"Fell in Love with a Girl" is a song by American garage rock revival band The White Stripes. It was written and produced by Jack White for the band's third studio album, White Blood Cells (2001). Released as the album's second single in 2002, it reached number twenty-one on both the U.S. Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles and the UK Singles Chart. The song was covered in 2003 as "Fell in Love with a Boy" by Joss Stone and as a lounge song by Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine for their second album, Tuxicity (2002). It was also included on a polka medley by "Weird Al" Yankovic, "Angry White Boy Polka", from his 2003 album Poodle Hat.

The April issue of Rolling Stone magazine listed the song as one of the forty songs that changed rock history.

Music video

The music video is a Lego animation directed by Michel Gondry. It was shot frame by frame with each frame having the Lego bricks rebuilt, sometimes in a complex manner to seem as if it were an actual shot, and then formed together to give the illusion of motion. The video mostly consists of red, white, and black color.

In an interview for the The Work of Director Michel Gondry DVD, Jack stated that the White Stripes' long-time collaboration with Michel Gondry started by accident; for "Fell in Love with a Girl", Jack stated that he wanted to work with the director who did Beck's video for "Devils Haircut", referring to Mark Romanek. Their record company mistakenly hired Gondry, thinking he was the director of "Devils Haircut". Jack didn't mind, as he also did the video for Beck's "Deadweight", which Jack also liked.

Also revealed in The Work of Director Michel Gondry interview, The White Stripes contacted Lego Group in hopes of having a small Lego set packaged with each single of the record, with which one could build a Lego version of Jack and Meg White. Lego Group refused, saying: "We don't market our product to people over the age of twelve." Once the video became a hit, however, Lego contacted The White Stripes again and asked if they could reconstruct the deal to have lego packaged with the single. This time, however, Jack White refused, out of anger.

The The Work of Director Michel Gondry DVD also reveals that one section, lasting only a few seconds, used computer animation to simulate the Lego bricks.

The video won three MTV Video Music Awards in 2002: Breakthrough Video, Best Special Effects, and Best Editing. It also received a nomination for Video of the Year, but lost out to Eminem's "Without Me".

Track listing

CD single

1. "Fell in Love with a Girl"
2. "Let's Shake Hands"
3. "Lafayette Blues"CD single (UK Version - Part 2)^*
4. "Fell in Love with a Girl"
5. "Lovesick" (Live at the Forum, London 6^th December 2001)
6. "I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself" (Live at BBC Radio-1 Evening Session)^**

The single comes with a multimedia section featuring the "Fell in Love with a Girl" video. ^*Part 1 with the identical track listing as the US Version.7" single

1. "Fell in Love with a Girl"
2. "I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself" (Live at BBC Radio-1 Evening Session)^**

^**This is the same recording of the song that would one year later be an album track on Elephant and eventually be released as a single.

Charts

Chart (2004)	Peak position
UK Singles Chart	21
U.S. Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles	21
U.S. Billboard Modern Rock Tracks	12

Joss Stone version

In 2003, English soul singer Joss Stone covered the song, retitled as "Fell in Love with a Boy", for her debut album The Soul Sessions (2003). It was released in early 2004 as the album's lead single.

Track listings and formats

UK CD single

1. "Fell in Love with a Boy" (Radio Version) – 2:25
2. "Victim of a Foolish Heart" (Live at Ronnie Scott's, London, November 25, 2003) – 6:25European CD single
3. "Fell in Love with a Boy" (Radio Version) – 2:25
4. "Victim of a Foolish Heart" (Live at Ronnie Scott's, London, November 25, 2003) – 6:25
5. "Fell in Love with a Boy" (Acoustic Version) – 3:30UK 7" single

Side A:

1. "Fell in Love with a Boy" (Radio Version) – 2:25

Side B:

1. "Super Duper Love (Are You Diggin' on Me?) Pt. 1" – 4:20UK and U.S. promo CD single
2. "Fell in Love with a Boy" (Radio Version) – 2:25

Personnel

Musicians

• Joss Stone – lead vocals
• Angie Stone – backing vocals
• Betty Wright – backing vocals
• Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson – drums
• Kirk Douglas – guitar
• Adam Blackstone – bass
• James Poyser – keyboard
• Kamal – keyboard

Production

• Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson – producer
• Betty Wright – producer
• Mike Mangini – producer
• Steve Greenberg – producer
• Steve Greenwell – engineer, mixing

Charts

Chart (2004)	Peak position
Argentina Top 40	1
Eurochart Hot 100 Singles	71
Euro 200	62
German Airplay Chart	66
Irish Singles Chart	46
Italian FIMI Singles Chart	36
New Zealand RIANZ Singles Chart	23
UK Singles Chart	18

References