Photograph
by Def Leppard
- 123
- BPM
- Eb minor
- Key
- 2A
- Camelot
- 44
- Danceability
- 0
- Acousticness
Taylor Swift joined Def Leppard in 2008 to perform "Photograph" on CMT Crossroads. The performance was nominated for two awards at the 2009 CMT Music Awards, Wide Open Country Video of the Year and CMT Performance of the Year. It found other homes too. It became downloadable content for Rock Band 3 in 2011, and in 2013 it was on the Los Santos Rock Radio station in Grand Theft Auto V.
Mutt Lange produced it. It was the lead single from Pyromania, the band's third studio album, in 1983. It reached No. 1 on the Billboard Top Tracks chart for six weeks and got to No. 12 on the Pop Singles chart. Many have described it as a tribute to Marilyn Monroe. Joe Elliott said it was broadly about something no one can ever get their hands on, and Lange later said it was about young lust.
The video, directed by David Mallet, was shot in Battersea, London, on December 2, 1982, the 22nd birthday of bassist Rick Savage. A lookalike impersonating Monroe appears several times. It was guitarist Phil Collen's video debut with the band, and it aired in heavy rotation on MTV.
Photograph runs at 123 BPM, the tempo of house, disco and most club dance music. In classical terms it sits in allegro territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 1.95 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 488 ms. It is in Eb minor, Camelot 2A, which shares its notes with F# major and mixes cleanly with Ab minor and Bb minor.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.