Format CD, 12" Label Skint | Recorded 1999 | |
Released 16 October 2000 (2000-10-16) Genre Big beat, electronica, trip hop Writer(s) Norman Cook, John Densmore, Robby Krieger, Ray Manzarek, Jim Morrison | ||
"Sunset (Bird of Prey)" is a song by the British big beat artist Fatboy Slim, released from his 2000 album Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars. The single peaked at No. 9 in the UK and No. 77 in Switzerland.
Contents
The song samples Jim Morrison's vocals from the Doors song "Bird of Prey."
Track listing
- "Sunset (Bird of Prey)"
- "My Game"
- "Sunset (Bird of Prey) (Darren Emerson remix)"
- "Sunset (Bird of Prey)"
- "My Game"
Music video
The music video of the song is set in 1964 and features Robert Jezek as a United States Air Force pilot flying a British-made Hawker Hunter fighter plane named the Bird of Prey. It opens with the famous "Daisy" television commercial, which was used as a campaign for President Lyndon B. Johnson during this year, showing the pilot sitting in a room watching this commercial. He drinks a glass of water which has something bubbling in it, intercut with an image of a brain and a piece of paper with text describing a chemical. An identification form with Fatboy Slim's real name on it, (Colonel) "Norman Cook" is seen. As the drug comes on, he imagines he's flying the plane, and he eventually ejects and parachutes down, and then the hallucination stops. The actual song is playing during the flight sequence. Near the end of the video one can see the word "MKULTRA", which was a CIA-operated top secret confidential government project concerning mind control human experimentation, including using chemicals on test subjects (people) as truth serums. Also visible is another identification form with another name on it, Al Hubbard.
Filming
The filming took place at Duxford Aerodrome, and was produced by Flight Logistics of Borehamwood, who used an Aérospatiale Corvette to film the airborne scenes from. The Hawker Hunter was in a USAF livery.
First version
An early version of the track, entitled "Bird of Prey" was released under the name Yum Yum Head Food on a 1995 US compilation of tracks from Norman Cook's Southern Fried label.