Hey, Soul Sister
Encyclopedia
"Hey, Soul Sister" is a song by the American rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

 band Train
Train (band)
Train is an American pop rock band from San Francisco, California, formed in 1994. The band currently comprises a core trio of Patrick Monahan , Jimmy Stafford and Scott Underwood ....

, written by Patrick Monahan
Patrick Monahan
Patrick Monahan is the lead singer and songwriter for the Grammy award winning band Train. He also has recorded a solo album, and has collaborated with multiple artists.-Life and career:...

, Amund Bjørklund
Espionage (production team)
Espionage is a New York-based Norwegian songwriting and music production team consisting of Espen Lind and Amund Bjørklund. Their breakthrough came in 2006 as co-writers of Beyoncé's worldwide smash "Irreplaceable", which was number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for 10 consecutive weeks and the best...

, and Espen Lind
Espen Lind
Espen Lind, , is a Norwegian songwriter, producer, singer, and multi-instrumentalist. He is one half of the production team Espionage.- Solo records :...

. It was released as the lead single
Lead single
A lead single is usually the first single released by a musician or a band before the release of its home album.During the era of the grammophone record, all music arrived in the marketplace as what is now termed a single, one potential hit song backed by an additional song of generally less...

 from the band's fifth studio album, Save Me, San Francisco. The song reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

 chart and is their highest charting song to date. It is also the band's most commercially successful single to date, reaching number one in sixteen countries. As of January 6, 2011, it has sold over five million digital copies in the US. It is the 8th most downloaded song in history, the most downloaded song of all time for Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...

, the top-selling song on iTunes in 2010 and the second overall best-selling song in the US in 2010. The single received a quintuple platinum
RIAA certification
In the United States, the Recording Industry Association of America awards certification based on the number of albums and singles sold through retail and other ancillary markets. Other countries have similar awards...

 certification by the RIAA on February 14, 2011. The live version of "Hey, Soul Sister" garnered a Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...

 for Train at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards. The song was not eligible for any Grammy in the General Field.

Background

After collaborating with the Norwegian production duo Espionage (Espen Lind and Amund Bjørklund) in the writing and recording of the track "Brick by Brick", Train's lead singer Pat Monahan decided to record another track with the duo.

Composition

"Hey, Soul Sister" is a mid-tempo pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

 song. Written in the key
Key (music)
In music theory, the term key is used in many different and sometimes contradictory ways. A common use is to speak of music as being "in" a specific key, such as in the key of C major or in the key of F-sharp. Sometimes the terms "major" or "minor" are appended, as in the key of A minor or in the...

 of E major
E major
E major is a major scale based on E, with the pitches E, F, G, A, B, C, and D. Its key signature has four sharps .Its relative minor is C-sharp minor, and its parallel minor is E minor....

, the beat is set in common time
Common Time
"Common Time" is a science fiction short story written by James Blish. It first appeared in the August 1953 issue of Science Fiction Quarterly and has been reprinted several times: in the 1959 short-story collection Galactic Cluster; in The Testament of Andros ; in The Penguin Science Fiction...

 and moves at 97 bpm.
The song is characterized by a signature pattern played on a ukulele
Ukulele
The ukulele, ; from ; it is a subset of the guitar family of instruments, generally with four nylon or gut strings or four courses of strings....

, that follows a basic E5 – B – C#m – A progression in the verse, tag and bridge
Bridge (music)
In music, especially western popular music, a bridge is a contrasting section which also prepares for the return of the original material section...

, switching to an A – B – E5 – B progression in the chorus. The song's chord structure is arranged in an A B A B A B A form. It rhymes "sister" with "Mr. Mister
Mr. Mister
Mr. Mister is an American pop rock band most popular in the 1980s. The band's name came from an inside joke about a Weather Report album called Mr. Gone where they referred to each other as "Mister This" or "Mister That", and eventually selected "Mr. Mister." Mr. Mister may be considered as...

."

