"Heads Will Roll" is a song by American

indie rock Indie rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the music they produc ...

band

Yeah Yeah Yeahs The Yeah Yeah Yeahs are an American indie rock band formed in New York City in 2000. The group is composed of vocalist and pianist Karen O (born Karen Lee Orzolek), guitarist and keyboardist Nick Zinner, and drummer Brian Chase. They are compl ...

, released as the second single from their third studio album, '' It's Blitz!'' (2009). The CD and 7-inch singles were released in the United Kingdom on June 29, 2009.Amazon.co.uk - Heads Will Roll (Single)
/ref> The song is sung from the viewpoint of the

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Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are '' Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequ ...

's ''

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (commonly ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English novel by Lewis Carroll. It details the story of a young girl named Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world of anthropomorphic creature ...

.'' A remix by Canadian DJ

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appeared in the film '' Project X''. The remix has over 166 million views on YouTube.

Composition

The song is built around a vintage sounding string riff, which was sampled from a Mellotron sound card: "Roxy SFX 2" from the Mellotron M4000D Sound Card 02.

Music video

The music video for "Heads Will Roll" was directed by

Richard Ayoade Richard Ellef Ayoade ( ; born 23 May 1977) is a British actor, comedian, broadcaster and filmmaker. He is best known for his role as socially awkward IT technician Maurice Moss in Channel 4 sitcom ''The IT Crowd'' (2006–2013), for which he ...

. It features the band playing in a (presumably) underground venue when a dancing

werewolf In folklore, a werewolf (), or occasionally lycanthrope (; ; uk, Вовкулака, Vovkulaka), is an individual that can shapeshift into a wolf (or, especially in modern film, a therianthropic hybrid wolf-like creature), either purposely ...

whose dancing is reminiscent of

Michael Jackson Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Over a ...

(who died four days before the single was released) appears on stage. A light flashes halfway through the music video and the werewolf transforms. He then proceeds to chase after the audience and kills most of them. The video then ends with the band having been murdered while

Karen O Karen Lee Orzolek (born November 22, 1978) is a South Korean-born American singer, musician, and songwriter. She is the lead vocalist for the indie rock band Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Early life She was born in Seoul, South Korea, the daughter of a Ko ...

continues singing, her head severed from her body. The music video contains some mockery of horror in general; instead of blood, there is red glitter and confetti and Karen O keeps singing while decapitated. In the UK, there are two different versions of this video, the second replacing the violent conclusion with repeated clips from the previous section of the video, but it shows the confetti falling onto the band. It was nominated for a MTV Video Music Award for Breakthrough Video.

Track listings

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

Other versions

Scarlett Johansson Scarlett Ingrid Johansson (; born November 22, 1984) is an American actress. The world's highest-paid actress in 2018 and 2019, she has featured multiple times on the ''Forbes'' Celebrity 100 list. ''Time'' magazine named her one of the 100 ...

performed this in the 2021 animated feature

Sing 2 ''Sing 2'' is a 2021 American computer-animated jukebox musical comedy film produced by Illumination and distributed by Universal Pictures. The sequel to ''Sing'' (2016) and the second film in the franchise, it was again written and directed ...

as Ash

References

External links

Yeah Yeah Yeahs Leave Heads Rolling On The Road
at Billboard.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Heads Will Roll (Yeah Yeah Yeahs Song) Songs about werewolves 2009 singles 2009 songs DGC Records singles Interscope Records singles Music based on Alice in Wonderland Song recordings produced by Nick Launay Songs written by Brian Chase Songs written by Karen O Songs written by Nick Zinner Ultratop 50 Singles (Flanders) number-one singles Yeah Yeah Yeahs songs Halloween songs