfred Hitchcock classic film
Furthermore, musical theatre composer Andrew Lloyd Webber is referred to in the additional lyrics in the liner notes.
[edit] Verse 2
- "Chickety China the Chinese Chicken" - Reference to "checkady-choco, the chocolate chicken", a lyric from the song "Scenario" by A Tribe Called Quest. Although the band has made no public statement saying so, some believe it also refers to a strain of bird flu (H5N1) that saw its first human cases, in Hong Kong, at the time the song was being written. [1]
- The X-Files - TV series
- dans la maison - French for "in the house"
- Smoking Man - character from The X-Files
- Harrison Ford - actor
- Frantic - 1988 movie starring Harrison Ford
- Sting - musician
- Tantric - a form of yoga, famously practised by Sting
- Snickers - candy bar whose slogan was "Snickers really satisfies"
- Akira Kurosawa - Japanese movie director, best known for The Seven Samurai
- Sailor Moon - anime cartoon series
Furthermore, Luke Skywalker and Yoda from the Star Wars movies are referred to in the additional lyrics in the liner notes.
[edit] Final verse
- Birchmount Stadium - A stadium in Scarborough, Ontario, that serves as the primary stadium for:
- The Robbie - The Robbie International Soccer Tournament, an annual youth football (soccer) tournament that bills itself as "the world's largest annual charitable youth soccer tournament."
[edit] Music video
The music video was directed by McG and begins with them singing in a royal court, featuring a singing girl on a wind-up pedestal, similar to a scene from the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. During the interlude they make an escape and sing while driving a lookalike of the General Lee from The Dukes of Hazzard (using the numbers 07 instead of 01) and Starsky & Hutch's Ford Gran Torino.
[edit] Trivia
- "One Week" appeared on the North American soundtrack of Digimon: The Movie, and in movies American Pie and 10 Things I Hate About You, as well as other endeavours of popular culture.
- The line including "Chickety China" inspired a prank call released in 2000 by an unknown amateur prank caller. In the recording, a man with an Asian accent (real or feigned) calls numerous Chinese restaurants. He uses the line from "One Week", asking for this item.[citation needed]
- Barenaked Ladies performed this song during a "Rock the Vote" for President Bartlet on an episode of The West Wing, despite it being pointed out that they are Canadian.
- "Weird Al" Yankovic parodied this song. His version, called "Jerry Springer" talks about The Jerry Springer Show, its wide variety of guests, the absurdity of the situations, and common viewers' fixation on the show.
- Tom Smith (filker), a popular filk performer, used this song as the basis for his Babylon 5 tribute, "5 years".
- ApologetiX has also parodied this song on their "Biblical Graffiti" album. Their version is called "One Way" and explains that Jesus Christ is the one way to Heaven.
[edit] See also
[edit] External link
| Preceded by "The First Night" by Monica |
Billboard Hot 100 number one single October 17, 1998- November 7, 1998 |
Succeeded by "Doo Wop (That Thing)" by Lauryn Hill |
Categories: Articles lacking sources from December 2006 | All articles lacking sources | Articles with unsourced statements since March 2007 | All articles with unsourced statements | 1990s pop songs | 1998 singles | 1998 songs | Barenaked Ladies songs | Number-one singles in the United States | Billboard Modern Rock Tracks number-one singles
