"Right Here, Right Now" is a song by British

big beat Big beat is an electronic music genre that usually uses heavy breakbeats and synthesizer-generated loops and patterns – common to acid house/techno. The term has been used by the British music industry to describe music by artists such as the ...

musician

Fatboy Slim Norman Quentin Cook (born Quentin Leo Cook, 31 July 1963), also known as Fatboy Slim, is an English musician and DJ who helped popularise the big beat genre in the 1990s. His music makes extensive use of Sampling (music), samples from eclectic ...

, released on 19 April 1999 as the fourth single from his second studio album, ''

You've Come a Long Way, Baby ''You've Come a Long Way, Baby'' is the second studio album by English electronic music producer Fatboy Slim (Norman Cook). It was first released on 19 October 1998 in the United Kingdom by Skint Records and a day later in the United States by A ...

'' (1998). The song samples "Ashes, the Rain & I" by James Gang, from their 1970 album ''

James Gang Rides Again ''James Gang Rides Again'' (alternatively known as simply ''Rides Again'') is the second studio album by American rock band James Gang. The album was released on the label ABC Records. It is the James Gang's first album to feature bassist Dale Pe ...

'', and an

Angela Bassett Angela Evelyn Bassett (born August 16, 1958) is an American actress. Known for her work in film and television since the 1980s, she has received List of awards and nominations received by Angela Bassett, various accolades, including a Primetime ...

quote from American

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

thriller film Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre. ...

'' Strange Days'' (1995). "Right Here, Right Now" reached number two on the UK Singles Chart and became a top-40 hit in Australia, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, New Zealand, and the Walloon region of Belgium. The song's popularity was spread across Europe through viral use in advertisements by companies such as

Adidas Adidas AG (; stylized in all lowercase since 1949) is a German athletic apparel and footwear corporation headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Bavaria, Germany. It is the largest sportswear manufacturer in Europe, and the second largest in the ...

. It was voted by ''

Mixmag ''Mixmag'' is a British electronic dance and clubbing magazine published in London. Launched in 1983 as a print magazine, it has branched into dance events, including festivals and club nights. History The first issue of ''Mixmag'' was printe ...

'' readers as the 10th-greatest dance record of all time.

Critical reception

The Scottish newspaper '' Daily Record'' called the song "brilliant". In February 2013,

readers voted for it to be number 10 on a list of 50 of the greatest dance tracks.

Music video

The

music video A music video is a video that integrates a song or an album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device intended to ...

for the song, created by Hammer & Tongs, is an elaborate homage to the famous opening sequence of the French educational series '' Once Upon a Time... Man''. It shows a timeline depicting the entire process of

human evolution ''Homo sapiens'' is a distinct species of the hominid family of primates, which also includes all the great apes. Over their evolutionary history, humans gradually developed traits such as Human skeletal changes due to bipedalism, bipedalism, de ...

condensed into three and a half minutes. The beginning of the music video is set "350 billion years ago" and starts with a single-celled

eukaryote The eukaryotes ( ) constitute the Domain (biology), domain of Eukaryota or Eukarya, organisms whose Cell (biology), cells have a membrane-bound cell nucleus, nucleus. All animals, plants, Fungus, fungi, seaweeds, and many unicellular organisms ...

in the ocean transforming into a

jellyfish Jellyfish, also known as sea jellies or simply jellies, are the #Life cycle, medusa-phase of certain gelatinous members of the subphylum Medusozoa, which is a major part of the phylum Cnidaria. Jellyfish are mainly free-swimming marine animal ...

, an aquatic

worm Worms are many different distantly related bilateria, bilateral animals that typically have a long cylindrical tube-like body, no limb (anatomy), limbs, and usually no eyes. Worms vary in size from microscopic to over in length for marine ...

-like creature, a pipefish, a

pufferfish Tetraodontidae is a family of marine and freshwater fish in the order Tetraodontiformes. The family includes many familiar species variously called pufferfish, puffers, balloonfish, blowfish, blowers, blowies, bubblefish, globefish, swellfis ...

, and then a

barracuda A barracuda is a large, predatory, ray-finned, saltwater fish of the genus ''Sphyraena'', the only genus in the family Sphyraenidae, which was named by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque in 1815. It is found in tropical and subtropical oceans worldw ...

-like fish. It manages to eat a smaller fish before leaping up onto dry land. With a tyrannosaur visible in the background and a

mantis Mantises are an order (Mantodea) of insects that contains over 2,400 species in about 460 genera in 33 families. The largest family is the Mantidae ("mantids"). Mantises are distributed worldwide in temperate a ...

in front, it stays still for a few seconds, becoming a primitive

amphibian Amphibians are ectothermic, anamniote, anamniotic, tetrapod, four-limbed vertebrate animals that constitute the class (biology), class Amphibia. In its broadest sense, it is a paraphyletic group encompassing all Tetrapod, tetrapods, but excl ...