Lyrically, Stafford admitted the inspiration for the song came about while Monahan was imagining what Burning Man
Burning Man
Burning Man is a week-long annual event held in the Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada, in the United States. The event starts on the Monday before the American Labor Day holiday, and ends on the holiday itself. It takes its name from the ritual burning of a large wooden effigy on Saturday evening...

 must be like, and started penning lyrics inspired by the imagery he saw:
Monahan has since confirmed this in multiple radio interviews.

Music video

The video was filmed in front of Chango Coffee at the corner of Morton Ave and Echo Park Ave in Echo Park, Los Angeles, California
Echo Park, Los Angeles, California
Echo Park is a hilly neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, northwest of Downtown Los Angeles and southeast of Hollywood.-History:At the end of the 19th century, when the hills were still covered with native vegetation, a horse-drawn streetcar line served the dirt road that is now Echo Park Avenue...

.
The video intercuts images of Train singing with a woman walking around her apartment and a man painting the words to the song on the landscape.

Appearances in other media

Train performed the song on the show Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld
Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld
Red Eye w/Greg Gutfeld is a late-night/early-morning satirical talk show on the Fox News Channel, airing at 3:00 am ET Tuesday through Saturday. The show features panelists and guests discussing the latest news in politics, pop culture, entertainment, business, sports, and religion...

 on Fox News which aired during the early morning broadcast on April 20, 2010. They have also performed the song on numerous talk shows like The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno is an American late-night talk show hosted by Jay Leno that initially aired from May 25, 1992 to May 29, 2009, and resumed production on March 1, 2010. The fourth incarnation of the Tonight Show franchise made its debut on May 25, 1992, three days following Johnny...

, Live with Regis and Kelly
Live with Regis and Kelly
Live! with Kelly is a syndicated American television morning talk show, hosted by Kelly Ripa. The show has aired since 1983 in New York City and 1988 nationwide. Tony Pigg has been the show's announcer since its inception...

, The Ellen DeGeneres Show
The Ellen DeGeneres Show
The Ellen DeGeneres Show, often shortened to Ellen, is an American television talk show hosted by comedian/actress Ellen DeGeneres. Debuting on September 8, 2003, it is produced by Telepictures and airs in syndication, including stations owned by NBC Universal. For its first five seasons, the show...

, Lopez Tonight
Lopez Tonight
Lopez Tonight was an American late-night television talk show hosted by comedian George Lopez. The hour-long program premiered on November 9, 2009, on cable network TBS. Lopez was the first Mexican American to host a late-night talk show on an English-language network in the United States. The...

, and The Howard Stern Show. They also performed the song before the 2010 Major League Baseball Home Run Derby on ESPN
ESPN
Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, commonly known as ESPN, is an American global cable television network focusing on sports-related programming including live and pre-taped event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming....

. Samsung Electronics
Samsung Electronics
Samsung Electronics is a South Korean multinational electronics and information technology company headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul...

 in North America used the song in advertising some of its products, including its 3D TVs and silent washers. Train performed the song at Dick Clark's Rocking New Year Eve 2011.

It has also been played in several TV shows as CSI: NY
CSI: NY
CSI: NY is an American police procedural television series that premiered on September 22, 2004, on CBS. The show follows the investigations of a team of NYPD forensic scientists and police officers as they unveil the circumstances behind mysterious and unusual deaths as well as other crimes...

 in the episode "Second Chances", Hellcats
Hellcats
Hellcats is an American cheerleading comedy-drama television series that originally aired on The CW in the United States from September 8, 2010 to May 17, 2011...

 in its first episode and Medium
Medium (TV series)
Medium is an American television drama series that premiered on NBC on January 3, 2005, and ended on CBS on January 21, 2011. Themed on supernatural gifts, its lead character, Allison DuBois , is a medium employed as a consultant for the Phoenix, Arizona district attorney's office...

, in chapter 6x03 "Pain killer". It was also been played in the Canadian TV show "Being Erica", in chapter 3x11. "Hey, Soul Sister" can also be heard on "Ko'olauloa", the sixth episode of Hawaii Five-0 where it was sung and played live by a little boy.

