"Samantha" is a song by the American
alternative rock
Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from Popular culture, mainstre ...
band
Hole
A hole is an opening in or through a particular medium, usually a solid body. Holes occur through natural and artificial processes, and may be useful for various purposes, or may represent a problem needing to be addressed in many fields of en ...
. It is the fifth track on the band's fourth studio album, ''
Nobody's Daughter
''Nobody's Daughter'' is the fourth and final studio album by the American alternative rock band Hole, released on April 23, 2010, by Mercury Records. The album was initially conceived as a solo project and follow-up to the Hole frontwoman Courtn ...
'', released on
Mercury Records
Mercury Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group. It had significant success as an independent operation in the 1940s and 1950s. Smash Records and Fontana Records were sub labels of Mercury. In the United States, it is ...
on April 23, 2010. Written by vocalist
Courtney Love
Courtney Michelle Love (née Harrison; born July 9, 1964) is an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, and actress. A figure in the alternative and grunge scenes of the 1990s, her career has spanned four decades. She rose to prominence as t ...
,
The Smashing Pumpkins
The Smashing Pumpkins (also referred to as simply Smashing Pumpkins) are an American alternative rock band from Chicago. Formed in 1988 by frontman and guitarist Billy Corgan, bassist D'arcy Wretzky, guitarist James Iha and drummer Jimmy Chamb ...
frontman
Billy Corgan
William Patrick Corgan Jr. (born March 17, 1967) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and professional wrestling promoter. He is best known as the lead singer, primary songwriter, guitarist, and only permanent member of the rock band the ...
and
music producer
A record producer is a recording project's creative and technical leader, commanding studio time and coaching artists, and in popular genres typically creates the song's very sound and structure.Virgil Moorefield"Introduction" ''The Producer as ...
Linda Perry
Linda Perry (born April 15, 1965) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and record producer. She was the lead singer and primary songwriter of 4 Non Blondes, and has since founded two record labels and composed and produced hit songs for ...
, "Samantha" was originally planned as the album's lead
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 ...
.
"
Skinny Little Bitch" was later released as the album's lead single on March 12, 2010, and "Samantha" did not receive a single release reputedly due to the
controversy over its composition.
Despite not receiving a single release, a music video for "Samantha" was released in September 2011. Directed by
Pablo Ganguli and Alphan Eseli, it was Hole's first music video since "
Be a Man" in 2000 and is set in a post-apocalyptic world with Love wearing a wedding dress with the word "cunt" embroidered on it, burning dollar bills. A
high-definition version of the video leaked on
social media
Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...
web site
Vimeo
Vimeo, Inc. () is an American video hosting, sharing, and services platform provider headquartered in New York City. Vimeo focuses on the delivery of high-definition video across a range of devices. Vimeo's business model is through software as ...
prior to its official release.
Origins and recording
"Samantha" is one of twenty-six original songs that Courtney Love wrote following her six-month lockdown in
rehab in September 2005 after violating drug probation. With additional musical input from Billy Corgan and Linda Perry, the song was composed and recorded in 2006 during the embryonic sessions for Love's expected second solo studio album, ''How Dirty Girls Get Clean'', at Perry's recording studios, the Kung Fu Gardens, in
North Hollywood
North Hollywood is a neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, located in the San Fernando Valley. The neighborhood contains the NoHo Arts District, the El Portal Theatre, several art galleries, and the Academy of TV Arts and Sciences. The North ...
. An in-studio rehearsal recording of "Samantha" from these sessions was featured in an episode of ''
All Things Considered
''All Things Considered'' (''ATC'') is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio (NPR). It was the first news program on NPR, premiering on May 3, 1971. It is broadcast live on NPR affiliated stations in the United ...
'' and broadcast online by
NPR
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...
in May 2007.
A rough studio recording of the song from these sessions has circulated online in
MP3
MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...
format. Three months prior to the NPR interview, Love announced that "Samantha" and other songs, including "I See Red", "Too Much Dope" and the eventually-included song "Honey", were possible inclusions on the album, now retitled ''Nobody's Daughter''. The album was reported to have been completed in June 2007.
Due to further delays in production and a reported scrap of the album, "Samantha" was reworked throughout the 2008-2009 recording sessions for ''Nobody's Daughter''. It was during these sessions that the song was described as what "
edto the resurrection of Hole" and in June 2009, Love and guitarist
Micko Larkin
Michael "Micko" Joseph Larkin (born 13 October 1986) is an English musician, most notable as the lead guitarist of the indie rock band Larrikin Love and reformed Hole.
Biography 1986–2006: Early life and career
Larkin was born in Hammersmith ...
announced the band's reunion. In a video interview accompanying the announcement, recorded by English music magazine ''
NME
''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...
