"Fireflies" is the debut single from American electronica project

Owl City Owl City is an American electronic music project created in 2007 in Owatonna, Minnesota. It is one of several projects by singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Adam Young, who created the project while experimenting with music in his pa ...

's album '' Ocean Eyes''. Frontman Adam Young wrote how he enjoyed the fireflies in his hometown of

Owatonna, Minnesota Owatonna () is a city in Steele County, Minnesota, Steele County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 25,599 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census. It is the county seat of Steele County. Owatonna is home to the Steele County Fair ...

, and the rest of the track about seeing fireflies while he was awake with insomnia, with

Matt Thiessen Matthew Arnold Thiessen (born August 12, 1980) is a Canadian-American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer known for being co-founder, lead singer, guitarist, pianist, and primary songwriter for the Christian rock band Relient K. Wit ...

also producing and providing guest vocals. The song is built around a "bleepy" synthline and includes lyrics about insomnia, fireflies and summer. The song topped the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 for two non-consecutive weeks. Internationally, the song also topped the charts in Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Ireland, Sweden and the United Kingdom. "Fireflies" was Owl City's only top forty hit in the United States until three years later when " Good Time", a duet with Canadian singer Carly Rae Jepsen, charted at No. 8. It has been covered by Christina Grimmie,

Cheryl Cole Cheryl Ann Tweedy (born 30 June 1983) is an English singer and television personality. Born and raised in Newcastle upon Tyne, she rose to fame in late 2002 upon winning a place in Girls Aloud, a girl group created through ITV's '' Popstar ...

and others. "Fireflies" is featured in the video game '' Disney Sing It: Party Hits'', and was used in the promotional video for ''

EyePet ''EyePet'' is a game for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable, developed by London Studio and Playlogic Game Factory. The original PlayStation 3 version was released in Europe on 23 October 2009 and in Australia on 27 October 2009. This ...

''. It is available as

downloadable content Downloadable content (DLC) is additional content created for an already released video game, distributed through the Internet by the game's publisher. It can either be added for no extra cost or it can be a form of video game monetization, enabli ...

for ''

Guitar Hero 5 ''Guitar Hero 5'' (initially referred to as ''Guitar Hero V'') is a 2009 music rhythm video game developed by Neversoft and published by Activision. It is the fifth main installment in the ''Guitar Hero'' series. The game was released internat ...

'', '' Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock'' and ''

Rock Band 3 ''Rock Band 3'' is a 2010 music video game developed by Harmonix. The game was initially published and distributed by MTV Games and Electronic Arts, respectively, in late October 2010. Mad Catz took over both roles and re-released the title on N ...

''.

Composition

Adam Young wrote "Fireflies" after being inspired by a camping trip he took up to a "totally rustic and kind of remote lake in northern Minnesota"; he tried to emulate the experience of seeing a meteor shower that gave him "a cool idea of shooting stars being fireflies."

Chart performance

"Fireflies", when featured as iTunes' free "Single of the Week," garnered 650,000 downloads, influencing Universal Republic to move ''Ocean Eyes'' release date from September 1, 2009, to July 28. The song debuted on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 in early-September at No. 97. The song reached No. 1 during its tenth week, becoming Owl City's first No. 1 single. The song stayed at No. 1 for two non-consecutive weeks, in the top ten for fifteen weeks and on the Hot 100 for 31 weeks. "Fireflies" contributed to sales of the album ''Ocean Eyes'', and was credited as being responsible for its entry to the top ten on the U.S. ''Billboard'' 200. On the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 2009 year-end chart, it was ranked sixtieth. On the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 2010 year-end chart, it was ranked thirtieth. The RIAA certified "Fireflies" 3× Platinum in June 2010. The song attained success worldwide. In the United Kingdom, the song entered at No. 50 on the

UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

due to early download sales from a fake version that was leaked onto iTunes. The song would go on to make a 48-place jump to number two the following week, beaten only to the top by " Replay" by

Iyaz Keidran Jones (born 15 April 1987), better known by his stage name Iyaz, is a British Virgin Islands singer and songwriter, formerly signed with the record label Beluga Heights Records. He is known for his singles " Replay", "Solo" and " Prett ...