The song was performed on ABC's Dancing With The Stars on May 4, 2010 and on America's Got Talent on July 21, 2010. A cover of the song was also performed by "Munch's Make Believe Band," the animatronic show located at Chuck E. Cheese's
Chuck E. Cheese's
Chuck E. Cheese's is a chain of family entertainment centers. Chuck E...

 restaurants. The Dixie Chicks
Dixie Chicks
The Dixie Chicks are an American country band which has also successfully crossed over into other genres. The band is composed of founding members Martie Erwin Maguire and Emily Erwin Robison, and lead singer Natalie Maines...

 covered this song while on their 2010 tour with The Eagles.

Glee
Glee (TV series)
Glee is an American musical comedy-drama television series that airs on Fox in the United States, and on GlobalTV in Canada. It focuses on the high school glee club New Directions competing on the show choir competition circuit, while its members deal with relationships, sexuality and social issues...

 covered the song in the November 30, 2010 episode (2nd Season) with actor Darren Criss
Darren Criss
Darren Everett Criss is an American actor, singer-songwriter, musician, composer, and a founding member and co-owner of the theater company StarKid Productions. He currently portrays Blaine Anderson, an openly gay high school student, on the FOX television series Glee...

 singing the solo in a performance with the Dalton Academy Warblers. "Hey, Soul Sister" was also covered by 2010 X Factor Australia winner Altiyan Childs
Altiyan Childs
Altiyan Juric , best known by his stage name Altiyan Childs, is an Australian singer-songwriter. He was the winner of the second season of The X Factor Australia in 2010. After X Factor ended, Childs subsequently signed a recording contract with Sony Music Australia...

 for his self-titled debut album
Altiyan Childs (album)
-Release history:...

.

The song was also performed by Street Corner Symphony
Street Corner Symphony (group)
Street Corner Symphony is an a cappella group from Nashville, Tennessee and a contestant on the second season of NBC's reality show The Sing-Off. During the The Sing-Off season finale, Street Corner Symphony claimed the second place title, losing the championship to Huntsville, Alabama group...

 on the second season of the television show The Sing-Off
The Sing-Off
The Sing-Off is an American television singing competition featuring a cappella groups. It premiered on NBC on December 14, 2009, and is produced by Sony Pictures Television....

 during episode 2- "Songs From The Past 5 Years".

The dance troupe from Strictly Come Dancing
Strictly Come Dancing
Strictly Come Dancing is a British television show, featuring celebrities with professional dance partners competing in Ballroom and Latin dances. The title of the show suggests a continuation of the long-running series Come Dancing, with an allusion to the film Strictly Ballroom...

 performed a quickstep to the song in 2010.

In the 2011 movie Friends with Benefits
Friends With Benefits (Film)
Friends with Benefits is a 2011 American romantic comedy film directed by Will Gluck and starring Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake. The film features an ensemble cast which includes Woody Harrelson, Bryan Greenberg, Jenna Elfman, Richard Jenkins, Emma Stone and Patricia Clarkson...

 the song was featured twice; once as part of a love film joke, and the other at the end of the film itself.

Track listing

Australian single
  1. "Hey, Soul Sister" – 3:36


Other versions
  • Karmatronic Radio Edit – 3:40
  • Karmatronic Club Mix – 6:45
  • Karmatronic Instrumental – 6:45
  • Country Version – 3:37
  • Single Version – 3:35 (slightly different instrumentation near the end)

Chart performance

"Hey, Soul Sister" debuted at #98 on the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

 for the week ended October 17, 2009, becoming their first charting single in five years (2004's "When I Look to the Sky" being their previous chart entry).

On the week of January 30, 2010, in its 16th week on the Hot 100 chart, "Hey, Soul Sister" leaped to #7 from #23 on an 81% digital single sales increase from the previous week, thus becoming Train's second career Top Ten hit on the chart. It reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the week of April 10, 2010, their highest on the chart to date.

