Best Song Ever

## *Midnight Memories* Chronology

**Best Song Ever** is a song recorded by English-Irish boy band One Direction. It was released on March 22, 2013 by Syco and as the lead single from the group's third studio album, *Midnight Memories*.

Written by Wayne Hector, John Ryan, Ed Drewett, Julian Bunetta, Pete Townshend and produced by Bunetta, Matt Rad and Ryan, the song was recorded in 2012 and runs for 3 minutes and 21 seconds. It was announced by One Direction in a video uploaded to their YouTube channel on 25 June 2013.

The trailer for *This Is Us* was released thirty minutes after the video was uploaded, and included a short preview of the song. The song became available for pre-order on iTunes on 26 June 2013. The song was included in the box set of the Brit Awards, *2014 BRIT Awards*.

## Background

The song was first revealed via a short announcement video tweeted by Niall Horan on June 25, 2013. The video confirmed that the song would be available to pre-order at midnight (GMT on June 25th). In the video, Liam Payne mentioned that the official movie trailer for *This Is Us* was going live in "about half and hour" and if you watched it you "might just catch a little snippet" of the song. Louis Tomlinson ended the video by saying "Hope you like it!"

The official release date was July 22, 2013 with the physical CD released on August 19th. The next day, June 26th, the song had gone to number 1 on iTunes in various countries such as the UK, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Holland, Denmark, Spain, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Lebanon, Belgium and many more.

   The official single cover was released through the use of the hashtag #BestSongEverCover' on twitter on July 3, 2013 at 7pm (GMT)

The song was released accidentally by iTunes who downloaded it onto a users iPod as opposed to just pre-ordering it. The whole song leaked onto Tumblr and YouTube on July 17, 2013.

The song appears at the end of the official full length trailer for *This Is Us*, and is played during the end credits of the film. It debuted and peaked at number two on both the UK Singles Chart and the US *Billboard* Hot 100.

It is widely considered one of the band's most recognizable and famous songs, and has been the tour closer for the *Where We Are Tour* and the *On The Road Again Tour*.

## Lyrics

**[Harry]**

Maybe it's the way she walked (ow)

Straight into my heart and stole it

Through the doors and pass the guards (ow)

Just like she already owned it

**[Zayn]**

I said, "Can you give it back to me?"

She said, "Never in your wildest dreams."

**[All]**

And we danced all night to the best song ever

We knew every line

Now I can't remember

How it goes but I know

That I won't forget her

Cause we danced all night to the best song ever

I think it went oh, oh, oh

I think it went yeah, yeah, yeah

I think it goes...

**[Liam]**

Said her name was Georgia Rose (ow)

And her daddy was a dentist

**[Harry]**

Said I had a dirty mouth (I got a dirty mouth)

But she kissed me like she meant it

**[Niall]**

I said, "Can I take you home with me?"

She said."Never in your wildest dreams"

**[All]**

And we danced all night to the best song ever

We knew every line

Now I can't remember

How it goes but I know

That I won't forget her

Cause we danced all night to the best song ever

I think it went oh, oh, oh

I think it went yeah, yeah, yeah

I think it goes...

**[Louis]**

You know, I know, you know I'll remember you

And I know, you know, I know you'll remember me

**[Zayn]**

And you know, I know, you know I'll remember you

(Oh, oh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah)

And I know, you know, I hope you

(Oh, oh oh, yeah yeah, yeah)

Remember how we danced

(Oh, oh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah)

How we danced

(Oh, oh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah)

**[Harry]**

1, 2, 1, 2, 3

**[All]**

How we danced all night to the best song ever

We knew every line

Now I can't remember

How it goes but I know

That I won't forget her

Cause we danced all night to the best song ever

(We danced, we danced, it goes something like, yeah)

Danced all night to the best song ever

We knew every line

Now I can't remember

How it goes but I know

That I won't forget her

Cause we danced all night to the best song ever

I think it went oh, oh, oh

I think it went yeah, yeah, yeah

I think it goes...

**[Zayn]**

Best song ever

It was the best song ever

It was the best song ever

## Music Video

 **Length**
 **Director**
 **Location**

### Background

On July 23, 2013 (the day after the video was released), VEVO tweeted that "Best Song Ever" had gathered 12.3 million views within 24 hours of its release. The video had held the record for "Most Views Within 24 Hours of Release". It was previously held by Miley Cyrus's 'We Can't Stop' with 10.7 million views. It was later again broken by Miley Cyrus with her video for "Wrecking Ball".

### Behind the scenes

A behind the scenes video was released on July 30, 2013 and shows footage about the transformations of the boys into each of their characters and other extras.

In the behind the scenes video Liam says, "The concept of the video is that we're in a Hollywood movie office and we've just been offered the film by some big shots." Harry completes by saying "We go in and they tell us all these ideas that we hate about how to make the film and at the end, we tell them how we want the film to be like."

## Promotion

The radio premiere of the song was July 19, 2013. The band did interviews and appeared on various radio shows July 19th, to promote it.

* Harry was on BBC Radio 1 (at 4pm); Virgin Radio (96 at 8pm).
* Niall was on 102.7 (On The Ryan Seacrest show on KISS FM at 4:30pm) and NRK (In France at 3pm).
* Liam was on 99.7 (NOW Radio in the morning); 95.8 (Capital FM at 4pm); 102.7 (On The Rayn Seacrest show on KISS FM at 4pm).
* Zayn appeared on InDemand Radio (from 8pm).
* Most radio stations played the song at around 4pm.

The official audio was posted on One Direction's VEVO channel following the interviews.

## Controversy

Shortly after the success of the song, Fans of 1960s mod rock icons *The Who* demanded 1D to be sued for ripping off the intro of their song "Baba O' Riley". Pete Townsend however said all they did was use the same 3 chords used by musicians since Chuck Berry and mentioned he and Roger Daltrey won't sue them. Some fans suggest that the song that One Direction was talking about in "Best Song Ever" was actually "Baba O' Riley" and that the song was actually a tribute to the iconic band, *The Who*.