“Pu
mped Up Kicks” is a song by American indie pop group Foster the People. It was written and recorded by frontman Mark Foster at Mophonics in the Venice district of Los Angeles. “Pumped Up Kicks” can be considered both a crossover hit and a sleeper hit, as it received airplay on modern rock stations soon after its release in September 2010, and in the early summer of 2011 began seeing noticeable airplay on contemporary hit radio stations. The song has thus far reached number 3 in the US on the Billboard Hot 100, making it the first Billboard Alternative Songs number one single to crack the U.S. top 5 since Kings of Leon’s “Use Somebody” in 2009.
When “Pumped Up Kicks” was first recorded, frontman Mark Foster played all of the song’s instruments for what he thought was going to be just a demo, but the version he recorded ended up as the final version on Torches. The song is about a troubled and delusional youth with homicidal thoughts. Foster said, “I was trying to get inside the head of an isolated, psychotic kid.” He stated in an interview with KROQ-FM that the lyrics were written to “bring awareness” to the issue of gun violence amongst youth, which he feels is an epidemic perpetuated by “lack of family, lack of love, and isolation”. Contrasting with the dark lyrics of the song, the music, written before the lyrics, is upbeat, with a heavy bassline and a mixture of acoustic and electronic elements. Foster said, “It’s a ‘fuck you’ song to the hipsters in a way—but it’s a song the hipsters are going to want to dance to.” Jeffery Berg of Frontier Psychiatrist said, “I was so engrossed with the cheery melody of its chorus that it took me a few listens to discover that the lyrics suggest dark, Columbine revenge,” Some say that the song is most likely a reference to the Westroads Mall shooting in Omaha, Nebraska the shooter being Robert A. Hawkins and the first lyrics of the song are “Robert’s got a quick hand,” and also a similar situation suggested in the song when the alleged shooter steals his dad’s revolver, when in real life Hawkins stole his dad’s AKM-style rifle. [4] However, the band’s publicist told an Omaha World Herald reporter “This is completely false. The character name in the song is just a coincidence.”
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