The song climbed to #1 on the Hot Digital Songs
Hot Digital Songs
The Hot Digital Songs chart ranks the best-selling digital singles in the United States, according to Billboard.Beginning in February 2005, digital sales have been incorporated into many of Billboards music single charts. It was decided to do so mainly because of the dramatic rise in popularity of...

 chart for the week of April 10, 2010, and stayed in the top spot for three weeks.

In addition to revitalizing Train's career in their native country, "Hey, Soul Sister" has also become a big international hit; it was #1 on the official Dutch and Australian singles charts for 7 weeks and 4 weeks, respectively, and also became their first Irish number one single. The single charted at #2 in New Zealand (their highest in the country to date), and reached #3 on both the Canadian and Belgian singles charts.

On April 24, 2010, "Hey, Soul Sister" debuted on the UK Singles Chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...

 at #64, marking the band's first appearance on the chart since "She's On Fire" reached a peak of #49 in 2001. On May 2, 2010, the single climbed into the UK Top 40 at #36 and has since reached a peak of #18. It has been in the official charts for 21 weeks.

The single sold 687,000 copies in 2009 which made it that year's #131 song. It went on to sell 3,319,000 more units in the first half of 2010 and 42 weeks after its release still stood at number 16 on the Hot 100 chart. By the end of December 2010, it had sold 4,310,000 digital copies, becoming the second biggest selling digital song of that year. By the end of January 2011, it had sold 5,001,000 digital copies.

BNA Records
BNA Records
BNA Records, formerly known as BNA Entertainment, is a label group that shares ties with Arista Nashville and RCA Nashville from parent company Sony Music Nashville, which itself is a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment. Based in Nashville, Tennessee, BNA features country music acts on its roster...

, a country music
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

 label owned by Sony Music, released the song to the country music format in June 2010. It debuted at #60 on the Hot Country Songs
Hot Country Songs
Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States.This 60-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly mostly by airplay and occasionally commercial sales...

 charts for the week ended July 10, 2010.

As of the January 20, 2011 issue of Billboard, "Hey, Soul Sister" had spent 22 weeks at number one on the Adult Contemporary chart.

In Canada the song became the sixth-best-selling of 2010 with 244,000 copies.

Weekly charts

Chart (2009–2010) Peak
position
Australian Singles Chart
ARIA Charts
The ARIA charts are the main Australian music sales charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling singles and albums in various genres in Australia. ARIA commenced compiling its own charts in-house from the week ending 26 June...

1
Austrian Singles Chart
Ö3 Austria Top 40
Ö3 Austria Top 40 is the name of the official Austrian singles chart, as well as the radio show which presents it, aired Fridays on Hitradio Ö3. The show presents the Austrian singles, ringtones and downloads chart. It premiered on 26 November 1968 as Disc Parade and was presented by Ernst Grissemann...

4
Belgian Singles Chart
Ultratop 40
Ultratop 40 singles, often just Ultratop 40, is the weekly chart of best-selling singles in Wallonia and Brussels Capital Region, the french-speaking parts of Belgium. Its equivalent covering the Flanders region is Ultratop 50. Both charts are produced and published by the Ultratop organization...

 (Wallonia)
5
Belgian Singles Chart
Ultratop 50
Ultratop 50 singles, often just Ultratop 50, is the weekly chart of fifty best-selling singles in Flanders, Belgium, and is produced and published by the Ultratop organization. The chart has existed since March 31, 1995...

 (Flanders)
3
Canadian Hot 100
Canadian Hot 100
The Canadian Hot 100 is a music singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine which ranks songs in Canada. The chart debuted in the Billboard issue dated June 16, 2007 and was made available for the first time via their online services on June 7, 2007...

3
Danish Singles Chart 8
Dutch Top 40
Dutch Top 40
The Dutch Top 40 is a weekly music chart, which started as the "Veronica Top 40", because the offshore radio station Radio Veronica was the first to introduce it. It remained "The Veronica Top 40" until 1974, when the station was forced to stop broadcasting...

