THE 1000 BEST SONGS IN THE WORLD EVER.

53-Chemical Brothers-Hey Boy Hey Girl.

1999-Number 3 single.

Best Bit-At 0.49. There are only nine words in this song, and the betting is that you’ve been getting them wrong all these years.

In Pop music the mishearing of lyrics is very commonplace (see also best songs 502) for probably the most famous of them. Because of this songs title you probably hear ‘Hey girl hey boy,’ but what is actually being sung is ‘Hey girl ‘B’ boy.’ A ‘B’ boy is someone who does breakdancing, which is an athletic style of ‘Street Dance’ which originated outside of dance studios, in any available open spaces such as parks and schoolyards. Breakdancing originated in the early 1970’s in New York City, and by the early 1980’s has become heavily associated with ‘Hip-Hop’ music.

The Chemical Brothers (see also best songs 300) were formed in Manchester, England, in 1989 by Tom Rowlands, and Ed Simons, they write and play ‘Electronic Music’ which incorporates the genres of ‘Big Beat,’ ‘Techno,’ Trip Hop,’ and ‘House Music.’ The discography of the Chemical Brothers includes nine studio Albums released between 1995-2019, of which six have reached the Number 1 spot in the UK, and 35 singles, of which 16 have made the top 40, with two of those singles making Number 1. They have also issued seven extended plays, (EP’s) with their 1996 ‘Loops of Fury’ EP, charting at Number 13 for one week, before leaving the chart the following week. In America on Billboard three of their Albums have reached the top 40, with ‘Did Your Own Hole’ from 1997 charting the highest at Number 14, while on the Billboard Hot 100 singles, only ‘Setting Sun’ featuring Noel Gallagher from 1996 has bothered the chart, when peaking at Number 80. The Chemical Brothers are also much sought after for remixing other artists songs, and their are currently 39 official remixes (some with more than one mix per release) available from artists of differing genres including Oasis, Daft Punk, and Mary J Blige.

‘Hey Boy Hey Girl’ has seven songwriting credits, including Tom Rowlands, and Ed Simons. This is due to the tracks sampling of the 1984 ‘Old School’ Hip-Hop song ‘The Roof is on Fire,’ from ‘Rock Master Scott & the Dynamic Three,’ this is where the repeated vocal ‘Hey girls B boys superstar DJ’s here we go’ is taken from. The song was also produced by the Chemical Brothers, and was the first of four singles released from the Chemical Brothers third studio Album ‘Surrender’ from June 1999. The songs other major sample is the track ‘I Sit on Acid,’ from 1991, from ‘Lords on Acid,’ That bands founding member, who is the Belgium Electronic musician ‘Praga Khan’ confronted the Chemical Brothers over the drum programming used in ‘Hey Boy Hey Girl,’ which he claimed was identical to ‘I Sit on Acid.’ The Chemical Brothers response was,’Everyone steals from everyone.’

‘Hey girl, B boy. Superstar DJ’s, here we go.’