Cupid's Chokehold

"Cupid's Chokehold" is a single performed by Gym Class Heroes, featuring Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy. It has reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100, #1 on the Billboard Pop 100 Airplay, and #3 on the UK Singles Chart. The song has been featured on Discover and Download and Total Request Live. It was first released in 2004 on The Papercut Chronicles, and re-recorded for their album As Cruel as School Children (which was re-released on November 4, 2006 with "Cupid's Chokehold" as an additional track). There are two music videos for this song, one for each version. The second version includes female backing vocals which are not included in version one. The second version of the video does contain the backing vocals of the first video. However, the female voice is integrated into the chorus behind Patrick Stump's vocals.

Several versions were produced. The most common one features slow tempo and female backing vocals while the other one has a quicker tempo and Patrick Stump does every backing vocal.

The song uses the music, chorus and famous spoken "ba ba da da" line from Supertramp's hit song "Breakfast in America," and won an ASCAP award on April 9, 2008 for being one of the most played songs in ASCAPs repertory from the 4th Quarter 2006 through the 4th Quarter 2007.

1 Charts
2 Music videos
- 2.1 The Papercut Chronicles version
- 2.2 As Cruel as School Children version
3 References

[edit] Charts

Chart (2007)	Peak position
Australian ARIA Singles Chart^[1]	14
Croatian Singles Chart^[2]	2
Czech IFPI Chart ^[3]	65
Dutch Top 40	9
Euro Top 200^[4]	15
Indonesian Single Top ^[5]	15
Irish Singles Chart	3
Italy Singles Chart	12
Latin America Top 40^[6]	35
New Zealand RIANZ Singles Chart	6
Polish Singles Chart^[7]	47
Sweden Singles Chart	38
Turkish Airplay Chart	2
UK Singles Chart	3
U.S. Billboard Hot 100	4
U.S. Billboard Pop 100	4
U.S. Billboard Pop 100 Airplay	1
U.S. Billboard Hot Digital Songs	2
U.S. Billboard Hot Ringtones	4
U.S. Billboard Adult Top 40	18
United World Chart	11

[edit] Music videos

[edit] The Papercut Chronicles version

The original music video.

The first version of the "Cupid's Chokehold" video directed by Andrew Paul Bowser for the album The Papercut Chronicles features MC Travis McCoy working at a toy factory. While working, he stumbles upon a "prototype toy" which turns out to be a life-size doll. The doll acts as McCoy's girlfriend in the video and fulfills his every wish.

However, she eventually becomes tired of being exploited and expresses this in a humorous scene where the two are playing Scrabble (she spells out the words 'krush', 'kill', and 'destroy'). The doll then begins to malfunction, and McCoy has no choice but to destroy her. He pushes her off a bridge, and she appears to be dead. At the end of the video, she is awakened by Patrick Stump, who also appears to be a robot. The two fall in love and walk down the road together.

[edit] As Cruel as School Children version

The second version of the "Cupid's Chokehold" video directed by Alan Ferguson for the album As Cruel as School Children is a more literal interpretation of the lyrics of the song, and is more widely recognized, being that music networks such as MTV and VH1 play this version instead of the original,and that it does not appear on iTunes. The video begins with a dancing Cupid, who shoots McCoy with a love arrow as he passes a girl. You can see Patrick Stump watching from behind a newspaper as this happens. The two are madly in love at first, but as the video moves forward, the two begin fighting, and their relationship meets its end when McCoy's girlfriend walks in on him and his friends gambling. Cupid tries a second time to get McCoy into a relationship. This time, McCoy's girlfriend is more romantically involved with McCoy, but she becomes increasingly angry when he invites his friends to a party her parents are hosting. The relationship ends when McCoy comes home to find his girlfriend on top of a masked man in a compromising position. He proceeds to beat up the guy, who does not know who he is (he is shown mouthing the words, "Who's he?" or possibly "Oh shit") and walks out. McCoy's final relationship is with one of his fans in the audience at one of the band's performances. Initially, she went up to him when they were at a bar. This time the relationship works out, and Cupid does not have to shoot McCoy with an arrow even though he attempts to at first. However, Cupid himself gets shot with an arrow by a female Cupid, and the video closes with the two of them dancing together (Cupid also dances several times before the ending).

In this version of the music video, when McCoy and his friends are interrupting his girlfriend's party, McCoy raps a small part of "Wejusfreestylin Pt. 2" from The Papercut Chronicles.

The "girlfriend" he ends up with in the end of the video is his real life girlfriend Katy Perry