D major · Camelot 10B · 99 BPM
Take a Picture
by Filter
- 99
- BPM
- D major
- Key
- 10B
- Camelot
- 45
- Danceability
- 1
- Acousticness
The chorus of "Take a Picture" came together after a night Richard Patrick could barely remember. A friend asked the Filter frontman whether he recalled throwing beer bottles from a cab at a cop car, and his flippant reply about wanting a picture because he would not remember anything stuck with him. Weeks later came another blackout, this one on an airplane, where Patrick took off his shirt while half-conscious and ended up in the back of a paddy wagon. His first thought was what his father would make of it, and that question worked its way into the lyrics. Patrick's father was offended by the line, so Patrick explained that he changed his vocal tone each time he sang it, giving it a different meaning with every performance.
The song also paid homage to "Dad, I'm in Jail" by Was (Not Was), from their album What Up, Dog?. Filter released it in September 1999 as the second single from Title of Record, their second studio album, with a retail release following on January 18, 2000. It climbed to number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 and hit number one on the Dance Club Play chart that February.
A music video directed by David Meyers placed the band in a dreamlike sequence of five scenes, including a crashed jet in the ocean and a flooding house, with supermodel Jaime King appearing in several segments.
Take a Picture 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 D major, Camelot 10B, which shares its notes with B minor and mixes cleanly with G major and A major.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.