"Hey, Soul Sister" is a song by American rock band Train. It was written by lead singer Pat Monahan, Amund Bjørklund, and Espen Lind. It was released as the lead single from the band's fifth studio album, Save Me, San Francisco (2009).
The song reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and is Train's highest-charting song to date. It was the top-selling song on the iTunes Store in 2010, and the second overall best-selling song in the US in 2010.What Santa Brought by Paul Grein in Chart Watch It is also the band's most commercially successful single to date, reaching number one in 16 countries. The single received a 11× platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on October 5, 2022, signifying sales of over eleven million copies. It was also certified 15× Platinum in Australia and Diamond in Canada. The live iTunes version of "Hey, Soul Sister" garnered a Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards. The song was not eligible for any Grammy Award in the General Field.
Background After collaborating with the Norwegian production duo Espionage (Espen Lind and Amund Bjørklund) in the writing and recording of the track "Brick by Brick", Train's lead singer Pat Monahan decided to record another track with the duo. He initially wanted to write a song in the style of INXS, and requested that the Norwegian duo play that type of song; from their performance, he wrote the lyrics and melodies for a song that was eventually titled "Hey, Soul Sister". However, he was not satisfied until Lind recommended a ukulele, which, in Monahan's mind, "made my words dance". Lead guitarist Jimmy Stafford had to learn to play the ukulele with lessons on the internet, having to adapt to a "flamenco style" of playing as opposed to the pick-heavy method of a normal guitar."Train adds ukulele to make 'Hey, Soul Sister' a chart topper" by Dave Richards, posted November 7, 2009 The lyrics came about from Monahan imagining what the Burning Man, which he never went, must be like, envisioning attractive women dancing around the huge wooden man."Q&A with Train." by Annie Reuter, posted October 28, 2009"Train Visits The Buzz Studios!" by Sheryl Stewart, posted December 22, 2009"Train frontman tells story behind 'Hey, Soul Sister'" , posted August 23, 2010
Composition For the song, the band returned to their folk rock roots emphasizing, "super catchy riffs and melodies" over production gimmicks. The song is characterized by a signature pattern played by Espen Lind on a ukulele. Its chorus references the band Mr. Mister.
Critical reception "Hey, Soul Sister" received mixed reviews from critics.
The Village Voice derided the song, quipping "'Hey Soul Sister' is an orgy where bad ideas trade STDs, and the most syphilitic brain-fart stumbled in drunk from a Smash Mouth show ... From Smash Mouth, Train picked up an earworm that burrowed into society's asshole, laid 4.7 million iTunes eggs, and gave birth to a grey cloud of banality that covers the Earth." Mother Jones concurred with the Village Voice, approvingly quoting from the Village Voices review that "there is less soul in the entirety of Train than in the palest single member of Collective Soul. 'Hey, Soul Sister' is soul for people who refer to peanut butter and jelly as 'soul food.' It makes the California Raisins look like the second coming of Sly and the Family Stone. It's so white, Sarah Palin just named it her running mate for 2012."
In a tamer review, Business Insider named "Hey, Soul Sister" the worst song of 2010 describing it as a "saccharine, falsettoed ear-bleeder." LA Weekly took aim at Pat Monahan's lyrical content, awarding "Hey, Soul Sister" places two through ten in its Top 10 worst lyrics of 2010 list.
Alternatively, Scott Mervis, writing for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, praised the song as a welcome comeback from the band's hiatus, calling the track "joyous" and "bouncy".
Music video The video was filmed in front of Chango Coffee at the corner of Morton Ave and Echo Park Ave. in Echo Park, Los Angeles, California. The video intercuts images of Train singing with a woman (Kiana Bessa Chastain) walking around her apartment and a man (actor Andrew Craghan) painting the words to the song on the landscape. Eventually the two meet each other in the street in front of the band.
Appearances in other media
Train performed the song on the show Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld on Fox News which aired during the early morning broadcast on April 20, 2010. They have also performed the song on numerous talk shows, including The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Live with Regis and Kelly, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Lopez Tonight, and The Howard Stern Show. They also performed the song before the 2010 Major League Baseball Home Run Derby on ESPN. Train performed the song at Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve in 2011.
It has also been featured in several TV shows: CSI: NY in the episode "Second Chances", Hellcats in its first episode, and Medium in chapter 6x03 "Pain Killer". It has also been played in the Canadian TV show Being Erica, in chapter 3x11. "Hey, Soul Sister" can also be heard on "Ko'olauloa", the sixth episode of the rebooted Hawaii Five-0, where it was sung and played live by Aidan James.
The song was performed on ABC's Dancing with the Stars on May 4, 2010, and on America's Got Talent on July 21, 2010. A cover of the song was also performed by "Munch's Make Believe Band," the animatronic show located at Chuck E. Cheese's restaurants. The Dixie Chicks covered this song while on their 2010 tour with The Eagles.
In Fox's TV musical-comedy series Glee the song was covered in the ninth episode of season two, "Special Education" (aired November 30, 2010), by actor Darren Criss (as his character Blaine Anderson) singing the solo in a performance with the fictional show choir Dalton Academy Warblers (voiced by all-male a cappella group Beelzebubs).
"Hey, Soul Sister" was also covered by 2010 X Factor Australia winner Altiyan Childs for his self-titled debut album. Also in Australia, it was performed by Robbie Anderson on The Voice Kids. The song was performed by Street Corner Symphony on the second season of the television show The Sing-Off during episode 2: "Songs From The Past 5 Years". In 2010, the dance troupe from Strictly Come Dancing performed a quickstep to the song and it was used in a Samsung 3D TV commercial. It was also used by Spanish telecommunications company Movistar in commercials from their Latin America operations in 2010.
