February 04, 2015

De La Soul & Teenage Fanclub "Fallin" (Video, 1994)


"Fallin'" is a collaboration between Scottish pop band Teenage Fanclub and hip-hop trio De La Soul. It was released in early 1994. The song was recorded for the Judgment Night soundtrack, which featured other collaborations between well-known rock, metal and hip hop groups. In an interview with LA Weekly, Posdnuos of De La Soul, said, "We actually went to the studio, and they started pairing up different artists, and we could've been paired up with familiar names. But we didn't know who Teenage Fanclub were at the time, so we picked them. When we did the song with them, we were in Scotland, and we had no idea what we were going to do... We're both musicians obviously, so we just started vibing and we happened to be sitting in a little reception area outside the studio, and Tom Petty's "Free fallin'' video came on. I've always been the person in the group, who when he hears certain words I take it and apply it to a certain thing. It started as a joke, hey, let's make a song based off a Tom Petty video. Then Dave said, let's spin it about us falling off as a rappers. So we went to the store, bought the Tom Petty CD, and based it around the song. Then we got the bassline from "Nobody Beats the Biz," the Steve Miller sample, and a snippet of Petty's voice and it came together pretty fast." Check out the lyrics and visuals to this cautionary tale, cont'd below...

"...remember when I used to be dope, (yeah!)
I owned a pocket full of fame
(But look what you’re doing now), Well I know, I know
I lost touch with reality, now my personality
Is an unwanted commodity (believe it)
Can’t believe I used to be Mr Steve Austin on the mic
(Six million ways) I used to run it
I guess Oscar Goldman got mad
Cause I got loose circuits (so loose, so loose)
I be the mother goose with the eggs that seemed to be
Fallin’..."