Nookie (song)

Lyrics and background

In a 2008 interview with British rock magazine Kerrang, guitarist Wes Borland had the following to say about how the lyrical content turned out: "The music was cool, but I didn't like the lyrics at all. The funny thing is that Nookie was actually the working title. When we were in the studio there was a porn magazine that had the word 'nookie' on the cover, so I was like, 'This song's called Nookie!', I never thought someone would actually run with it. I suppose it's all my fault."

Fred Durst said about the song, "It's about my ex-girlfriend, how she treated me like shit, and I couldn't leave her, wouldn't get over it," he said. "She screwed my friends and used me for my money. I tried to figure out why I did it, and I figured I did it all for the nookie."

Music video

In the song's music video, the band allowed hundreds of fans to participate, playing the song in front of the large crowd. All the men went to one side of the stage, and the women on the other side. When Durst sang the chorus, at certain parts he would hold out his microphone to the crowd, getting that particular side to sing. This was, according to Durst, to show that "guys go off hard, but girls go off even harder". The audio from this plays during the music video. At the end of the music video, Durst is arrested and taken away by police officers. During the filming of the music video for "Nookie", many people were trying to make it into the clip.

Track listing

1. "Nookie" - 4:28
2. "Counterfeit" (Lethal Dose Remix) - 3:21
3. "Counterfeit" (Phat Ass Remix) - 3:05
4. "Nookie" (video)
5. "Faith" (video)

Commercial performance

"Nookie" made Limp Bizkit extremely popular. The song helped make the Limp Bizkit album that it's on, Significant Other, get certified 7x platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). "Nookie" went to number 80 on the Billboard Hot 100 on July 31, 1999 and was on the chart for 11 weeks. "Nookie" also went to number 74 on the Radio Songs chart, number 6 on the Mainstream Rock chart, and number 3 on the Alternative Songs chart. "Nookie" went to number 1 on MTV's Total Request Live many times during the summer of 1999.

Reception

Hed PE guitarist Wes Geer said that "Nookie" is "cheesy and is not as good as [Hed PE's song] 'Bartender'. ['Nookie' has] a catchy hook, but at least in my opinion, it's just kind of dumb. But somewhere along the way the business decided to support that one harder than they did 'Bartender', you know." Pharrell Williams, while recording N.E.R.D.'s 2008 album Seeing Sounds cited this song as part of the band's incentive and drive to record more energetic music, noting it as the last energetic hit single before the album's release. According to Stereogum, "aside from the infantile lyrics, the awful rapping, and the yelling, it’s really not that bad of a song". Author Dave Holmes wrote that "Nookie" is "terrible, yet the kids ate" it "up".