In October 2024, the American TV series Saturday Night Live spoofed the song in a sketch titled "Forbidden Romance", where a white man in the 1950s (portrayed by Andrew Dismukes) performs the song in an attempt to convince his racist parents to approve of his engagement to a black woman (portrayed by Ego Nwodim). His parents are won over, but the woman's family, who had previously approved of the relationship, find the song so cringe-worthy that they revoke their approval, to which the woman agrees and dumps him.
Chart performance "Hey, Soul Sister" debuted at #98 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the week ended October 17, 2009, becoming their first charting single in five years. On the week of January 30, 2010, in its 16th week on the Hot 100 chart, "Hey, Soul Sister" leaped to #7 from #23 on an 81% digital single sales increase from the previous week, thus becoming Train's second career Top Ten hit on the chart. It reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the week of April 10, 2010, and it is their highest on the chart to date, even surpassing their 2001 hit, "Drops of Jupiter", which peaked at #5. The song climbed to #1 on the Hot Digital Songs chart for the week of April 10, 2010, and stayed in the top spot for three weeks. As of the January 20, 2011, issue of Billboard, "Hey, Soul Sister" had spent 22 weeks at number one on the Adult Contemporary chart.
The single sold 687,000 copies in 2009 which made it that year's #131 song. It went on to sell 3,319,000 more units in the first half of 2010 and 42 weeks after its release still stood at number 16 on the Hot 100 chart. By the end of December 2010, it had sold 4,310,000 digital copies, becoming the second biggest selling digital song of that year. By the end of January 2011, it had sold over 5 million digital copies. As of January 2014, the song had sold 6,417,000 digital units in the United States, one of the biggest-selling digital singles by a rock band since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking download sales in 2003.
BNA Records, a country music label owned by Sony Music, released the song to the country music format in June 2010. It debuted at #60 on the Hot Country Songs charts for the week ended July 10, 2010.
In addition to revitalizing Train's career in their native country, "Hey, Soul Sister" topped the ARIA Singles Chart for four weeks, the Dutch Top 40 for seven, and the Irish Singles Chart. The song was the best performer on the Dutch Top 40 of 2010. In Italy and New Zealand, "Hey, Soul Sister" was blocked from number one by songs recorded by artists native to each country: "Un colpo all'anima" by Ligabue in the former, and "You Got Me" by J. Williams in the latter.
On April 24, 2010, "Hey, Soul Sister" debuted on the UK Singles Chart at #64, marking the band's first appearance on the chart since "She's On Fire" in 2001. The song spent 21 weeks in the top 40 and only one in the top-20, its peak position of number 18. In Canada, the song was the sixth-best-selling of 2010 with 244,000 copies.
Track listingCD single "Hey, Soul Sister" – 3:36 "The Finish Line" (Patrick Monahan, Sacha Skarbek) – 3:46Digital download – remixes''' "Hey, Soul Sister" (Karmatronic Radio Edit) – 3:40 "Hey, Soul Sister" (Karmatronic Club Mix) – 6:45 "Hey, Soul Sister" (Karmatronic Instrumental) – 6:45 "Hey, Soul Sister" (Karmatronic Performance) - 3:23 Hey, Soul Sister'' (Psyrex Remix) - 3:42
Credits and personnel Recording Recorded at Kensaltown Recording Studios, London, England, Quad Studios, New York City and at Sound City Studios, Los Angeles, California, United States Mixed at Indian River Studios, Merritt Island, Florida, United States Mastered at Sterling Sound, New York City, New York, United States
Personnel
Pat Monahan – songwriter, vocals Espen Lind – songwriter, producer, recording, ukulele, keyboards Amund Bjørklund – songwriter, producer, recording Martin Terefe – producer, bass Gregg Wattenberg – additional producer Dyre Gormsen – recording Bryan Cook – recording Ross Petersen – recording Iain Hill – assistant engineer
Francis Murray – assistant engineer Claes Bjørklund – keyboards Jerry Becker – hammond organ Scott Underwood – drums Jimmy Stafford – guitar Mark Endert – mixer Doug Johnson – assistant mixer Ted Jensen – mastering
Charts
Weekly charts +Weekly chart performance for "Hey, Soul Sister"Chart (2009–2014)Peakposition Australia (ARIA) 1 Austria (Ö3 Austria Top 40) 4 Belgium (Ultratop 50 Flanders) 3 Belgian Airplay (Ultratop Flanders) 1 Belgium (Ultratop 50 Wallonia) 5 Belgian Airplay (Ultratop Wallonia) 1 Canada (Canadian Hot 100) 3 Denmark (Tracklisten) 8 Europe (European Hot 100 Singles) 6 French Downloads (SNEP) 10 Finland (Suomen virallinen lista) 15 Germany (Media Control Charts) 7 Germany Airplay (BVMI) 2 Global Dance Songs (Billboard) 21 Ireland (IRMA) 1 Italy (FIMI) 2 Mexico Anglo (Monitor Latino) 3 New Zealand (RIANZ) 2 Norway (VG-lista) 11South Korea International Singles (Gaon) 114 Spain (Airplay Chart) 6 Sweden (Sverigetopplistan) 3 Switzerland (Schweizer Hitparade) 4UK Streaming (Official Charts) 94
Monthly charts +Monthly chart performance for "Hey, Soul Sister"Chart (2010)Peakposition Brazil (Brasil Hot 100 Airplay) 51 Brazil (Brasil Hot Pop Songs) 21
Year-end charts +2009 year-end chart performance for "Hey, Soul Sister"Chart (2009)PositionUS Adult Alternative (Billboard)34