1
French Digital Singles Chart
Syndicat National de l'Edition Phonographique
The Syndicat national de l'édition phonographique is the inter-professional organization which protects the interests of the French record industry...

10
German Singles Chart
Media Control Charts
The official music charts in Germany are gathered and published by the company Media Control GfK International on behalf of Bundesverband Musikindustrie...

7
Hungarian Airplay Chart
Mahasz
Mahasz is the Hungarian music industry association, founded in 1992. Mahasz hands out the Hungarian Music Awards and maintains the music charts for Hungary....

1
Irish Singles Chart
Irish Singles Chart
The Irish Singles Chart is Ireland's music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by the Irish Recorded Music Association and compiled on behalf of the IRMA by Chart-Track. Chart rankings are based on sales, which are compiled through over-the-counter retail data captured...

1
Italian Singles Chart 2
New Zealand Singles Chart
Recording Industry Association of New Zealand
The Recording Industry Association of New Zealand is a non-profit trade association of record producers, distributors and recording artists who sell music in New Zealand...

2
Norwegian Singles Chart
VG-lista
VG-listen is a Norwegian record chart. It is weekly presented in the newspaper VG and the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation program Topp 20. It is considered the primary Norwegian record chart, charting albums and singles from countries and continent around the world. The data is collected by...

11
Swedish Singles Chart
Sverigetopplistan
Sverigetopplistan, earlier known as Topplistan and Hitlistan and other names, is since October 2007 the Swedish national record chart, based on sales data from Swedish Recording Industry Association ....

3
Swiss Singles Chart 4
European Hot 100 3
UK Singles Chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...

18


Year-end charts

Chart (2010) Position
Australian Singles Chart 4
Canadian Hot 100 6
Denmark (Tracklisten
Tracklisten
Tracklisten is a Danish top 40 record chart that is presented every Thursday midnight at .The weekly Danish Singles Chart also known as Track Top-40 combines the 40 best selling tracks from legal music downloads and the sales of music singles on either CD or vinyl...

)
27
European Hot 100 Singles 30
Germany (Media Control AG
Media Control Charts
The official music charts in Germany are gathered and published by the company Media Control GfK International on behalf of Bundesverband Musikindustrie...

)
53
German Airplay Chart 5
Hungarian Airplay Chart 3
Italian Singles Chart 13
Netherlands (Dutch Top 40
Dutch Top 40
The Dutch Top 40 is a weekly music chart, which started as the "Veronica Top 40", because the offshore radio station Radio Veronica was the first to introduce it. It remained "The Veronica Top 40" until 1974, when the station was forced to stop broadcasting...

)
9
US Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

3

Certifications

Country Provider Certification
Australia ARIA
Australian Recording Industry Association
The Australian Recording Industry Association is a trade group representing the Australian recording industry which was established in 1983 by six major record companies, EMI, Festival, CBS, RCA, WEA and Universal replacing the Association of Australian Record Manufacturers which was formed in 1956...

4× Platinum
Canada CRIA
Canadian Recording Industry Association
Music Canada is a Toronto-based, non-profit trade organization that was founded 9 April 1963 to represent the interests of companies that record, artists, manufacture, production, promotion and distribution of music in Canada...

2× Platinum
Denmark IFPI Gold
Germany BVMI
Bundesverband Musikindustrie
The Bundesverband Musikindustrie or simply BVMI represents the music industry in Germany. The association represents the interests of nearly 350 labels and music industry related enterprises....

Gold
Italy FIMI Platinum
New Zealand RIANZ
Recording Industry Association of New Zealand
The Recording Industry Association of New Zealand is a non-profit trade association of record producers, distributors and recording artists who sell music in New Zealand...

Platinum
United States RIAA
Recording Industry Association of America
The Recording Industry Association of America is a trade organization that represents the recording industry distributors in the United States...

5× Platinum


See also


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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