"Fireflies" is the debut single from American electronica project Owl City's album Ocean Eyes. Frontman Adam Young wrote the track about seeing fireflies in his hometown of Owatonna, Minnesota while he was awake with insomnia. Young produced the song alongside Matt Thiessen; the latter also provided guest vocals. The song is built around a "bleepy" synthline and includes lyrics about insomnia, fireflies and summer. The song topped the Billboard Hot 100 for two non-consecutive weeks. Internationally, the song also topped the charts in Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Ireland, Sweden and the United Kingdom. "Fireflies" was Owl City's only top forty hit in the United States until three years later when "Good Time", a duet with Canadian singer Carly Rae Jepsen, charted at No. 8. It has been covered by Christina Grimmie, Cheryl Cole and others. "Fireflies" is featured in the video game Disney Sing It: Party Hits, and was used in the promotional video for EyePet. It is available as downloadable content for Guitar Hero 5, Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock and Rock Band 3. The song was released as a free download on the game Tap Tap Revenge 3 by Tapulous.

Background and release

"Fireflies" was posted onto Spinner and Spin as part of a single-a-month campaign. According to Owl City's manager Steve Bursky, the song was not intended to be released as a single, however he stated, "it was an opportunity we couldn't pass up." Due to its digital success, the song was sent to alternative radio by the end of July. The track was later sent to contemporary hit radio.

Composition

"Fireflies" is centered on Young's struggle with insomnia; he first developed the song "awake in the early hours of the morning" to occupy his mind. It was also inspired by a camping trip he took up to a "totally rustic and kind of remote lake in northern Minnesota"; he tried to emulate the experience of seeing a meteor shower that gave him "a cool idea of shooting stars being fireflies." Young was living with his parents, and recorded most of the song in their unfinished basement. The song is layered with dozens of instrumental tracks, including its drum loop, piano, organ, synthesizer, vibraphone, violin, viola, and cello, which was performed by a cellist Young hired. He recorded electric guitar overlays for the second and third choruses but did not own an amplifier, so he plugged the instrument directly into his computer. The song features guest vocals from Matt Thiessen of Relient K, who Young had been a fan of since he was in high school. The song's BPM count is 90, and its key is E♭ Major.

Critical reception

"Fireflies" was generally well received by music critics. Ben Sheehan of Billboard called the track, "a welcome refreshment." Praising the song for being "uniquely constructed," he also added, "it's the pianos and guitars that really crack the song wide open." In another positive review, Nick Levine of Digital Spy remarked, "there's nothing twee or cutesy about the socking great chorus Young unleashes here." Caroline Sullivan at The Guardian called the tune "unfeasibly bouncy". Bill Lamb of About.com remarked, "The power in 'Fireflies' is not simply in its whimsy. Creative musical arrangements distinguish Owl City from a crowd of solo musical projects." AltSounds stated that the song is, "simply built up with a calm, gentle automated vocal alongside some dreamy pimples of teen fantasy." Ben Sisario of The New York Times described the track as "pensive yet bubbly." The song was widely compared to the music of synth-pop duo the Postal Service; Young denied it was his goal to emulate their sound or vocalist Ben Gibbard. Ian Cohen of Pitchfork called it an extraordinarily "obvious" lift of their sound. Gabriela Tully Claymore, writing for Stereogum in 2017, remembered it as "diet Postal Service". The CBC called the track a "soppy ballad," criticizing the song's arrangement and lyrics.

Chart performance

"Fireflies", when featured as iTunes' free "Single of the Week," garnered 650,000 downloads, influencing Universal Republic to move Ocean Eyes' release date from September 1, 2009, to July 28. The song debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 in early-September at No. 97. The song reached No. 1 during its tenth week, becoming Owl City's first No. 1 single and shifting 200,000 digital copies that week. The song stayed at No. 1 for two non-consecutive weeks, in the top ten for fifteen weeks and on the Hot 100 for 31 weeks. "Fireflies" contributed to sales of the album Ocean Eyes, and was credited as being responsible for its entry to the top ten on the U.S. Billboard 200. The song became one of the top 10 best-selling songs of 2009 in the US with 2,748,000 digital units sold by the end of that year. On the Billboard Hot 100 2009 year-end chart, it was ranked sixtieth. On the Billboard Hot 100 2010 year-end chart, it was ranked thirtieth. The RIAA certified "Fireflies" 3× Platinum in June 2010. On January 25, 2023, the song was certified Diamond by the RIAA denoting sales of 10 million units. The song became the 99th song in history to become certified Diamond by the RIAA. The song attained success worldwide. In the United Kingdom, the song entered at No. 50 on the UK Singles Chart. The song would go on to make a 48-place jump to number two the following week, beaten only to the top by "Replay" by Iyaz. The following week, it rose to number one and topped the chart for three consecutive weeks. On January 2, 2011, it was revealed that "Fireflies" was the 20th most downloaded song of all time in the UK. As of September 2017, the song has sold over 844,000 copies in the UK. In Australia, the song entered at No. 38 and on the week of January 10, 2010, it topped the chart. The song sold over 37,354 copies in Australia. It was the second most-played song on Australian radio in 2010, according to the Phonographic Performance Company of Australia. In Japan, the song peaked at No. 3 and was ranked sixteenth on the 2010 year-end chart. It reached No. 1 in Denmark, Ireland, Sweden, Australia, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands (for 10 weeks) and the top ten in Austria, Belgium, Canada, Poland, Finland, Germany, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, and Switzerland. As of September 2012, the song sold over 5 million copies worldwide.

Music video

The music video for "Fireflies" premiered on July 21, 2009 and was directed by Steve Hoover. It features Adam Young playing the song on a Lowrey spinet organ in a toy-filled bedroom, where most of the toys (including Robie Sr.; a Tyrannosaurus rex; a Speak & Spell; toy cars, including one based on the UK children's TV character Brum; and a blimp) come to life. Most of the toys are older model toys, with most of them from the 1970s and 1980s (the exceptions being a RoboSapien and a Roboraptor). There are also vintage household devices such as a black-and-white television and a record player. As the song begins, Young presses a "magic" button on the organ's control panel, turning on various lamps and lanterns throughout the room, some shaped uniquely (e.g., one shaped like a lemon, and one like a hot-air balloon). The toys become sentient during the second verse, moving faster and more erratically as the song progresses towards the end. Once Young presses the "magic" button again, the toys deactivate and the room goes dark. The video ends with Young turning off his organ as the camera fades to black. The music video gained rotation on VH1 and MTV. As of July 2024 the music video had accumulated 540 million views on YouTube.

Legacy

"Fireflies" was an inescapable hit; Spin columnist Rob Arcand wrote that the tune "cascaded throughout the world, inescapable in public spaces in the years that followed. Something about its mawkish, saccharine lyrics were so flawlessly inoffensive as to make it the perfect song for light-rock radio, and the track rippled through airwaves in malls, airports, commercials, and public transit until even the most earnest fans grew a little tired."

Internet meme

In May 2017, the song was repurposed as an Internet meme, usually involving the song being played at an extremely loud volume or being remixed to fit a certain theme. Another variant of the meme involved writing a pun for the line "You would not believe your eyes, if ten million fireflies". The song received further notability in June when Owl City was asked to interpret the lyric "I get a thousand hugs from 10,000 lightning bugs." Following its virality as an internet meme, the song re-entered the Billboard charts at number eight on the US Rock Streaming Songs chart.

Awards and nominations

Track listing

Personnel

Owl City Additional musicians and production

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

Release history