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Asia Jordan
"Blue (Da Ba Dee)" is a song by Italian music group Eiffel 65. It was first released in January 15, 1999 in Italy by Skooby Records and became internationally successful the following year.[3] It is the lead single of the group's 1999 debut album, Europop.
"Blue (Da Ba Dee)" was developed before the formation of the group by its future members Jeffrey Jey (Gianfranco Randone), Maurizio Lobina and Gabry Ponte and producer Massimo Gabutti, while working at Bliss Corporation in Turin. It was inspired by a piano hook composed by Lobina, and written by Randone, Lobina and Gabuti, with Ponte working on the beats and final arrangement. When released in 1998, it achieved little success, but became very popular globally the following year once it was broadcast on the radio.
The song is the group's most popular single and among the biggest-selling songs of 1999, reaching number one in at least 18 countries, charting at number three in Italy, and peaking at number six on the US Billboard Hot 100 in January 2000. In the United Kingdom, the song initially entered the top 40 purely on import sales; it was only the third single to do this.[4] The song also received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Dance Recording at the 2001 Grammy Awards.[5] "Blue (Da Ba Dee)" has also been heavily sampled and remixed in later years.
Written by Eiffel 65 lead singer Jeffrey Jey, keyboardist Maurizio Lobina, and producer Massimo Gabutti, "Blue (Da Ba Dee)" was inspired by Lobina's composed opening piano hook. The producers of the song then came up with the idea for a dance song. Jey explained that his inspiration for the lyrics was how a person chooses their lifestyle. The colour blue as the main theme of the song was picked at random, with Lobina telling him to write nonsensical lyrics. Gabutti came up with the "da ba dee" hook.[6][7] The pitch-shifted vocal effect used in the song was created with a harmonizer.[8]
The song's lyrics tell a story about a man who lives in a "blue world." It also explains that he is "blue inside and outside," which, alongside the lyric "himself and everybody around 'cause he ain't got nobody to listen," and "blue are the feelings that live inside me" may indicate that the term blue represents his emotional state; however, the song also explains that a vast variety of what he owns is also blue, including his house and his car ("a blue Corvette"): different blue-coloured objects are also depicted on the single's cover.[11]
Rolling Stone, however, in their review of Europop, gave the song a negative review, commenting that the song "blends Cher-esque vocoder vocals, trance-like synth riffs, unabashed Eurodisco beats and a baby-babble chorus so infantile it makes the Teletubbies sound like Shakespeare." The magazine also placed the song on their list of the "20 Most Annoying Songs," at No. 14.[18]
The single, released in October 1998, was a chart-topper in many European countries. The song initially found success in France, where it debuted in August 1999 and reached number one for three weeks. It then found success in other European countries, reaching the top spot on many charts in September the same year, including Germany, the Netherlands,[19] Switzerland,[20] Sweden,[21] and others. The song re-charted on 6 May 2013 at No. 40 in the UK, following its inclusion in Iron Man 3.[22] The song also found success in other regions, including Oceania and North America: it reached number one in Australia, New Zealand and Canada, and became a top ten hit on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, reaching number six.
The accompanying music video for the song was released in 1999 by BlissCoMedia, a computer graphics division of Bliss Corporation, known at the time the video was produced and released as BlissMultiMedia.[23]
Like much of the Bliss Corporation's music videos, this one was done in a green screen garage studio at BlissCoMedia,[24][25] and it featured computer-generated graphics that were done in 3ds Max.[26] With very few resources, tutorials and books, and only one editing machine, the video was made between 1998 and 1999 in a garage in about two to three months.
Similar to other music videos by BlissCo, a total of five people worked on this video. The green-screen footage was done in a short amount of time, and some of it was put into a computer-generated 3D environment, while components of the band were also shot. La Sala said, "We were very flexible but every person in the team had his own special skill who was more towards motion graphics, design and editing, others more skilled in architectural design and me and the CEO experts in animation."[24]
It's important, from the offset, to understand the multi-faceted meanings behind the word "blue." It would be a mistake to think that Eiffel 65's lead vocalist Jeffrey Jey is refering solely to the color blue in this instance. While yes, the video does feature actual little blue men (more on that later), it's possible here to read far more into Jey's words. If we take the word blue to mean "sad" or "down," then the opening verse in fact sets out an all-consuming depression incurred by the oppressive suffocation of modern existence. Note that "everything he sees" is blue, as if the world itself, not his soul, is polluted. The world, cold, frigid and icy blue, freezing him inside and outside.
