Sail (song)

"Sail" is an electronic rock[3][4] and alternative rock[5] song. It has also been noted as featuring "industrial-tinged electropop".[6] While band frontman Aaron Bruno has never spoken directly concerning what "Sail" is about, in a 2016 interview, he recalls contemplating that perhaps people needed a different, darker sort of song than some of the more happier ones that were on the radio stating, "I remember playing the song for a producer friend of mine, and he told me everything was great, but I needed a chorus." Bruno then tried to write a chorus, but failed to achieve what he thought the song needed.[7] The song's synth-bass part was created on a ATC-1 Tone Chameleon, an external rackmount synthesizer that recreates classic synth sounds such as the Minimoog.[8]

The video for "Sail" opens with lead singer Aaron Bruno running to a house. He enters the house relieved to have escaped from the threat outside. He shuts the blinds. Bruno then finds a tape recorder and starts singing into it. He enters a bathroom and looks into a mirror, still singing. A green strip of light enters the house and moves across it, scanning a spacesuit helmet and a military flight-suit. As the light climbs up the stairs towards him, Bruno hides inside a full bathtub. The beam scans him in the bath. Bruno is then depicted being pulled across the floor by an unknown force; he attempts to cling to a door-frame, but loses his grip. The scene is interspersed with shots of Bruno closing a door and playing the song's piano section. As the song's final chorus section begins, the house shakes. Lights and lamps turn on and off as gusts of wind blow. Bruno is pulled by the mysterious force outside the house, and he is subsequently levitated up into the sky as a set of floodlights flash on him. He drops the tape recorder.

A video recorded by YouTuber Nanalew has over 370 million views, in comparison to the group's own video which has just under 200 million. On January 28, 2015, Nanalew's video was blocked from YouTube due to copyright issues, but returned several days later. A few months later, Nanalew took the video down again herself. She wrote on her Facebook page, "For the last few years, Red Bull Records has been claiming all the earnings for the video. They'd agreed to work with me on a mutually beneficial partnership (including possible compensation for my video), but nothing has come through."[9] The unofficial music video[10] is back on Nanalew's original channel and the description has been revised.

In July 2010, Austin DJ Toby Ryan premiered the song on KROX-FM and the response from the listeners was positive.[11]

"Sail" debuted at number 89 on the United States Billboard Hot 100 singles chart on the week of September 3, 2011.[12] The single spent 20 weeks on the chart before dropping out following the issue date of January 14, 2012.[13] It eventually re-entered in mid-2013;[14] its use in various television shows and advertisements exposed the song to a wider audience.[15] Following its appearance in a History Channel trailer promoting Vikings, weekly downloads "more than tripled".[16] The song has since spent more than a year on the chart and peaked at number 17 on the Hot 100 in its fifty-sixth week on the chart, two years after its initial debut.[17] "Sail" was certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America in June 2013,[18] and as of May 2017, it has sold over 6.1 million copies in the US.[19]

"Sail" also peaked at number five on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart in 2011. The song was featured in the introduction of the 2012 film Disconnect. Due to its extremely unusual longevity, it has become the only song in the history of the Hot 100 to spend a year on the chart without entering the top 20 first.

In Australia and New Zealand, the song peaked in September 2013, reaching number 27 on the Australian Music Chart,[20] and number 33 on the New Zealand Music Chart.[21] In the United Kingdom, the song peaked at number 17 on the UK Singles Chart in January 2014.[22]

In an interview in late 2016, Bruno said that he has gotten used to the fact that "Sail" was able to sell so many copies, but for a while, he felt like he didn't deserve it. "Finally at a certain point, you realize 'well I did write the song', and I've become used to it to a certain degree, but more than anything I feel like sort of a messenger of some greater methods that was meant to be heard by people in general."[7]

• Digital download (United States)[28]

1. "Sail" – 4:19
2. "Sail" (Innerpartysystem Remix) – 5:26
3. "Sail" (Dan the Automator Remix) – 4:34
4. "Sail" (Unlimited Gravity Remix) – 5:49

Sourced from the original album liner notes

Awolnation

• Aaron Bruno - lead and backing vocals, synthesizers, piano, bass guitar, drums, string arrangement
• Christopher Thorn - electric guitar

Additional musicians

• Billy Mohler - bass guitar
• Brad Smith - whistling

• Music video