Format CD Label Skint/Astralwerks | Genre Big beat | |
Released 19 April 1999 (1999-04-19) Length 6:27 (album version)
5:58 (single version)
3:56 (radio edit) Writer(s) Norman Cook, Dale Peters, Joe Walsh | ||
"Right Here, Right Now" is a song by British big beat musician Fatboy Slim, released on 19 April 1999 as the fourth single from his second studio album You've Come a Long Way, Baby. The song reached #2 on the UK Singles Chart, behind Westlife's single "Swear It Again" for one week. It was voted by Mixmag readers as the tenth-greatest dance record of all time.
Contents
Composition
The basic string melody of the song was sampled from the James Gang song "Ashes, the Rain & I". The lyrics "right here, right now" are a sample of Angela Bassett's voice saying "This is your life, right here, right now!" from the film Strange Days at the 1:43:22 mark. The album version of Right Here, Right Now ends with a radio talk between Bradley Jay, a DJ of the WBCN radio station of Boston, and a Fatboy Slim fan called Brad.
Music video
The music video, created by Hammer & Tongs, shows a depiction of the process of evolution condensed into three and a half minutes. The beginning of the music video is set "350 billion years ago" (which may be a simple misunderstanding by the creators, given the estimated age of life on earth, about 3.5 billion years), and starts with a single cell organism in the ocean evolving into a jellyfish, a pufferfish, and then a predatory fish. It manages to eat a smaller fish before leaping up onto dry land. With a dinosaur visible in the background and an insect in front, it stays still for a few seconds before setting off and eating the insect. The land-fish evolves into a small alligator as it enters a forest. It sees a tall tree, which it climbs up. Its hands are visibly evolving until it arrives at the top as a homo erectus-like ape. It jumps from the tree into an icy landscape, enduring a blizzard as it evolves into a larger, gorilla-like ape. At the end of a large cliff, the ape beats its chest as the camera zooms out to show a vast desert. The ape jumps onto the ground, where it has evolved into a primate resembling an orangutan. A large storm blows away much of its hair, turning it into a human (at this point the timer at the bottom right slows dramatically). The human runs faster and puts on some trousers and a T-shirt with the logo "I'm #1 so why try harder". When fully clothed, it turns into a modern human with a beard. The man walks through a city environment and eats a hamburger (taken from a cardboard cutout of Fatboy Slim himself), he pulls off the beard and morphs into the obese character depicted on the cover of the album. He finally sits down on a bench at night, at which point the video ends.
In popular culture
The song has been used by the Philadelphia 76ers during the 2000–01 NBA season during their run to the 2001 NBA Finals. It has been used by the NFL's Pittsburgh Steelers as their entrance song in their last three trips to the Super Bowl (XL, XLIII and XLV), as well as being used by association football teams Manchester City and Arsenal for their entrance before the start of matches. As of 2015, several Australian Football League clubs including the West Coast Eagles play the opening of the song in the final minute before a match commences. It was also featured in the films Any Given Sunday (1999), There's Only One Jimmy Grimble (2000), The Skulls (2000), Michael Jordan to the Max (2000), Driven (2001) and Big Fat Liar (2002) and in the trailer for The Virgin Suicides (1999) and Crank (2006). It also appeared in the TV series Third Watch (1999), Attachments (2000), EastEnders (2000), Veronica Mars (2005), 20 to 1 (2010), and The Block (2012–2014). The single was used for numerous advertisements, such as for the Nissan Qashqai in 2014. The song was also played at the start of shows for Russell Howard's 2011 tour also called Right Here, Right Now.
UK 12"
- "Right Here, Right Now"
- "Don't Forget Your Teeth"
- "Praise You" (original version)