Fireflies (Owl City song)

"Fireflies" is the debut single from American electronica project Owl City's album Ocean Eyes. Frontman Adam Young wrote and produced the track, with Matt Thiessen also producing and providing guest vocals. Young described the song as "a little song about bugs and not being able to fall asleep at night."[4] The song is built around a "bleepy" synthline and includes lyrics about insomnia, fireflies and summer.

"Fireflies"
Single by Owl City
from the album Ocean Eyes
B-side"Hot Air Balloon"
ReleasedJuly 14, 2009 (2009-07-14)
Recorded2008
Genre
Length3:48
LabelUniversal Republic
Songwriter(s)Adam Young
Producer(s)
Owl City singles chronology
"Fireflies"
(2009)		 "Vanilla Twilight"
(2010)
Audio sample
  • file
  • help
Music video
"Fireflies" on YouTube

The song topped the Billboard Hot 100 for two non-consecutive weeks. Internationally, the song also topped the charts in Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Ireland, Sweden and the United Kingdom. "Fireflies" was Owl City's only top forty hit in the United States until three years later when "Good Time", a duet with Canadian singer Carly Rae Jepsen, charted at No. 8.[5] It has been covered by Christina Grimmie, Cheryl Cole and others.

"Fireflies" is featured in the video game Disney Sing It: Party Hits, and was used in the promotional video for EyePet.[6] It is available as downloadable content for Guitar Hero 5, Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock and Rock Band 3.[7][8]

Composition

Adam Young wrote "Fireflies" based on not only his insomnia but also a summer camping trip to "a totally rustic and kind of remote lake in northern Minnesota, where there isn’t really much of anything"; he tried to emulate the experience of seeing a meteor shower that gave him "a cool idea of shooting stars being fireflies."[9]

Chart performance

"Fireflies," when featured as iTunes' "Single of the Week," garnered 650,000 downloads, influencing Universal Republic to move Ocean Eyes' release date from September 1, 2009 to July 28.[10] The song debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 in early-September at No. 97.

The song reached No. 1 in its tenth week, becoming Owl City's first No. 1 single.[11][12] The song stayed at No. 1 for two non-consecutive weeks, in the top ten for fifteen weeks and on the Hot 100 for 31 weeks.[13] "Fireflies" contributed to sales of the album Ocean Eyes, and was credited as being responsible for its entry to the top ten on the U.S. Billboard 200.[14] On the Billboard Hot 100 2009 year-end chart, it was ranked sixtieth.[15] On the Billboard Hot 100 2010 year-end chart, it was ranked thirtieth.[16] The RIAA certified "Fireflies" 3× Platinum in June 2010. By July 2018, the song had shifted 5,269,000 downloads in the United States, enough for a 4× Platinum certification.[17]

The song attained success worldwide. In the United Kingdom, the song entered at No. 50 due to early download sales from a fake version that was leaked onto iTunes. The song would go on to make a 48-place jump to number two the following week, beaten only to the top by "Replay" by Iyaz. The following week, it rose to number one and topped the chart for three consecutive weeks. On January 2, 2011, it was revealed that "Fireflies" was the 20th most downloaded song of all time in the UK.[18] As of September 2017, the song has sold over 844,000 copies in the UK.[19]

In Australia, the song entered at No. 38 and on the week of January 10, 2010, it topped the chart.[20][21] In Japan, the song peaked at No. 3 and was ranked sixteenth on the 2010 year-end chart, the highest ranking for an international song for 2010. It reached No. 1 in Denmark, Ireland, Sweden, Australia, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands (for 10 weeks) and the top ten in Austria, Belgium, Canada, Poland, Finland, Germany, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, and Switzerland. The song was ranked 89th on VH1's 'Top 100 songs of the new millennium'.[22]

Music video

The music video for "Fireflies" was directed by Steve Hoover.[23] It features Adam Young playing the song on a Lowrey spinet organ in a toy-filled bedroom, where most of the toys (including an astronaut, a Tyrannosaurus rex, a Speak & Spell, toy cars including one based on Brum, and a blimp) come to life. Most of the toys are older model toys, with most of them from the 1970s and 1980s (the exceptions being a Robosapien and a Roboraptor). There are also vintage household devices such as a black and white television and a record player. As Young plays the organ, he activates a "magic" button on his organ and the aforementioned toys come to life. As the song progresses towards the end toys return to normal one by one until he turns off the magic button. The video ends with him turning off his organ as the camera cuts to black.

The video had an exclusive premiere on Myspace, but was leaked onto Dailymotion sometime before and YouTube soon after. As of December 10, 2020, the video has received over 380 million views.[24]

Cover versions and usage in media

A part of the song is featured in "Weird Al" Yankovic's polka medley "Polka Face", from his album Alpocalypse. Sam Tsui covered the song for his album "The Covers".[25] Cheryl Cole covered the song on BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge.

Rebecca Ferguson performed the song on the seventh season of The X Factor for the Judges' houses round.

Ben Bennett with Jesse and Ashleigh performed the song for their battle round on season 1 of The Voice Australia.[26] Universal Music has since released Ben Bennett's cover on iTunes.[27]

Mac Miller also samples the melody in his song "Don't Mind if I Do" from his 2010 mixtape, K.I.D.S..

Also in 2010, American hip-hop group Blue Scholars sampled the song's melody in their internet-released track "Paul Valery".

Nivea Hamilton covered the song as a part of a medley with "Do You Know Where You're Going To" for her 2011 EP Nivea Undercover.

Dancehall artist Busy Signal recorded a version of the song entitled "Between Eyes".

In May 2017, the song was revitalized as an Internet meme, usually involving the song being played at an extremely loud volume or being remixed to fit a certain theme.[28][29] Another variant of the meme involved writing a pun for the line "You would not believe your eyes, if ten million fireflies".[30] The song received further notability in June when Owl City was asked to interpret the lyric "I get a thousand hugs from 10,000 lightning bugs."[28][31]

In 2019, electronic musician Davril Ravine sampled the song heavily in the "Dismembered Fireflies" EP.[32]

Track listings

Europe CD single

  1. "Fireflies" – 3:48
  2. "Hot Air Balloon" – 3:35[33]

US CD promo

  1. "Fireflies" – 3:48[34]

Charts

Certifications
Region CertificationCertified units/sales
Australia (ARIA)[98] 7× Platinum 490,000^
Belgium (BEA)[99] Gold 15,000*
Denmark (IFPI Denmark)[100] Platinum 30,000^
Germany (BVMI)[101] Platinum 300,000
Italy (FIMI)[102] Gold 15,000*
New Zealand (RMNZ)[103] Platinum 15,000*
Sweden (GLF)[104] 2× Platinum 40,000
Switzerland (IFPI Switzerland)[105] Gold 15,000^
United Kingdom (BPI)[106] 2× Platinum 844,895[19]
United States (RIAA)[107] 7× Platinum 7,000,000

* Sales figures based on certification alone.
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.
Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.

Release history
Region Date Label Format
  • United States
  • Canada[108]
 July 14, 2009 Universal Republic Digital download
Australia[109] November 9, 2009 CD single
United Kingdom[110][111] January 8, 2010 Digital download
February 22, 2010 CD single
Ireland[112] January 14, 2010 Digital download
Poland January 16, 2010 CD single
Germany January 22, 2010 CD single

See also

References
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