Hey Boy Hey Girl

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"Hey Boy Hey Girl"
The Chemical Brothers - Hey Boy Hey Girl single cover.png
Single by the Chemical Brothers
from the album Surrender
B-side
  • "Flashback"
  • "Scale"
Released26 May 1999 (1999-05-26)
Studio Orinoco (South London, England)
Length4:50
Label
Songwriter(s)
  • Tom Rowlands
  • Ed Simons
  • Gregory Carlton Wigfall
  • Richard Lee Fowler
  • Charles Pettiford
  • Celite Evans
  • Jerry Bloodrock
Producer(s) The Chemical Brothers
The Chemical Brothers singles chronology
"Only 4 the K People"
(1999)		"Hey Boy Hey Girl"
(1999)		"Let Forever Be"
(1999)
Music video
"Hey Boy Hey Girl" on YouTube

"Hey Boy Hey Girl" is a song by the British big beat duo the Chemical Brothers. The song contains a sample from "The Roof Is on Fire" by Rock Master Scott & the Dynamic Three. [1] "Hey Boy Hey Girl" was released as the first single from the Chemical Brothers' third studio album, Surrender (1999), on 26 May 1999 in Japan and on 31 May in the United Kingdom.

Contents

Upon its release, the song peaked at number three on the UK Singles Chart in June 1999 and remained on the chart for 10 weeks. It also reached the top 10 in Finland, Iceland, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway and Spain, as well on Canada's RPM Dance Chart. In the latter country, it did not make it onto the RPM Top Singles chart, but it did debut and peak at number three on the Canadian Singles Chart.

Critical reception

Daily Record commented, "Ed Simons and Tom Rowlands are back with another fantastic dance single. It's another block rockin' hit." [2] In October 2011, NME placed it at number 50 on its list "150 Best Tracks of the Past 15 Years", writing that the song "[starts] with a menacing, trance laden groove" and "[builds] to an absolute dance stomper". [3]

Music video

The music video (directed by Dom and Nic) opens with a group of schoolchildren on board a coach. The camera focuses on a young girl who opens a medical book of pictures of the human skeleton. A blond boy spits on the page, then smiles at her as he walks away. The children go to the Natural History Museum, where the same boy tries to scare the girl with a skull in his hood. She chases the boy in the museum, but falls near the bottom of a flight of stairs and fractures her wrist. At the hospital, she gets an X-ray of her hand.

The video then shows her brushing her teeth whilst picturing herself as only bones. The background behind her morphs into a toilet area at the Ministry of Sound nightclub, South London. When she reverts into a person, she is older (played by Hanne Klintøe [4] ). She passes a couple having sex in a stall, but she only sees them as skeletons (this shot was omitted from some pre-watershed television edits of the video[ citation needed ]). She exits the bathroom and heads to the nightclub's bar, where a man (uncredited appearance of Rick Warden) tries to talk with her. She then pictures him as a skeleton and feels his jawbone before leaving. She then goes to the dance floor, and sees more people as skeletons, almost as if she has X-ray vision.

She exits the nightclub, and the Chemical Brothers themselves make a brief cameo appearance, stepping out of a taxi with DJ equipment. She then steps into that same taxi, where she sees the driver as a skeleton. He then asks her 'Where you going, baby?' in a camp, droll voice.

Track listings

Standard CD and cassette single [5] [6] [7]

  1. "Hey Boy Hey Girl" – 4:48
  2. "Flashback" – 5:18
  3. "Scale" – 3:43

Standard 12-inch single [8] [9]

  1. "Hey Boy Hey Girl" (extended version) – 6:01
  2. "Flashback" – 5:18
  3. "Scale" – 3:43

European CD single [10]

  1. "Hey Boy Hey Girl" (radio edit) – 3:32
  2. "Flashback" – 5:18

Credits and personnel

Credits are lifted from the Surrender album booklet. [1]

Studios

Personnel

Charts

Certifications

RegionCertification Certified units/sales
Australia (ARIA) [40] Platinum70,000‡
Italy (FIMI) [41] Gold50,000‡
United Kingdom (BPI) [42] Platinum600,000‡

‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.

Release history

RegionDateFormatLabel(s)CatalogueRef.
Japan26 May 1999CD
VJCP-12125 [43]
United Kingdom31 May 1999CHEMSD8 [44]
12-inch vinylCHEMST8
CassetteCHEMSC8
Canada1 June 1999CDVirgin— [45]

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References

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  2. ↑ "Chartslot". Daily Record . 18 June 1999. Retrieved 3 December 2020.
  3. ↑ "150 Best Tracks of the Past 15 Years". NME.COM. Retrieved 13 October 2011.
  4. ↑ "Hanne Klintoe - Other Works". IMDb. Retrieved 4 September 2019.
  5. ↑ Hey Boy Hey Girl (UK CD single liner notes). The Chemical Brothers. Freestyle Dust, Virgin Records. 1999. CHEMSD8, 7243 8 95887 2 9.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  6. ↑ Hey Boy Hey Girl (US CD single liner notes). The Chemical Brothers. Astralwerks. 1999. ASW 66267-2, 0170 4 66267 2 9.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  7. ↑ Hey Boy Hey Girl (UK cassette single sleeve). The Chemical Brothers. Freestyle Dust, Virgin Records. 1999. CHEMSC8, 7243 8 95887 4 3.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  8. ↑ Hey Boy Hey Girl (UK 12-inch single sleeve). The Chemical Brothers. Freestyle Dust, Virgin Records. 1999. CHEMST8, 7243 8 95887 6 7.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  9. ↑ Hey Boy Hey Girl (US 12-inch single sleeve). The Chemical Brothers. Astralwerks. 1999. ASW 6267-6, 0170 4 66267 6 7.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  10. ↑ Hey Boy Hey Girl (European CD single liner notes). The Chemical Brothers. Freestyle Dust, Virgin Records. 1999. CHEMSDE8, 7243 8 95942 2 5.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
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