"Selfish Jean" is a song by

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

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 Travis, released as the second single from their fifth studio album, ''

The Boy with No Name ''The Boy with No Name'' is the fifth studio album by Scottish rock band Travis. The album was released on 7 May 2007 through Epic Records. This is Travis first album in which other members contributed to songwriting, rather than the frontman F ...

'' on 9 July 2007.

Lyrics

The title of the song is a reference to ''

The Selfish Gene ''The Selfish Gene'' is a 1976 book on evolution by the ethologist Richard Dawkins, in which the author builds upon the principal theory of George C. Williams's ''Adaptation and Natural Selection'' (1966). Dawkins uses the term "selfish gene ...

'', a popular science book about evolution by

Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An ath ...

. The song was written by Fran Healy in 2005 in his apartment in New York, and was demoed using Healy's own computer. He sampled the drum intro from the

Iggy Pop James Newell Osterberg Jr. (born April 21, 1947), known professionally as Iggy Pop, is an American singer, musician, songwriter and actor. Called the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Godfather of Punk", he was the vocalist and lyricist of ...

song " Lust For Life", looped it to create a basic rhythm, and then played the song and recorded vocals over the top of the rhythm track. The demo was then taken to Travis drummer Neil Primrose as an example of what to play, and thus, the song exists in its current form. The lyrics for the song's bridge are taken directly from an earlier B-side, "Standing On My Own", which appeared on the 1997 single " Tied to the 90s".

Background

The single found its way onto the

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playlist, receiving around twenty plays per week. Even though it charted at a relatively disappointing No. 30 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 ...

, it is a song much loved by Travis fans and is performed at a majority of Travis concerts. B-sides for the single include the newly written song "You Bring Me Down", as well as two Squeeze covers—" Is That Love" and " Pulling Mussels (From the Shell)". It currently remains, , their last UK Top 40 hit.

Music video

The music video was released on the band's MySpace page Travis' Myspace page
/ref> before the release of ''

''. Directed by American comedian

Demetri Martin Demetri Evan Martin ( el, Δημήτριος Ευάγγελος Μάρτιν, ''Dimitrios Evangelos Martin''; born May 25, 1973) is an American comedian, actor, writer, director, cartoonist and musician. He was a contributor on ''The Daily Show'' ...

, the video features Martin who begins by wearing 19 T-shirts with words and pictures to illustrate lyrics from the song, removing them to progressively reveal the T-shirts underneath. Some of these T-shirts have been recreated for sale: 'Aaaaahh... Selfish Jean', stretching from the back and rotating around to the front, and 'Art, Music,

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s', with additional tick boxes, which have been very popular among fans.

Track listing

* UK CD Single # "Selfish Jean" - 4:00 # "You Bring Me Down" - 3:23 # "Selfish Jean" (Video) * 7" Vinyl #1 # "Selfish Jean" - 4:00 # "Is That Love" - 4:18 * 7" Vinyl #2 # "Selfish Jean" - 4:00 # "Pulling Mussels (From The Shell)" - 2:43 * European Single # "Selfish Jean" - 4:00 # "You Bring Me Down" - 3:23 # "Is That Love" - 4:18 # "Pulling Mussels (From The Shell)" - 2:43 # "Selfish Jean" (Video)

Charts

References

{{Authority control 2007 singles Travis (band) songs Songs written by Fran Healy (musician) Song recordings produced by Nigel Godrich 2007 songs Independiente (record label) singles