On My Mind (Ellie Goulding song)
"On My Mind" is a song by English singer Ellie Goulding from her third studio album, Delirium (2015). It was released as the lead single from Delirium on 17 September 2015 by Polydor Records. Written by Goulding, Max Martin, Savan Kotecha and Ilya Salmanzadeh, "On My Mind" is an electropop and R&B song whose instrumentation consists of scratchy guitars, trap drums, slapped beats and sharp, syncopated electronica. Lyrically, "On My Mind" talks about a one-night stand with someone the protagonist should not be with, prompting a dichotomy between heart and head. Though firmly denied by Goulding, many critics considered it an answer song to Ed Sheeran's "Don't".
"On My Mind"
17 September 2015
2015
- MXM (Los Angeles, California)
- Wolf Cousins (Stockholm, Sweden)
3:32
- Ellie Goulding
- Max Martin
- Savan Kotecha
- Ilya Salmanzadeh
- Max Martin
- Ilya
"On My Mind" received mostly positive reviews from music critics, who praised it for being a radio-friendly song, as well as Goulding's vocals. Multiple critics found it similar to the Police's 1979 song "Message in a Bottle". Commercially, "On My Mind" became another top-ten entry for Goulding in the United Kingdom, as well as in Australia and other five territories, while reaching the top 20 in other seven countries. In the United States, it reached number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100. Its Western-themed music video, directed by Emil Nava, was inspired by the 1991 film Thelma & Louise and shows Goulding in a revenge story in Las Vegas.
Background and release[edit]
Originally, "On My Mind" was planned to be released in the first quarter of 2015, with British radio network Capital FM announcing that Goulding claimed that hopefully the single was set to be released around March 2015.[1] However, the release was postponed due to the commercial success of "Love Me like You Do", released on 7 January 2015 as the second single of the soundtrack to the film Fifty Shades of Grey. On 6 August 2015, during iHeartMedia's annual music summit, it was revealed that Goulding's new single was called "On My Mind" and was set to be released "soon".[2][3] On 14 September 2015, Goulding teased her fans on Instagram by posting a "mysterious, semi-topless gif with the date 17 September", announcing the song's release date.[4] A day later, she posted a 15-second clip of the song.[5] It was described as a "more commercial pop sound" for the singer, who worked with the same team of writers of her successful previous single "Love Me like You Do". Goulding described its sound as "[...] very different for me. But I think it's a good different."[4] On 17 September 2015, "On My Mind" was released to digital download by Polydor Records as the album's lead-single.[6] A day later, the song was added to Italian radio,[7] and it was serviced to US contemporary hit radio on 22 September 2015.[8]
Commercial performance[edit]
In the United Kingdom, "On My Mind" debuted at number seven during the week dated 1 October 2015, becoming the highest new chart entry and Goulding's 10th top-10 entry.[34] The following week it climbed to number six, before peaking at number five a week later.[35] In the United States, "On My Mind" debuted at number 22, the week's highest debut, in addition to Goulding's highest debut on that chart.[36] It also debuted at number five on Digital Songs with 78,000 copies sold, and at number 44 on Streaming Songs with 4.6 million streaming.[37] It has since reached number 13,[38] and as of February 2016, it has sold 809,000 downloads.[39] In Australia, the song started at number 15 on the ARIA Charts and climbed to number seven the following week, becoming her third top-10 solo entry and sixth overall; it reached number three in its third week.[40] In New Zealand, the song also proved to be successful, debuting at number five and peaking at number four.[41] It also peaked inside the top 10 in Finland, Ireland and Scotland,[42][43] while it reached the top 20 in Belgium, Denmark, Hungary, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.[44][45][46]
Music video[edit]
Background[edit]
On 25 August 2015, Goulding talked to Capital FM about the concept of the music video, claiming: "Well it involves me and another girl who's really hot and we're sort of like Thelma & Louise", she explained. "I guess [you'll see it] in about a month's time. I'm very excited about it."[47] She also revealed that it was directed by Emil Nava and shot in Las Vegas, saying: "It's a weird place. We went to this old casino and filmed stuff in there. I worked with the director, Emil [Nava], I worked with him before with Calvin Harris [he directed the 'I Need Your Love' video]. He's a friend of mine and we wanted to do something really mad. We wanted to ride some horses, and there's a gangster who is a not very good guy. It's kind of got a Thelma and Louise thing about it."[9] It was uploaded to Goulding's Vevo account on 21 September 2015.
Synopsis[edit]
At the beginning of the video, Goulding is seen in a Las Vegas hotel room setting interspersed between various shots of casinos and people riding horses. As the song begins, she is seen standing in front of a mirror examining herself, before her lover appears behind her, intercut with various short clips of cartoons from the Golden Age of American Animation, including the 1942 Merrie Melodies short The Wacky Wabbit, starring Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd (in slightly enhanced form) and a stock GIF of fighting behind a closed door.
Between shots of Goulding singing towards the camera in an empty blue room, she and her lover are seen at different times in a hotel room and a ballroom together, and her lover is seen drinking at a bar alone. Goulding is then shown in a different setting standing in front of a caravan with a Cristina Squyres, her accomplice, sitting in a chair beside her. The video cuts to an aggressive argument between Goulding and her lover in their hotel room, with him appearing multiple times in the same room constantly shouting and yelling at her while she sits on the end of the bed. The video gradually shows scenes of the falling apart of their relationship, and now Goulding and her accomplice are shown riding on horseback into Las Vegas and down the Las Vegas Strip, set on revenge on Goulding's former lover. Several shots of Goulding and her accomplice in a hair salon, her former lover living his wealthy lifestyle and flirting with another woman are shown while they continue to ride down the main strip. They approach an unnamed casino, presumably owned by her former lover, and enter the building on their horses while he counts his money. The women are caught on camera riding through the casino, while passing people playing on various poker machines. Her accomplice is seen smashing an expensive vase with a baseball bat interspersed with shots of their conversation in the salon and the two women outside their caravan holding guns.
Later, the two women are shown riding into an area outside the room her former lover is counting his money in, and her accomplice brandishes a sawn-off shotgun, blasting the door to the room open and frightening her former lover. They ride into the room and stay in place, while her former lover argues his case and pleads with them, while various nude glamour shots of Goulding and scenes before the end of their relationship play in between. Her accomplice takes the baseball bat and smashes the lightbulb above them, darkening the room. Her former lover is then seen tied to his chair with duct tape in the dimly lit room, while Goulding and her accomplice ride away on their horses with stacks of her former lover's money. Various scenes of the aftermath are then shown, including the two women back in the salon clinking their glasses, on a rooftop making it rain with money and her accomplice blowing a hole in the casino ceiling with the sawn-off shotgun. Goulding is then seen walking down a hotel hallway and back in the empty blue room singing, and the video ends with the two women riding off on their horses throwing money in the air.