I Write Sins Not Tragedies
by Panic! at the Disco
- 172
- BPM
- A minor
- Key
- 8A
- Camelot
- 57
- Danceability
- 10
- Acousticness
A pizzicato cello motif drives "I Write Sins Not Tragedies", played by session musician Heather Stebbins. The song was the first single from Panic! at the Disco's debut album, A Fever You Can't Sweat Out, and came out in the United States as a digital download on January 16, 2006. It reached number 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 2 on the Mainstream Top 40.
In the UK, the February 27, 2006, release came as a limited edition with a free sticker. Chart rules bar stickers. It could not chart. A re-release on October 30, 2006, reached only number 25 despite heavy airplay. Many American radio stations wanted an edited version. They replaced the word "whore" with a "shhh" sound and removed "god" from "goddamn". Some modern rock stations still play the original. The title does not appear in the lyrics. It comes from Douglas Coupland's novel Shampoo Planet, in which the main character writes, "What I write are not sins; I write tragedies."
Shane Drake directed the video, shot in December 2005, with Brendon Urie as a ringmaster at a circus-themed wedding. Urie and guitarist Ryan Ross had the flu during filming. It won Video of the Year at the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards.
I Write Sins Not Tragedies runs at 172 BPM, the tempo of drum and bass and jungle. In classical terms it sits in vivace territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 1.4 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 349 ms. It is in A minor, Camelot 8A, which shares its notes with C major and mixes cleanly with D minor and E minor.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.