-like Tetrapod similar to

Hynerpeton ''Hynerpeton'' ( ) is an extinct genus of early four-limbed vertebrate that lived in the rivers and ponds of Pennsylvania during the Late Devonian period, around 365 to 363 million years ago. The only known species of ''Hynerpeton'' is ''H. basse ...

before setting off and eating the insect, while a

volcano A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most oft ...

erupts in the background. The amphibian transforms into a small

alligator An alligator, or colloquially gator, is a large reptile in the genus ''Alligator'' of the Family (biology), family Alligatoridae in the Order (biology), order Crocodilia. The two Extant taxon, extant species are the American alligator (''A. mis ...

as it enters a forest. It sees a tall tree, which it climbs up. Its body is obscured by the tree as its hands visibly change into those of three different

primates Primates is an order of mammals, which is further divided into the strepsirrhines, which include lemurs, galagos, and lorisids; and the haplorhines, which include tarsiers and simians ( monkeys and apes). Primates arose 74–63 ...

until it arrives at the top as an

ape Apes (collectively Hominoidea ) are a superfamily of Old World simians native to sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia (though they were more widespread in Africa, most of Asia, and Europe in prehistory, and counting humans are found global ...

that vaguely resembles a

chimpanzee The chimpanzee (; ''Pan troglodytes''), also simply known as the chimp, is a species of Hominidae, great ape native to the forests and savannahs of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed one. When its close rel ...

. It jumps from the tree into an icy landscape, enduring a

blizzard A blizzard is a severe Winter storm, snowstorm characterized by strong sustained winds and low visibility, lasting for a prolonged period of time—typically at least three or four hours. A ground blizzard is a weather condition where snow th ...

as it morphs into a larger,

gorilla Gorillas are primarily herbivorous, terrestrial great apes that inhabit the tropical forests of equatorial Africa. The genus ''Gorilla'' is divided into two species: the eastern gorilla and the western gorilla, and either four or five su ...

-like ape. At the end of a large cliff, the ape beats its chest as the camera zooms out to show a vast desert. The ape jumps onto the ground, where it begins running. A large storm blows away much of its hair, turning it into a

hominid The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: '' Pongo'' (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); '' Gorilla'' (the ...

reminiscent of a

homo erectus ''Homo erectus'' ( ) is an extinction, extinct species of Homo, archaic human from the Pleistocene, spanning nearly 2 million years. It is the first human species to evolve a humanlike body plan and human gait, gait, to early expansions of h ...

(at this point, the timer at the bottom right slows dramatically). It runs faster and puts on some

trousers Trousers (British English), slacks, or pants ( American, Canadian and Australian English) are an item of clothing worn from the waist to anywhere between the knees and the ankles, covering both legs separately (rather than with cloth extending ...

and a T-

shirt A shirt is a cloth garment for the upper body (from the neck to the waist). Originally an undergarment worn exclusively by men, it has become, in American English, a catch-all term for a broad variety of upper-body garments and undergarments. ...

with the logo "I'm #1 so why try harder?". When fully clothed, it turns into a modern

human Humans (''Homo sapiens'') or modern humans are the most common and widespread species of primate, and the last surviving species of the genus ''Homo''. They are Hominidae, great apes characterized by their Prehistory of nakedness and clothing ...

with a beard. The man walks through a city environment and eats a

hamburger A hamburger (or simply a burger) consists of fillings—usually a patty of ground meat, typically beef—placed inside a sliced bun or bread roll. The patties are often served with cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, bacon, or chilis ...

(taken from a cardboard cutout of Fatboy Slim himself), he pulls off his facial hair and morphs into the obese character depicted on the cover of the album. He does finally sit down on a bench as night falls, then smiles and leans back to look up as the human star constellation of Orion appears above.

Track listings

UK and Australian CD single; UK 12-inch single # "Right Here, Right Now" # "Don't Forget Your Teeth" # " Praise You" (original version) UK cassette single and European CD single # "Right Here, Right Now" # "Don't Forget Your Teeth"

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

In popular culture

In 2004, then– Leader of the Labour Party

Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He was Leader ...

used the song during a Labour Party conference without Cook's permission, just one year after the start of the

Iraq War The Iraq War (), also referred to as the Second Gulf War, was a prolonged conflict in Iraq lasting from 2003 to 2011. It began with 2003 invasion of Iraq, the invasion by a Multi-National Force – Iraq, United States-led coalition, which ...

. Cook openly opposed its usage, claiming that the usage "implies that I support Blair. Nothing could be further from the truth." On 8 October 2019, Fatboy Slim made a remix of the song using environmental activist

Greta Thunberg Greta Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg (; born 3January 2003) is a Swedish climate activist, climate and political activist initially known for challenging world leaders to take immediate action to climate change mitigation, mitigate the effec ...

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

speech. The song was used for the opening sequence of the pilot episode for the television series ''

Third Watch ''Third Watch'' is an American crime drama television series created by John Wells and Edward Allen Bernero that aired on NBC from September 23, 1999, to May 6, 2005, with a total of 132 episodes spanning over six seasons. It was produced ...

''. It was featured in trailers for ''

The Virgin Suicides ''The Virgin Suicides'' is a coming-of-age thriller novel and the debut novel by American writer Jeffrey Eugenides, published in 1993. The story, which is set in Grosse Pointe, Michigan during the 1970s, centers on the lives of five doomed sis ...

'', '' Crank'', and '' Carnage''.

References

External links

* * {{Authority control 1998 songs 1999 singles Fatboy Slim songs Songs based on speech samples Skint Records singles Songs written by Joe Walsh Songs written by Norman Cook UK Independent Singles Chart number-one singles