'', a reworked version of "Samantha" was previewed alongside a rough version of "Nobody's Daughter."
This version, recorded at
Henson Recording Studios
The Jim Henson Company Lot, formerly A&M Studios, is a studio property located just south of the southeast corner of North La Brea Avenue and Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Originally established by film star Charlie Chaplin, the property serv ...
in
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
, was changed lyrically one last time before the final album version of the song premiered on March 30, 2010, on
Stereogum
''Stereogum'' is a daily Internet publication that focuses on music news, reviews, interviews, and commentary. The site was created in January 2002 by Scott Lapatine.
''Stereogum'' was one of the first MP3 blogs and has received several award ...
and was later released on ''Nobody's Daughter'' in April 2010.
Composition and lyrics
As on Hole's "
Celebrity Skin
''Celebrity Skin'' is the third studio album by American alternative rock band Hole, released on September 8, 1998, in the United States on DGC Records and internationally on Geffen Records. It was the last album released by the band before the ...
", Billy Corgan composed the main guitar riff to "Samantha" whilst rehearsing with Love at
The Village Recorder
The Village (also known as Village Recorders, or the Village Recorder) is a recording studio located at 1616 Butler Avenue in West Los Angeles, California.
History
The building was built by the Freemasons in 1922 and was originally a Masonic t ...
in Los Angeles. Corgan's lead guitar recording, originally featured on a studio version of the song, was omitted from the final mix by Love and replaced with a cello. Composed in standard tuning, the song's opening chords (A-Am) are featured on numerous occasions throughout the song, usually on the first lines of a verse. The following progression (C-F-C) is incorporated into the opening riff to form the basic verse structure. The pre-chorus consists of two parts (Dm-C-A-Asus2)/(G-F-D9) and the main chorus follows a standard three-chord progression (A-F5-C5), two of which are
power chords
A power chord (also fifth chord) is a colloquial name for a chord in guitar music, especially electric guitar, that consists of the root note and the fifth, as well as possibly octaves of those notes. Power chords are commonly played on amp ...
. The album version of the song, featuring the "through villages of ether" refrain, also has a pre-bridge verse that does not follow the formula of the previous verses (A9-C-G-D7). The bridge follows a four-chord progression (F-Dm-A-C) repeated twice and ending partway through a third repeat on the same chord as the pre-chorus ending.(F-D9) The final two verses are complex, with the lines "people like you / fuck people like me /" rehashing the same four chords as "Nobody's Daughter" (Em-G5-C5-A/A9) and the pre-bridge being repeated.
Lyrically, the song's character and meaning are both ambiguous. According to the ''All Things Considered'' episode aired in May 2007, the song was intended to be "about a working girl named Samantha" which "will join the canon of great rock songs about women, such as
Sting
Sting may refer to:
* Stinger or sting, a structure of an animal to inject venom, or the injury produced by a stinger
* Irritating hairs or prickles of a stinging plant, or the plant itself
Fictional characters and entities
* Sting (Middle-eart ...
's "
Roxanne" or
Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac are a British-American rock band, formed in London in 1967. Fleetwood Mac were founded by guitarist Peter Green, drummer Mick Fleetwood and guitarist Jeremy Spencer, before bassist John McVie joined the line-up for their epony ...
's "
Rhiannon
Rhiannon is a major figure in the Mabinogi, the medieval Welsh story collection. She appears mainly in the First Branch of the Mabinogi, and again in the Third Branch. She is a strong-minded Otherworld woman, who chooses Pwyll, prince of Dyfe ...
."
However, in an April 2010 interview with
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economi ...
, Love implied that the song was semi-autobiographical, stating that "it's probably me" and that the character was "coming from
erown space."
[Welcome Back Courtney (Love)]
by Camille Dodero, in ''the Village Voice
''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the crea ...
''; published April 27, 2010; retrieved June 26, 2016
Billy Corgan co-writing controversy
Co-writer Billy Corgan has claimed that the song, along with others such as "
Pacific Coast Highway", cannot be released without his approval, saying that he "has not signed off on any of those songs" and "so it would be a real big problem." Hole's music attorney, Peter Paterno, has since called Corgan's block as "an unlitigated issue" and "suspects the law would favour Love." Love herself has expressed concern and hopes "that The Smashing Pumpkins frontman will one day reconcile." In light of Paterno's statement, "Pacific Coast Highway" was released as a single, indicating that Corgan's issue may have been resolved.
Promotion
The song premiered live on July 9, 2007, at Love's surprise birthday show at Bush Hall in London. It was also performed during all shows on Love's short-lived 2007 tour, including shows in Paris and New York. The reworked version of the song was premiered on Hole's debut television appearance after their reunion, on ''
Friday Night with Jonathan Ross
''Friday Night with Jonathan Ross'' is a British chat show presented by Jonathan Ross and broadcast on BBC One between 2001 and 2010. The programme features Ross' take on current topics of conversation, guest interviews (usually three per show) ...