Notice how far the little blue man is projecting the over-whelming blueness of his existence onto all aspects of his life. His house, his shelter, is now completely blue as is its single window. The nature of the blue window is particularly unsettling for, as we know, windows are a transparent panel onto the outside world, perhaps suggesting that if his window is blue, then so is his outlook itself. Note that the blue man has a girlfriend, yet now, possibly due to his own sensibilities, she too is blue.
The video begins with the members of Eiffel 65's faces screened on televisions, headed up at the front by Jeffrey Jey as he introduces the titular "little guy." What the televisions themselves mean is, of course, open to interpretation, but it's doesn't seem unreasonable to assume they are in some way representative of just how encased Eiffel 65 feel by the attention of the media. It is also worth noting just how much Jeffrey Jey looks like Eastender's Beppe Di Marco.
Interestingly, despite the clear sociopolitical undertones of the lyrics, the video opts to manifest the blueness of the "little guy" in the form of little blue guys. The role of the little blue aliens remains relatively unclear throughout the videos. At some points they engage with the members of Eiffel 65 in hand to hand combat, yet at other points they stand admiring the band as they perform "Blue (Da Ba Dee)." The video is full of contradictory and confusing imagery much like this. For example:
Yet here, inexplicably, despite the numerous acts of violence that occur between Eiffel 65 and the blue aliens, as they look down at the planet from above on making their exit, the blue aliens appear to be pleading with them to return, via a massive (blue) sign.
"The 3 humans called Eiffel65 saw this transmission and from their Star Ship, they accepted to listen to the Zorotl message : "Hello human friends, my name is Zorotlekuykauo Sushik IV, but friends call me Zorotl. I am very sorry for what happened to you, but please let me explain the real story " After having explained all the story to Eiffel65, Zorotl said " We are , in general peaceful people, and we are in love with the Science-Art that you call Music. With your help, we would like to learn it, and to show you my good intention, if you allow me, I will go on stage to sing your song "Blue" together with you, as a sign of friendship."
Perhaps we will never know why the actual fuck somebody wrote that, but one thing's for sure. Whoever they are, they resolutely understood that this song was one of multiple dimensions, of universal significance.
Whoever they were, their effort is a testament to the enduring emotional pull of this track. A song that sits somewhere between DJ Otzi's "Hey Baby" and the "Cotton Eye Joe" on a mixtape, yet evokes a thousand years of confusion and anti-climax. A song that with the power to knock "Mambo No.5" off the number one spot. The highest charting Italian song ever in the United States.
Don't let anybody tell you this piece of Eurodance is trashy, tacky, badly made pop. It is a paean to the eternal longing, the feeling of loneliness that somehow unites us all. It's Derek Jarman with a kickdrum. This is our story, we are all little guys, sitting in our blue houses, looking through blue windows. Da ba dee. Da ba die.
Todd: ...actually sell requests for the first time to four lucky people. And uh, it went really well I'm, I'm really grateful for you guys' appreciation and I was really happy with the result, I was, I was able to...
[Screenshot of donor, Robert Lee Castaneda's request saying: "Hey there Todd. First of all, a big fan of yours (obviously) and I'm happy to support your awesome show. As for my request artist for OHW, I'm hoping you do Eiffel 65 - Blue. Hopefully that qualify for that show and again happy to help your show. Thanks." The screen then zooms in on the words, "Eiffel 65 - Blue". Todd is very pissed off at this.]
Todd: This is one of the most obvious and most requested one-hit wonders I've ever had for this show. And were it not for the fact that I'm now contractually bound to cover it, I would have continued ignoring this song forever.
Todd (VO): I've already said that the late '90s were a glory day for bright, goofy novelties, so much so that they kind of weren't even novelties anymore; they were the mainstream. And they just seemed to keep piling up, until they climaxed gloriously with Eiffel 65, quite possibly the most annoying of them all.
Todd (VO): ...it sticks in the head like very few things ever do. Not only because it's incessantly catchy - which, it unfortunately very much is - but also because it's hard to conceive of something this dumb. You may not have liked it...
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