Fat Lip
by Sum 41
- 99
- BPM
- A major
- Key
- 11B
- Camelot
- 58
- Danceability
- 1
- Acousticness
By mid-2001 "Fat Lip" was topping MTV's Total Request Live and MuchMusic's countdown, and on October 6 of that year Sum 41 played it on Saturday Night Live, with Seann William Scott as host. It had come out in April as the lead single from All Killer No Filler. It reached number one on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart, number 66 on the Hot 100 and number eight in the UK. It remains the band's biggest single.
None of it was planned. Deryck Whibley wrote it last, after the rest of the album was basically done. He told Stereogum in 2021 that it was never meant to be a single. The guitar riff came first, then a chorus months later, then a verse, each written separately until one day they clicked together. Whibley wrote it with Steve Jocz, Dave Brownsound and Greig Nori, and Jerry Finn produced. The title is slang for a swollen lip from being punched.
Marc Klasfeld directed the video, shot on March 6 and 7, 2001, in Pomona, California. MuchMusic later ranked it number 75 on its 100 Best Videos.
Fat Lip runs at 99 BPM, the tempo of hip-hop, R&B and reggaeton. In classical terms it sits in andante territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 2.42 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 606 ms. It is in A major, Camelot 11B, which shares its notes with F# minor and mixes cleanly with D major and E major.
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