'' on February 12, 2010 and also performed during Hole's three-date European reunion tour in London,
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
and
Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
. The band also performed "Samantha" at the
NME Awards
The ''NME'' Awards is an annual music awards show in the United Kingdom, founded by the music magazine ''NME'' (''New Musical Express''). The first awards show was held in 1953 as the ''NME'' Poll Winners Concerts, shortly after the founding of ...
on February 24, 2010, alongside ''Nobody's Daughters lead single, "Skinny Little Bitch" prior to the album's release.
Critical reception
"Samantha" received mixed reception both upon its digital premiere on Stereogum and its inclusion on ''Nobody's Daughter''.
Amanda Petrusich
Amanda Petrusich (born c. 1980) is an American music journalist. She is a staff writer at ''The New Yorker'' and the author of three books: ''Pink Moon'' (2007), '' It Still Moves: Lost Songs, Lost Highways, and the Search for the Next American M ...
of
Pitchfork Media
''Pitchfork'' (formerly ''Pitchfork Media'') is an American online music publication (currently owned by Condé Nast) that was launched in 1995 by writer Ryan Schreiber as an independent music blog.
Schreiber started Pitchfork while working ...
described the song, as well as others on the album, by stating that "the guitars are so dated, raunchy, and overstated that every track starts to feel like cartoon-rock-- more a Sunset Strip-rehash than
grunge
Grunge (sometimes referred to as the Seattle sound) is an alternative rock genre and subculture that emerged during the in the American Pacific Northwest state of Washington, particularly in Seattle and nearby towns. Grunge fuses elements of p ...
nostalgia" whereas Allan Raible of
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
's ''On the Record'' referred to it as "a classic Hole track, until it devolves into a repetition of the lines, “People like you f___ people like me, in order to avoid agony. / People like you f___ people like me in order to avoid suffering.” Despite the polished production, this indicates that Love is still willing to get a little rough around the edges."
Reported single release
Since its initial mention in February 2007, "Samantha" was expected to be the lead single from ''Nobody's Daughter'', however instead the Hole song "Skinny Little Bitch" was released in March 2010 as the album's lead single. Following the release of "Skinny Little Bitch", the song was then expected to be the second single from the album, however, the similarly penned "Pacific Coast Highway" was announced for release in April 2010
and "
Letter to God", the album's final single, was released less than a month later. Artwork for the unreleased single of "Samantha" has been circulated online.
Music video
In 2009, while the song was still intended for release under Courtney Love, Love revealed that
David LaChapelle
David LaChapelle (born March 11, 1963) is an American photographer, music video director and film director. He is best known for his work in fashion, photography, which often references art history and sometimes conveys social messages. His pho ...
would direct the promotional music videos for singles from her then-forthcoming album and mentioned "i miss videos so happy Lachapelle is doing mine!" in a status update on social networking site
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 ...
. However, there is no confirmation, as of 2011, that LaChapelle has directed any promotional videos for Hole. A censored live version of the song, performed during Hole's reunion show at London's
O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire
Shepherd's Bush Empire (currently known as O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire for sponsorship reasons, and formerly known as the BBC Television Theatre) is a music venue in Shepherd's Bush, West London, run by the Academy Music Group. It was originally ...
on February 17, 2010, was released on HoleVEVO, Hole's channel as part of
VEVO
Vevo ( , an abbreviation for "Video Evolution", stylized as VEVO until 2013) is an American multinational video hosting service, best known for providing music videos to YouTube. The service is also available as an app on selected smart TVs, di ...
, by
Island Def Jam
The Island Def Jam Music Group (IDJMG) was an American recording music unit, formed on New Year's Eve 1998 by the Universal Music Group. It consists of labels devised and consisted under the basic operations of Island Records and Def Jam Recordi ...
on
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, 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 ...
on May 4, 2010.
On May 30, 2011, Love announced on Twitter that a music video for "Samantha" was being recorded. Alongside the announcement, Love also posted a number of pictures from the video shoot on her fashion blog, ''What Courtney Wore Today''.
An unfinished version of the video was leaked on Vimeo on August 27, 2011, but its privacy settings were updated within less than an hour, adding password-protection. The video re-emerged on the website courtney-love.org on September 23, 2011, with Love's blessing, though she has stated it is still unfinished.
External links
*
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Samantha
2010 songs
Hole (band) songs
Songs written by Billy Corgan
Songs written by Linda Perry
Songs written by Courtney Love
Song recordings produced by Michael Beinhorn