"My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up)", also known as simply "Light Em Up", is a song by American
rock band
Fall Out Boy, released as the
lead single for the band's fifth studio album, Save Rock and Roll.[1] It serves as the band's first single following the group's three-year hiatus and regrouping in early 2013.[2] The track and its music video were released on February 4, 2013, worldwide and February 5, 2013, in North America,[3] to coincide with the official news of the band's reformation. The song impacted radio on February 19, 2013.[4] The band members felt that the song best represented their album at its core.
The song's title and principal lyric originate from an unrelated 2004 demo by the band.[5][6] Fall Out Boy performed "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up)" on Jimmy Kimmel Live! for the group's first post-hiatus TV performance on February 13 as well as on various TV shows throughout the entire year, and have extensively played it in acoustic version at radio interviews. Lead vocalist and guitarist
Patrick Stump performed the song as a guest on singer-songwriter
Taylor Swift's
Red Tour on July 13, 2013, and Swift guested in turn with Fall Out Boy on
Victoria's Secret Fashion Show 2013 on November 13, 2013. The song became a staple at several sports-broadcasting soundtracks that year.[7][8]
The music video is part one of The Young Blood Chronicles, a series in which a video was eventually recorded for every song on Save Rock and Roll as part of a narrative. "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up)" was a comeback success, reaching the two million digital downloads mark in July 2013, being the fourth song by Fall Out Boy to do so, and was certified 3× Platinum by the end of the year. It was named by
BBC Radio 1 as one of the "Top 100 Tracks of the Past 5 Years"[9] and No. 1 on
Sirius XM Hits 1's best of 2013 countdown.[10] It reached the top 10 on both
Pop Songs and
Alternative Songs with heavy airplay, and peaked at No. 13 on the
Billboard Hot 100 with twelve consecutive weeks in the top 20.[11]
Composition
Sheet music for the song "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up)" shows the key of
D minor and tempo range of 76 to 80 beats per minute.[12]
Music video
The music video for the song is the first of the Young Blood Chronicles, an ongoing series with the band filming a video for every song on Save Rock and Roll. It begins late at night, with a figure – later revealed to be rapper
2 Chainz – walking away from a black van parked in a forest clearing. He starts a bonfire by pouring gasoline over a wood pile and lighting it up with a match. Two women then exit the van, carrying various musical instruments belonging to Fall Out Boy, among them the band's guitars, a bass, drumsticks and various drums and cymbals, before tossing the items into the fire. The women also throw in amplifiers and Fall Out Boy records such as Take This To Your Grave, From Under the Cork Tree and Live in Phoenix, along with a Fall Out Boy wristband and
Fall Out Toy Works comics. 2 Chainz then uses a flamethrower to hasten the incineration process, while the women return to the van and open its rear doors, revealing four hooded, bound men implied to be Fall Out Boy themselves. The camera then closes in on 2 Chainz's face as he holds up a match and stares at the band menacingly, ending the video.[13]
Fall Out Boy's capture is shown in the music video for the following single, "The Phoenix", released on March 25, 2013.
Critical reception
Jon Dolan of Rolling Stone called the song "a big, goofy, stomp-along
pop-metal anthem".[14] Jason Lipshutz of Billboard described the song as "a natural evolution of the Fall Out Boy sound," adding also that the song is "muscular in scope and jittery in practice, with rolling chants cresting above Stump's nervous energy."[15] Cassie Whitt of Loudwire called the song a "
pop banger".[16] Collin Brennan of Consequence of Sound felt that the song's
hip hop-esque beat set "Light Em Up" apart from the band's earlier material.[17]
Commercial performance
Commercially, "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up)" debuted on charts worldwide with success, reaching in the top five in the United Kingdom, charts the band has previously received success from with singles like "
This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race" and "
Thnks fr th Mmrs".
On the U.S.
Billboard Hot 100, the song debuted at number twenty-six and number eight on the U.S. BillboardRock Songs chart; it reached number two on
iTunes upon its release with 162,000 first-week sales. In its nineteenth week on the chart, it reached a peak of number thirteen on the Hot 100 and number two on the Rock Songs chart (upon Save Rock And Roll's release). The song has sold over 5 million downloads in the United States as of August 2015, the first song by Fall Out Boy to reach this level.[18] "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark" has sold over 600,000 copies in the UK earning a platinum certification by the BPI as of 2023.
The song was featured in the
Xbox One presentation at
E3 2013 as part of a montage showing different community creations for the upcoming video game Project Spark.[24]
"My Song Knows What You Did in the Dark" was featured in the promotional video for the backdoor pilot of The Originals[25] and during the
Starz programming lineup.
The song was also used during Timber Brown's acrobatic act during the quarter-finals on season 8 of America's Got Talent, the show which Fall Out Boy would later perform the song at with "
Alone Together" leading in.[26]
The song was used for the trailer for Disney's Big Hero 6, a film which featured the band's song "
Immortals".[27]
The song was used for the soundtrack to the video games NHL 15 and Guitar Hero Live, the latter appearing as a playable track.[28][29]
The song was used in the video game Fortnite in Fortnite Festival mode.
Remix
A remix, produced by Wonder Arillo, featuring rapper
2 Chainz with hip-hop sound was released on April 3. It was performed live the month before by Fall Out Boy and 2 Chainz at the beginning of the
2013 NBA slam dunk contest.
* Sales figures based on certification alone. ^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. ‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.
^Brennan, Collin (January 15, 2015).
"Album Review: Fall Out Boy – American Beauty/American Psycho". Consequence of Sound. Retrieved February 3, 2023. The video for that album's lead single, "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light 'Em Up)", featured rapper 2 Chainz, and the song's pummeling hip-hop beat threw an odd bone to the jocks who might have relished kicking Fall Out Boy's asses in high school.
^"
ČNS IFPI" (in Czech). Hitparáda – Radio Top 100 Oficiální. IFPI Czech Republic. Note: Change the chart to CZ – RADIO – TOP 100 and insert 201315 into search. Retrieved December 22, 2014.