"Waitin' for a Superman" (subtitled "Is It Gettin' Heavy??" for the song's U.S. album release) is a song by

The Flaming Lips The Flaming Lips are an American psychedelic rock band formed in 1983 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The band currently consists of Wayne Coyne (vocals, guitars, bass, keyboards), Steven Drozd (guitars, bass, keyboards, drums, vocals), Derek Brown ...

, released as the second single taken from their 1999 album ''

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'', and reaching No. 73 in the UK Singles Chart. During a live performance in Dublin in April 2025, singer Wayne Coyne explained that the song was inspired by a childhood friend who died of leukemia aged 10.

Single release

The b-sides of the UK release complete the 4-CD set for "Thirty-Five Thousand Feet of Despair" and "Riding to Work in the Year 2025." The first two CD parts for these songs can be found on the two UK " Race for the Prize" singles."Waitin' for a Superman" at the Flaming Lips' official website
/ref> The U.S. release features material from the UK release of " Race for the Prize." The song was also released by UK band

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has been known to cover this song live.

Coldplay Coldplay are a British Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1997. They consist of vocalist and pianist Chris Martin, guitarist Jonny Buckland, bassist Guy Berryman, drummer and percussionist Will Champion, and manager Phil Harvey (band m ...

covered the song live at a show in Oklahoma, the home state of the Flaming Lips, on the

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in 2008.

Iron & Wine Samuel Ervin Beam (born July 26, 1974), better known by his stage name Iron & Wine, is an American singer-songwriter. He has released six studio albums, several EPs and singles, as well as a few download-only releases, which include a live alb ...

included an acoustic cover of the song on the album "

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" in 2009.

Scott Weiland Scott Richard Weiland (, ; né Kline; October 27, 1967 – December 3, 2015) was an American singer and songwriter. He was best known as the lead vocalist of the rock band Stone Temple Pilots from 1989 to 2003 and again from 2008 to 2013, r ...

covered the song on the album " A Compilation of Scott Weiland Cover Songs" in 2011.

Track listing

;US CD # "Waitin' for a Superman (Is It Gettin' Heavy??)" (Radio edit) # "Waitin' for a Superman" (Album version) # "Waitin' for a Superman" ( Mokran remix) # "Thirty-Five Thousand Feet of Despair" (Stereo remix) # "Riding to Work in the Year 2025 (Your Invisible Now) (Stereo remix) #

QuickTime QuickTime (or QuickTime Player) is an extensible multimedia architecture created by Apple, which supports playing, streaming, encoding, and transcoding a variety of digital media formats. The term ''QuickTime'' also refers to the QuickTime Pla ...

-accessible music videos for "Waitin' for a Superman", " Race for the Prize", and "Be My Head". ;UK CD1 # "Waitin' for a Superman" (Radio edit) # "Riding to Work in the Year 2025 (Your Invisible Now)" (From ''Zaireeka'' CD No.3) # "Thirty-Five Thousand Feet of Despair" (From ''Zaireeka'' CD No.3) ;UK CD2 # "Waitin' for a Superman" (Radio edit) # "Riding to Work in the Year 2025 (Your Invisible Now)" (From ''Zaireeka'' CD No.4) # "Thirty-Five Thousand Feet of Despair" (From ''Zaireeka'' CD No.4)

Chart performance

References

1999 singles The Flaming Lips songs 1999 songs Warner Records singles Songs written by Michael Ivins Songs written by Steven Drozd Songs written by Wayne Coyne {{2000s-indie-rock-song-stub