Lovefool

"Lovefool"
Single by The Cardigans
from the album First Band on the Moon
Released	September 14, 1996
Recorded	1995
Genre	Pop, pop rock
Length	3:21
Label	Stockholm
Writer(s)	Peter Svensson, Nina Persson
The Cardigans singles chronology
"Hey! Get Out of My Way" (1995) "Lovefool" (1996) "Been It" (1997)
Re-issue cover

"Lovefool" is a pop song written by Peter Svensson and Nina Persson for The Cardigans' third studio album First Band on the Moon, released as a single on 14 September 1996, in the United Kingdom and internationally on 5 October 1996. It was released as the album's lead single in 1996 and became the Cardigans' first international hit single, topping the Billboard Hot 100 Airplay chart and making appearances on six other Billboard charts. In 1997, the song found international success, peaking at #2 on the UK Singles Chart and finding moderate success on most European charts. The single also topped the charts in New Zealand, and was certified Gold in Australia.^[1]

The song was featured in the film William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet just two months after the release of the single, as well as in the 1999 film Cruel Intentions. It has also been covered by numerous musical acts since its release, including by indie pop band The Hush Sound, who have played the song at several of their shows. More recently the song was covered by pop punk band New Found Glory on their album From the Screen to Your Stereo Part II and by Canadian trumpeter and singer Bria Skonberg on her album Fresh.

Background

Nina Persson wrote the lyrics to the song at an airport while waiting for a plane. She said that, at the time, the song had "a slow bossa nova feel". She also added that "the biggest hits are the ones that are the easiest to write".^[2]

Music and structure

"Lovefool" is a pop song performed in several keys; it modulates based on chorus and verse. The chorus is in the key of A major using a I-IV-ii-V chord progression. The verses use a vi-ii-V-I chord progression in C major. It is written in common time and moves at 112 beats per minute. The song's middle 8 is four bars long.^[3]

Music video

The song's American music video was directed by Geoff Moore in New York in September 1996.^[4] It features a man being lost on an island and putting a message in a bottle into the water. A woman implied to be his lover is shown on a dock reading a newspaper and at the end of the video receives and reads the message and smiles. The video also shows the band performing the song in what looks to be the interior of the bottle released by the man lost at sea, as well as Nina Persson looking out from the bottles neck and later through a periscope at the woman. Midway through the song, the band is also interviewed by several scuba equipment-wearing reporters who descend from a ladder into the room.

The song's worldwide—also known as its European and British—music video can loosely be called a love story, featuring a woman (Nina Persson) longing for a man she watches from a distance. The man walks into a building accompanied by several other men (the band members) and sits down before putting a cassette into a player and beginning to listen to it (the song playing is implied to be the song itself, which the woman is singing). Several women (including two skimpily-dressed middle-aged women) enter and attempt to entertain them, but they remain unimpressed, with the man who is the object of the woman's affections crying as he listens to the cassette and one of the women dances for him. Near the end of the video, the woman (Nina) walks into the building and says the line spoken towards the end of the song ("Say that you love me... go on and fool me") before embracing the man.

Track listing

1. "Lovefool"
2. "Nasty Sunny Beam"
3. "Iron Man" (First Try)

Re-issue 1

1. "Lovefool" (radio edit)
2. "Lovefool" (Tee's Club Radio)
3. "Lovefool" (Tee's Frozen Sun Mix)
4. "Lovefool" (Puck version)

Re-issue 2

1. "Lovefool" (Radio edit)
2. "Sick & Tired" (live)
3. "Carnival" (live)
4. "Rise & Shine" (live)

Reception

The song became an international hit on many chart where it hit #2 on the UK Singles Chart and #15 on the Swedish Singles Chart, the song was the band's biggest hit in the U.S., it became a top 10 modern rock hit peaking #9 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, it also became a cross-over format hit peaking the #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 Airplay and the Top 40 Mainstream and peaking #2 on the Adult Top 40, and did well on other U.S. charts. It did not chart on the original Hot 100 due to no commercial single which is required to have to chart until December 1998.

"Lovefool" placed eighteenth on the 1996 Pazz & Jop poll and nineteenth the following year.^[5][6] Slant Magazine listed the song number 40 on its "100 Best Singles of the 1990s" list,^[7] and Pitchfork Media ranked it number 66 on its "Top 200 Tracks of the 1990s".^[8]

Chart performance

Cover versions

• American band New Found Glory (featuring Adam Lazzara of Taking Back Sunday) covered the song on their covers album From the Screen to Your Stereo Part II in 2007.
• Just Jack covered "Lovefool" on the complication album Radio 1 Established 1967, that features collection of covers recorded for the 40th anniversary of Radio 1, by a number of artists.
• Olivia Ong covered the song on her album A Girl Meets Bossanova in 2005.
• In 2009, Canadian pop singer Justin Bieber's producer's restructured the chorus of the Cardigans' version and used it in his third single, "Love Me" from his EP My World.^[9]
• Solange Knowles covered the song at many of her live shows in 2009.
• Perfume covered the song's chorus in a Japanese television commercial for Pepsi in June 2010.
• The Morning Benders on The Bedroom Cover
• Kat Edmonson^[10]
• Jolin Tsai^{[citation needed]}
• Isabella Leong^{[citation needed]}
• Rainbow Chan^[11]
• Pretty & Nice^[12]
• On April 26, 2013 singer Fatin Shidqia performed "Lovefool" on the 10th Live Show episode of "X Factor Indonesia"^[13]

Usage in media

Apart from Romeo + Juliet, the song has also been used in a season three episode of the American version of The Office, a season one episode of Nip/Tuck, in season one of My Name Is Earl, as well as the films Cruel Intentions and Hot Fuzz (in a parody of Romeo + Juliet). In 1997, the band played the song on the graduation episode of Beverly Hills, 90210. The song was used in a 2003 Cornetto ice cream advertisement shown in the United Kingdom.^[14] The song also featured in the film Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005). Furthermore, the song was played on several episodes of Daria, an MTV animated series and during the high school dance scene on an episode of the Syfy series Haven.

Notes

References

• "The Cardigans - Lovefool". AustrianCharts.at. Retrieved 17 January 2007.
• "The Cardigans - Lovefool". FinnishCharts.com. Retrieved 17 January 2007.
• "The Cardigans - Lovefool". LesCharts.com. Retrieved 17 January 2007.
• "The Cardigans - Lovefool". SwedishCharts.com. Retrieved 17 January 2007.
• "The Cardigans - Lovefool". HitParade.ch. Retrieved 17 January 2007.
• "First Band on the Moon > Charts & Awards > Billboard Singles". Allmusic. Retrieved 17 January 2007.

External links

• "Lovefool" lyrics
• Lovefool at AllMusic
• Full lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics