"Sour Girl" is a song by the American rock band Stone Temple Pilots. It was written by singer Scott Weiland and guitarist Dean DeLeo and released as the second single from the band's fourth studio album, No. 4 (1999). "Sour Girl" was one of the band's most successful singles, and their only song to chart on the Billboard Hot 100.

Background

Scott Weiland talked about the song in his autobiography Not Dead & Not for Sale: ""Everyone is convinced that it's about my romance with Mary [Forsberg, second wife]," "But everyone is wrong. 'Sour Girl' was written after the collapse of my relationship with Jannina [sic]. It's about her. 'She was a sour girl the day that she met me,' I wrote. 'She was a happy girl the day she left me… I was a superman, but looks are deceiving. The rollercoaster ride's a lonely one. I pay a ransom note to stop it from steaming.' The ransom note, of course, was the fortune our divorce was costing me. And the happy state, which I presumed to be Jannina's [sic] mood, was because she had finally rid her life of a man who had never been faithful."" "Sour Girl" also appears on the compilation albums Thank You and Buy This. It is the only Stone Temple Pilots song to reach the Billboard Hot 100, where it peaked at number 78.

Music video

A music video was released to accompany this single and stars Sarah Michelle Gellar, who was a fan of the band, as the female lead. At the time the video was made, Gellar was a popular star thanks to her TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and her movies Cruel Intentions and I Know What You Did Last Summer. The video was directed by David Slade, whose later work includes episodes of Hannibal, and the movie The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. The video was nominated for Best Cinematography on MTV Video Music Awards in 2000.

Track listing

Charts

"Sour Girl" was one of STP's biggest hits since the Core and Purple era of the early 1990s. Billboard ranked "Sour Girl" at #88 on its list of the 100 Best Rock Songs of the 2000s. The song peaked at number four on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart and number three on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart. To date, this remains to be the band's only entry on the Hot 100.

Awards