. The following week, it rose to number one and topped the chart for three consecutive weeks. On January 2, 2011, it was revealed that "Fireflies" was the 20th most downloaded song of all time in the UK. As of September 2017, the song has sold over 844,000 copies in the UK. In Australia, the song entered at No. 38 and on the week of January 10, 2010, it topped the chart. In Japan, the song peaked at No. 3 and was ranked sixteenth on the 2010 year-end chart, the highest ranking for an international song for 2010. It reached No. 1 in Denmark, Ireland, Sweden, Australia, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands (for 10 weeks) and the top ten in Austria, Belgium, Canada, Poland, Finland, Germany, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, and Switzerland. The song was ranked 89th on VH1's 'Top 100 songs of the new millennium'.

Music video

The music video for "Fireflies" was directed by Steve Hoover. It features Adam Young playing the song on a Lowrey spinet organ in a toy-filled bedroom, where most of the toys (including an astronaut; a

Tyrannosaurus rex ''Tyrannosaurus'' is a genus of large theropod dinosaur. The species ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' (''rex'' meaning "king" in Latin), often called ''T. rex'' or colloquially ''T-Rex'', is one of the best represented theropods. ''Tyrannosaurus'' live ...

; a Speak & Spell; toy cars, including one based on the UK children's TV character, '' Brum;'' and a

blimp A blimp, or non-rigid airship, is an airship (dirigible) without an internal structural framework or a keel. Unlike semi-rigid and rigid airships (e.g. Zeppelins), blimps rely on the pressure of the lifting gas (usually helium, rather than hy ...

) come to life. Most of the toys are older model toys, with most of them from the 1970s and 1980s (the exceptions being a Robosapien and a

Roboraptor Roboraptor is a robotic toy invented by Mark Tilden and Michael Bellantoni in 2004, and then distributed by Wow Wee Toys International. It is the successor to the RoboSapien robot and uses motion technology based on realistic biomechanics that g ...

). There are also vintage household devices such as a black-and-white television and a

record player A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...

. As Young plays the organ, he activates a "magic" button on his organ, and the aforementioned toys come to life. As the song progresses towards the end, toys return to normal one by one until he turns off the magic button. The video ends with turning off his organ as the camera fades to black. The video premiered on Myspace but was leaked onto Dailymotion sometime before, and

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

soon after. As of January 15, 2023, the video has received over 478 million views.

Legacy

American electronic producer

James Ferraro James Ferraro (born November 6, 1986) is an American experimental musician, producer, composer and contemporary artist. He has been credited as a pioneer of the 21st century genres hypnagogic pop and vaporwave, with his work exploring themes relat ...

, commonly credited with pioneering the electronic genre

vaporwave Vaporwave is a microgenre of electronic music, visual art style, and Internet meme that emerged in the early 2010s. It is defined partly by its slowed-down, chopped and screwed samples of smooth jazz, elevator, R&B, and lounge music fro ...

, called "Fireflies" the best song of the 21st century, interpreting it on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

as having themes of mass surveillance and "

circadian rhythm disorder Circadian rhythm sleep disorders (CRSD), also known as circadian rhythm sleep-wake disorders (CRSWD), are a family of sleep disorders which affect the timing of sleep. CRSDs arise from a persistent pattern of sleep/wake disturbances that can be ...

from ever present 'sic''devices".

Internet meme

In May 2017, the song was repurposed as an Internet meme, usually involving the song being played at an extremely loud volume or being remixed to fit a certain theme. Another variant of the meme involved writing a pun for the line "You would not believe your eyes, if ten million fireflies". The song received further notability in June when Owl City was asked to interpret the lyric "I get a thousand hugs from 10,000 lightning bugs."

Track listing

European CD single # "Fireflies" – 3:48 # "Hot Air Balloon" – 3:35

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

Release history

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fireflies (Song) 2009 debut singles Owl City songs Cheryl (singer) songs Dutch Top 40 number-one singles Irish Singles Chart number-one singles 2000s ballads Number-one singles in Australia Number-one singles in Denmark Number-one singles in Scotland Number-one singles in Sweden UK Singles Chart number-one singles Songs written by Adam Young 2009 songs Universal Republic Records singles Synth-pop ballads Internet memes introduced in 2017