"Cherokee" is a 1987

single Single may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Single (music), a song release Songs * "Single" (Natasha Bedingfield song), 2004 * "Single" (New Kids on the Block and Ne-Yo song), 2008 * "Single" (William Wei song), 2016 * "Single", by ...

released by the

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

band

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

. It was the fourth single released internationally from the album '' The Final Countdown'', and reached number 72 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States. The song was written by

vocalist Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

Joey Tempest Rolf Magnus Joakim Larsson (born 19 August 1963), known professionally as Joey Tempest, is a Swedish singer best known as the lead vocalist of the rock band Europe. He has written the band's great hits such as " The Final Countdown", " Rock the ...

in 1985, and was in fact the last song written for the album. The video for "Cherokee" was filmed in September 1987, in

Almería Almería (, , ) is a city and municipality of Spain, located in Andalusia. It is the capital of the province of the same name. It lies on southeastern Iberia on the Mediterranean Sea. Caliph Abd al-Rahman III founded the city in 955. The city gr ...

, Spain. It was filmed a half mile from where

Sergio Leone Sergio Leone (; 3 January 1929 – 30 April 1989) was an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter credited as the pioneer of the Spaghetti Western genre and widely regarded as one of the most influential directors in the history of cin ...

shot the famous

Clint Eastwood Clinton Eastwood Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American actor and film director. After achieving success in the Western TV series '' Rawhide'', he rose to international fame with his role as the "Man with No Name" in Sergio Leone's "''Doll ...

Spaghetti Western The Spaghetti Western is a broad subgenre of Western films produced in Europe. It emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's film-making style and international box-office success. The term was used by foreign critics because most o ...

A Fistful of Dollars ''A Fistful of Dollars'' ( it, Per un pugno di dollari, lit=For a Fistful of Dollars titled on-screen as ''Fistful of Dollars'') is a 1964 Spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood in his first leading role, a ...

.'' When filming the scene where the horses run through the valley, someone accidentally set some brush near the set on fire. The entire video crew, including band members, had to fight the fire by quickly digging a trench around the fire to stop it spreading. The video is very historically inaccurate. It showed the Cherokee as plains Indians, living in

teepee A tipi , often called a lodge in English, is a conical tent, historically made of animal hides or pelts, and in more recent generations of canvas, stretched on a framework of wooden poles. The word is Siouan, and in use in Dakhótiyapi, Lakȟó ...

s on the desert. The Cherokee originally lived in the wooded, southern Appalachian Mountains. They were forcibly moved to the wooded, rolling hills of eastern Oklahoma. The Cherokee never used teepees. On 30 July 2007, "Cherokee" and " The Final Countdown" were used in a preview for ''

Superbad ''Superbad'' is a 2007 American coming-of-age teen buddy comedy film directed by Greg Mottola and produced by Judd Apatow. The film stars Jonah Hill and Michael Cera as Seth and Evan, two teenagers about to graduate from high school. Before grad ...

'' following ''

Raw Raw is an adjective usually describing: * Raw materials, basic materials from which products are manufactured or made * Raw food, uncooked food Raw or RAW may also refer to: Computing and electronics * .RAW, a proprietary mass spectrometry dat ...

''. At the beginning of the song, drummer Ian Haugland says: "Nu ska vi spela!" which means "We're gonna play now!" in

Cover versions

"Cherokee" was sampled in the song "I Believe" by the French

electropop Electropop is a hybrid music genre combining elements of electronic and pop genres. Writer Hollin Jones has described it as a variant of synth-pop with heavy emphasis on its electronic sound. The genre was developed in the 1980s and saw a re ...

duo

Galleon Galleons were large, multi-decked sailing ships first used as armed cargo carriers by European states from the 16th to 18th centuries during the age of sail and were the principal vessels drafted for use as warships until the Anglo-Dutch War ...

Personnel

− vocals *

John Norum John Norum (born 23 February 1964) is a Norwegian-Swedish guitarist and one of the founders of the rock band Europe. Concurrent to his role with Europe, he also maintains a career as a solo artist. Biography As an infant, Norum moved with his p ...

− guitar *

John Levén John Gunnar Levén (born 25 October 1963 in Stockholm, Sweden) is a Swedish bassist in the Swedish rock band Europe. Levén and vocalist Joey Tempest are the only band members who have performed on all of Europe's studio albums. Career When Lev� ...

− bass *

Mic Michaeli Gunnar Mathias "Mic" Michaeli (born 11 November 1962) is a Swedish musician best known as the keyboardist for the rock band Europe. Like many of the other Europe members he grew up in Stockholm suburb Upplands Väsby. He joined the band for thei ...

− keyboard *

Ian Haugland Jan-Håkan "Ian" Haugland (born 13 August 1964) is the drummer in the Swedish rock band Europe. When he was eight months old, he and his family moved to the Stockholm suburb of Märsta, Sweden. He joined Europe in the summer of 1984, replacing ...

− drums

Chart positions

References

1987 singles Europe (band) songs Epic Records singles Songs written by Joey Tempest 1986 songs {{1980s-single-stub