Harman Patil (Editor)

You Might Think

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Format
  
7" single, 12"

Genre
  
New wave, pop rock

Recorded
  
1983-1984

Length
  
3:04

B-side
  
"Heartbeat City" (US) "I Refuse" (UK) 7", (US) 12"

Released
  
March 1984 (US) November 1984 (UK)

"You Might Think" is a single by The Cars from their fifth studio album, Heartbeat City, which came out in 1984. The track was written by Ric Ocasek, and produced by Mutt Lange and The Cars. Ocasek sang lead vocals.

Contents

The track was the first single to be released from Heartbeat City. Thanks in part to a striking video, "You Might Think" became a substantial hit in the U.S. (peaking at No. 7) and in Canada (peaking at No. 8). It also peaked at No. 1 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart in the U.S., the first song by the band to do so. In the UK, however, the song only reached No. 88 on the pop charts.

Music video

The music video is one of the first videos to use computer graphics. The video features band leader Ric Ocasek and model Susan Gallagher in a series of encounters. Ocasek appears in her bathroom mirror, inside a submarine in her bathtub, in her mouth, as a fly, as King Kong swatting attacking airplanes on top of the Empire State Building and as the Robot Monster, among other incarnations.

"You Might Think" won the first MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year and was nominated for five more awards (best special effects, best art direction, viewer's choice, best concept video, and most experimental video) at the 1984 MTV Video Music Awards. The video also won five awards (best overall, best conceptual, most innovative, best editing, and best special effects) at Billboard's 1984 Video Music Awards and four awards (best achievement in music video, best editor in music video, best engineer in music video, and best camera in music video) at the Videotape Production Association's 1985 Monitor Awards.

Robin Sloane, of Elektra Records creative directed the video, after director Jeff Stein (The Who's The Kids are Alright) showed her samples from New-York-based VFX company Charlex, who were known nationally for the innovative advertisements they were doing weekly for the National Enquirer. The commercials featured the first use of the Quantel Paintbox, the first tool for artists to use directly into the video screen. Jeff Stein, and Charlex founders Alex Weil and Charlie Levi, directed and produced the video. Danny Rosenberg and Bill Weber served both as editors and video engineers, Kevin Jones was the lighting director, Danny Ducovny the cinematographer and Bob Ryzner the art director. The video cost $80,000 to make which was almost triple the average music video budget of the time.

Track listing

  • 7"
    1. "You Might Think"
    2. "Heartbeat City"
  • 12"
    1. "You Might Think"
    2. "Let's Go"
    3. "I Refuse"

    In other media

  • In 2011, American band Weezer covered the song for the Disney/Pixar movie, Cars 2.
  • In 2016, the song features prominently in the American television series BrainDead as a leitmotif. The song is used as an indicator of when people have had their brains eaten and bodies taken over by the show's alien invaders.
  • Alvin and the Chipmunks covered the song for the 1984 Alvin and the Chipmunks episode "Alvin on Ice".
  • The song was also covered by the Japanese band, Mr. Fukushima and his Sweet Hollywaiians, on their 2012 release Same Old Song Book.
  • The song was also featured at the start of Where the Money Is and the Regular Show episode "Do or Diaper".

    • References

    You Might Think Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA