B-side "Easy Way Out" Recorded May 2004 Length 3:52 | Released May 9, 2006 (US) Genre Folk pop | |
Format CD single, digital download | ||
"Hey There Delilah" is a song by American pop punk group Plain White T's. It was released in May 2006 as the third single from their third studio album All That We Needed. It received radio play over the following year and eventually reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in July 2007. The song was featured in television shows Journeyman, I Love the New Millennium, Orange Is the New Black, and Family Guy.
Contents
Background and writing
The song is from the Plain White T's' third album, All That We Needed, the song was recorded and produced by Ariel Rechtshaid at Doug Messenger's harddrive analog and digital, in North Hollywood, CA. The intervening fourth album, Every Second Counts, has "Hey There Delilah" added as a bonus track with a string section written and performed by Eric Remschneider augmenting the original recording.
The song was written by frontman Tom Higgenson after meeting Delilah DiCrescenzo, a nationally ranked American steeplechase and cross country runner.
Release
Plain White T's released the song in May 2006 as the third single from their third studio album All That We Needed. In June 2007, over one year after the song's release, it became the band's first hit in the United States, eventually reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in July. From July 3, 2007 through July 28, the song was the number one most played song on the radio, and the number one downloaded song on the U.S. iTunes Music Store.
It was the Plain White T's first, and to date, only number one single. It also reached number two in the UK. The song ended 2007 as the year's 14th biggest-selling single in the UK.
Since its release, "Hey There Delilah" has been covered by many artists worldwide in one form or another. It has sold over 4,000,000 digital copies in the US alone.
Music video
The video was directed by Jay Martin.
It features the band's lead singer, Tom Higgenson, singing the song while the band members are in another room behind him. The other band members are not playing in the song. The only other instruments are the strings provided by Eric Remschneider, who does not appear in the video.
In a split screen it shows Delilah, not the singer's girlfriend, played by model Melissa McNelis, who attends college 1000 miles away in New York City. She walks around the city, presumably, from a class to her job.
Critical reaction
Time magazine named "Hey There Delilah" one of The 10 Best Songs of 2007, ranking it at No. 7. Music critic Josh Tyrangiel called it "an intimate love song that's damn near universal." Tyrangiel praised the Plain White T’s for managing to make another "aching guy reaching out to distant girl song feel fresh," singling out singer Tom Higgenson’s otherwise imperfect voice and "nasal delivery [for making] the nearly-comic sincerity of the lyrics seem completely genuine." Allmusic positively compared the song to "Thirteen" by Big Star.
The song was a double 2008 Grammy Award nominee, for Song of the Year (won by Amy Winehouse) and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal (won by Maroon 5). The real Delilah attended the Grammy Award show that year as the guest of Tom Higgenson, the song's writer.
On VH1's Top 40 Videos of 2007, "Hey There Delilah" was No. 8, ahead of "If Everyone Cared" by Nickelback and behind "Say It Right" by Nelly Furtado. VH1 also had the song at No. 78 on its list of the 100 Greatest Songs of the '00s.
The band was featured on Sesame Street in 2008 with the song "I'm the Letter T" (to the tune of "Hey There Delilah"). Lead singer Tom Higgenson provided the vocals for the computer animated Letter T who sings the spoof. When asked if he was excited, Higgenson responded:
"Yeah, hello! It's a dream. But it's just my voice. There's going to be some Muppet singing it on the screen."