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Fireflies (Owl City song)
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Wikipedia article
{{Infobox song
| name = Fireflies
| cover = Owlcity_fireflies_cover.jpg
| alt =
| type = single
| artist = Owl City
| album = Ocean Eyes
| B-side = Hot Air Balloon
| released =
| recorded =
| studio =
| genre = Synth-pop
| length = 3:48
| label = Universal Republic
| writer = Adam Young
| producer =
* Adam Young
* Matt Thiessen
| prev_title =
| prev_year =
| next_title = Vanilla Twilight
| next_year = 2010
| misc =
}}
"'Fireflies'" is the debut single from American electronica project Owl City's album 'Ocean Eyes'. Frontman Adam Young wrote how he enjoyed the fireflies in his hometown of Owatonna, Minnesota, and the rest of the track about seeing fireflies while he was awake with insomnia, with Matt Thiessen also producing and providing guest vocals. The song is built around a "bleepy" synthline and includes lyrics about insomnia, fireflies and summer.
The song topped the 'Billboard' Hot 100 for two non-consecutive weeks. Outside of the United States, the song also topped the charts in Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, the Republic of Ireland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. "Fireflies" was Owl City's only top 40 hit on 'Billboard' Hot 100 until three years later when "Good Time", a duet with Canadian singer Carly Rae Jepsen, peaked at No. 8 on the chart. 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'. It is available as downloadable content for 'Guitar Hero 5', 'Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock' and 'Rock Band 3'.
Composition
Adam Young wrote "Fireflies" after being inspired by a camping trip he took up to a "totally rustic and kind of remote lake in northern Minnesota"; he tried to emulate the experience of seeing a meteor shower that gave him "a cool idea of shooting stars being fireflies."
Chart performance
"Fireflies", when featured as iTunes' free "Single of the Week," garnered 650,000 downloads, influencing Universal Republic to move 'Ocean Eyes' release date from September 1, 2009, to July 28. 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. 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. "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. On the 'Billboard' Hot 100 2009 year-end chart, it was ranked sixtieth. On the 'Billboard' Hot 100 2010 year-end chart, it was ranked thirtieth. The RIAA certified "Fireflies" 3 Platinum in June 2010.
The song attained success worldwide. In the United Kingdom, the song entered at No. 50 on the UK Singles Chart 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. As of September 2017, the song has sold over 844,000 copies in the UK.
In Australia, the song entered at No. 38 and on the week of January 10, 2010, it topped the chart. 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'.
Music video
The music video for "Fireflies" was directed by Steve Hoover. 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 premiered on Myspace but was leaked onto Dailymotion sometime before, and YouTube soon after. As of May 26, 2022, the video has received over 450 million views.
Legacy
American electronic producer James Ferraro, commonly credited with pioneering the electronic genre vaporwave, called "Fireflies" the best song of the 21st century, interpreting it on Twitter as having themes of mass surveillance and "circadian rhythm disorder from ever present [sic] devices".
Internet meme
In May 2017, the song was repurposed as an Internet meme, usually involving the song being played at an extremely loud volume or being remixed to fit a certain theme. Another variant of the meme involved writing a pun for the line "You would not believe your eyes, if ten million fireflies". 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."Track listings
'Europe CD single'
#"Fireflies" 3:48
#"Hot Air Balloon" 3:35
'US CD promo'
#"Fireflies" 3:48
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Certifications
Release history
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders"
|+Release dates for "Fireflies"
! Region
! Date
! Label
! Format
|-
!scope="row"|
|| July 14, 2009
|rowspan="7"| Universal Republic
|| Digital download
|-
!scope="row"| Australia[http://australian-charts.com/showitem.asp?interpret=Owl+City&titel=Fireflies&cat=s Owl City Fireflies] australian-charts.com
|| November 9, 2009
|| CD single
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="2"| United Kingdom
|| January 8, 2010
|| Digital download
|-
|| February 22, 2010
|| CD single
|-
!scope="row"| Ireland
|| January 14, 2010
|| Digital download
|-
!scope="row"| Poland
|| January 16, 2010
|| CD single
|-
!scope="row"| Germany
|| January 22, 2010
|| CD single
|}
See also
*List of best-selling singles in Australia
*List of Hot 100 number-one singles of 2009 (U.S.)
*List of Hot Adult Top 40 Tracks number-one singles of 2010
*Dutch Top 40 number-one hits of 2009
*List of number-one singles in Australia in 2010
*List of number-one singles from the 2010s (UK)
*List of number-one singles of 2010 (Ireland)
*List of number-one singles (Sweden)
References
Category:2009 debut singles
Category:Owl City songs
Category:Cheryl (singer) songs
Category:Dutch Top 40 number-one singles
Category:Irish Singles Chart number-one singles
Category:2000s ballads
Category:Number-one singles in Australia
Category:Number-one singles in Denmark
Category:Number-one singles in Scotland
Category:Number-one singles in Sweden
Category:UK Singles Chart number-one singles
Category:Songs written by Adam Young
Category:2009 songs
Category:Universal Republic Records singles
Category:Synth-pop ballads
Category:Internet memes introduced in 2017
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