| "Take Me Out" | |||||||||
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| Single by Franz Ferdinand | |||||||||
| from the album Franz Ferdinand | |||||||||
| B-side | "All for You, Sophia", "Words So Leisured", "Truck Stop" |
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| Released | 12 January 2004 (UK) 9 February 2004 (US) |
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| Format | 7" vinyl, 12" vinyl, CD, DVD | ||||||||
| Recorded | 2003 | ||||||||
| Genre | Alternative rock, Post-punk revival, Garage rock revival | ||||||||
| Length | 3:57 (album version) | ||||||||
| Label | Domino | ||||||||
| Writer(s) | Alex Kapranos, Nicholas McCarthy | ||||||||
| Producer | Tore Johansson | ||||||||
| Franz Ferdinand singles chronology | |||||||||
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"Take Me Out" is a song by the Scottish band Franz Ferdinand. It was released as the second single from their debut album Franz Ferdinand in the United Kingdom on the 12 January 2004 and in the United State on 9 February, both through Domino Records. It was released on CD, 7" vinyl, and as a DVD single with the video promo and a short interview with the band.
The single reached number three in the UK Singles Chart. In the U.S., it reached number three on Modern Rock Tracks chart and number 66 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was a number-seven hit on the Canadian Singles Chart, and also reached #1 on the UK Indie Chart. The song was voted the best single of 2004 by the Village Voice Pazz & Jop poll, and number one on Australian youth radio network Triple J's Hottest 100 of the same year.[1] In July 2009, it was voted number 100 in Triple J's Hottest 100 of all time.
In November 2004, the single was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America.[2]
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The promotional video for the song was directed by Jonas Odell. It includes the band in the midst of a Dadaist and somewhat Pythonesque (surreal Terry Gilliam style) animation involving quirky vintage figures and machinery. The video is a blend of the live action band superimposed into a 3D environment with animated 2D elements.
Franz Ferdinand frontman Alex Kapranos explained the many and varied influences behind the '30s-style promo for second single "Take Me Out":
"It's kind of two dimensional in a three dimensional style if that makes any sense. It's a montage of images; ourselves, pictures and things taken from other places and put together in a strange, abstract way. That's what gives the video that strange, jerky style.
"The idea came out of stuff we'd been talking about as a band - we all like the photo montage style that you get from the dada artists who would literally cut up photographs and make new images with the pieces. You get this strange, disjointed look where limbs and heads aren't the same proportions. So you get a very jarring effect.
"We wanted to combine that with other ideas, like those old films from the 1930s that were directed by Busby Berkely; he would have these geometric shapes formed by dancers, chorus girls all making these fantastic shapes in water. But we wanted to take it further; he'd use the human shape to make these abstract shapes and we wanted to take it further by using limbs and arms and repeat them to make the human form even less human. So we have a lot of that in the video too, a lot of legs kicking in the air and arms moving to create that same sort of effect."
"Another sort of imagery that we liked was the kind you'd get in Russian film and propaganda posters, again from the 1930s, which had a kind of constructivist approach; everything was very flat and very geometric and you tended to have limited colours and very blocky styles. We wanted to combine those three styles, so there're a lot of concentric circles, geometric shapes and blocks moving around in time to the music.
"We were very lucky when we made the video 'cos we had all these ideas but we didn't know if it was possible to make a video like that or if it would cost hundreds of thousands of pounds or something but fortunately we met a guy called Jonas Odell. Laurence from Domino knew him and thought he'd be interested in our ideas so we got chatting and he immediately got all the reference points and really liked them. We liked the other videos he'd done, we really liked his style and he said he'd love to give it a go. So he sent us a clip of how he imagined the video looking and we just looked at it and thought 'Wow this is fantastic, the guy's really tuned in'. It was really good fun, we sent lots of e-mails to and fro going through our ideas and how we'd follow them through. I think he did an amazing job, we were really impressed.
"Basically it's a pop video and it should entertain you, but not just once - there're certain things you stare at in life that are just fascinating to look at like a fish tank or an open fire, they're actually quite simple things but there's something fascinating about them. And I think pop videos should be like that too. There should be something there that just makes you want to come back and look at it."[3]
The artwork from the single was inspired by a 1923 poster for "One-Sixth Part Of The World", by Rodchenko.
The song was covered by the Scissor Sisters in 2004 on the B side to their single "Mary" and "Filthy/Gorgeous". In Australia, the song received substantial airplay and was ranked #44 on Triple J's Hottest 100 of 2004 while the original version was ranked #1. The original version also placed #100 on their hottest 100 of all time.[6]
In March 2005, Q magazine placed "Take Me Out" at #41 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks. In September 2005, the same magazine named it the 34th greatest track ever performed by a British band. Q made another list for their television channel, also named Q, they made a list of 100 greatest Indie Anthems where "Take Me Out" featured on #6.
In May 2007, NME magazine placed "Take Me Out" on #16 in its list of the 50 Greatest Indie Anthems Ever, whereas MTV2 placed it on #7 in their version of the 50 greatest Indie Anthems ever, which was loosely based on NME's list.
Pitchfork Media gave it a four and a half star rating stating "For once, the NME could be spot-on. There's a reason, after all, that this track shot to #3 on the UK pop charts within a week of its release." Pitchfork Media later ranked the song #44 of its top 500 tracks of the 2000s.[9]
Rolling Stone magazine also placed "Take Me Out" at number 327 on its list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" in 2010 updated list.
In October 2011, NME placed it at number 27 on its list "150 Best Tracks of the Past 15 Years".[10]
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| Preceded by "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?" by Jet |
Triple J Hottest 100 #1s 2004 |
Succeeded by "Wish You Well" by Bernard Fanning |
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