History
This song commemorates Studio 54 for its notoriously long customer waiting lines, exclusive clientele, and discourteous doormen. Concerning the history of the song, guitarist Nile Rodgers later stated that the song was devised during New Year's Eve of 1977, as a result of him and bassist Bernard Edwards being refused entrance to Studio 54, where they had been invited by Grace Jones, due to Jones' failure to notify the nightclub's staff. He said the lyrics of the refrain were originally "Fuck off!" rather than "Freak out!"
"Le Freak" was the first song to score the number one position on the Billboard Hot 100 three separate times. This record remained until 2008, when "Bleeding Love" by Leona Lewis became the second track to score number one three times. Later that same year rap artist T.I. tied this record twice with both "Whatever You Like" which he recorded by himself and "Live Your Life" which he recorded with Rihanna. On two of these occasions "Live Your Life" dethroned "Whatever You Like" from the Number One Position. In early 2011, Bruno Mars' "Grenade" also matched this record.
The song is featured in the home edition of Dance Dance Revolution SuperNova 2. It is also featured in the game Just Dance for the Wii. The song is featured in Leisure Suit Larry: Love for Sail! during the fashion show portion of the game. It" was performed on the television program Glee on the episode "Showmance", much to the characters' chagrin.
Most recently, "Le Freak" was cover-versioned by the electronica band Millionaires for the MTV movie Turn The Beat Around. The song can be heard in the 2010 film Diary of a Wimpy Kid in the Mother Son Sweetheart Dance scene. This song was featured in Toy Story 3 while Ken is modeling clothes for Barbie. The song can be heard on Freaky Friday's trailer. The bass line from the song was used by American industrial rock group My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult for their track, 'Waiting for Mommie' on the Confessions of a Knife... album that was released in 1990 by Wax Trax Records.
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Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History is not what you thought. It is what you can remember. All other history defeats itself.
In Beverly Hills ... they don’t throw their garbage away. They make it into television shows.
Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will.”
—Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876)
“I cannot be much pleased without an appearance of truth; at least of possibility—I wish the history to be natural though the sentiments are refined; and the characters to be probable, though their behaviour is excelling.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)
“A poet’s object is not to tell what actually happened but what could or would happen either probably or inevitably.... For this reason poetry is something more scientific and serious than history, because poetry tends to give general truths while history gives particular facts.”
—Aristotle (384–323 B.C.)