Sophie Ellis-Bextor‘s 2001 single “Murder on the Dancefloor” flew back into the charts earlier this year thanks to Saltburn, and is still in Billboard Hot 100, giving the British singer her first-ever US hit. As you may know, the song was originally written by Gregg Alexander of New Radicals, and in an interview with The Guardian, he revealed the song’s origins, how it was almost The New Radicals’ debut single, and how it changed when Sophie got ahold of it (she has a co-writing credit).
“You know how Paul McCartney originally sang about scrambled eggs in ‘Yesterday’? ‘Murder on the dancefloor’ wasn’t anything deep from my subconscious. It was just a dummy lyric that was kind of sung for fun, but then I couldn’t better it,” Alexander told The Guardian, saying the song spilled out of him when his car died in Detroit and he had nothing better do do than play his guitar in the back seat. It was on the original demo cassette with “You Get What You Give,” and he says he “almost flipped a coin between the two songs,” and ended up going with what became New Radicals’ debut and a worldwide smash.
Alexander has now shared a 40-second snippet of his original demo of “Murder on the Dancefloor,” noting it was a song “which may have gone unheard, and the world never known, were it not for Sophie’s belief in the song and her pop brilliance!” They’re pretty similar, but his demo definitely brings a little more of that New Radicals vibe. Listen to that at The Guardian and watch the video for Sophie’s version below.
Sophie will be heading out on her first-ever North American tour this year.