Rahul Sharma (Editor)

Superman (It's Not Easy)

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Released
  
April 2001

Recorded
  
1998–2000

Length
  
3:42

Format
  
CD single

Genre
  
Soft rock

Label
  
EMI

"Superman (It's Not Easy)" is a song by American artist Five for Fighting. It was released in April 2001 as the second single from his album America Town. The song debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 chart at number 38 on October 27, 2001. It peaked at number 14 on the chart. The song was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals at the 44th Grammy Awards in 2002.

Contents

Content

The lyrics focus on the iconic hero Superman, specifically how, in the opinion of the singer, his life as a hero is surprisingly difficult despite his immense power.

Music video

The music video was directed by Ramaa Mosley and premiered in June 2001. A scene from this video was filmed at Yonge Street and Richmond Street in Toronto, Ontario. At the end of the song's music video, John Ondrasik lies in bed with his own wife and son.

  • The song was covered by shadow musician Catman Cohen in 2005 via CD, How I Want to Live: the Catman Chronicles 2.
  • The song was covered by Boyce Avenue in 2011 via YouTube music video.
  • In his 2010 comedy tour, Conan O'Brien sang a cover of the song by himself before Jim Carrey appeared in a Superman suit and the two men sang a duet.
  • An anonymous cover was played on the seventh series of The X Factor after Liam Payne's audition. The singer of this version was speculated to be Joe McElderry, the winner of the previous series. This turned out to be true when the track list for his debut studio album Wide Awake was revealed. McElderry's version reached number 56 in the UK Albums Chart on album downloads alone.
  • The Australian rock comedy ex boy band trio, The Axis of Awesome parodied this song with a new song, Birdplane. This song turned out to have an impact on the boyband, as it represented Jordan Raskopoulos and her transgender transition.

    • Charts

    "Superman (It's Not Easy)" became popularized by the aftermath of the September 11 attacks and during its release was used to honor the victims, survivors, police and firefighters involved in the attacks.

    References

    Superman (It's Not Easy) Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA