Actors - One Week

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	Actors - One Week

"One Week" is a 1998 hit single by Barenaked Ladies. It is often regarded as the song that propelled the band to superstar status outside of Canada. One reason for the song's popularity was the large number of pop culture references worked into the lyrics.

The song gained renewed popularity when it was featured in an ad for the Mitsubishi Lancer, with groups of young people in the car seeming to sing along until they could not keep up with the rapid-fire lyrics. It was featured in the third installment of Big Shiny Tunes.

"One Week" was also parodied on "Weird Al" Yankovic's 1999 album Running with Scissors
as "Jerry Springer", with lyrics making fun of the Jerry Springer television talk show.

Ed Robertson wrote the ideas for the non-rap 'choruses' with the concept being the structure of a fight where the protagonist knows they are wrong and is just trying to save face. He wanted to come up with a rapping verse for the song but all attempts failed. Bandmate Steven Page suggested he simply improvise the rap as the two commonly did onstage every night. Robertson heeded the advice and setup a video camerea. He improved the song at a slower pace to make rhyming easier and arrived at about four minutes of rap. He sent it to Page who told him not to change a word. Two minutes of the improvising was almost directly compiled (with very little, if any tweaking) into the verses song. As it is improvised, it is not intended to directly have any relation to the plot of the chorus sections. The liner notes from Stunt contain song of the additional lyrics that didn't fit into the song but that the band still enjoyed.

In recent performances the band has developed an acoustic, bluegrass-style version of the song.

Lyrical references

Verse 1

Aquaman - superhero
Chalet Swisse - French name of Swiss Chalet, a Canadian restaurant chain
wasabi - sushi condiment
LeAnn Rimes - country music singer
Bert Kaempfert - songwriter, one of the top music producers in Germany
vertigo - the sensation of spinning or whirling that occurs as a result of a disturbance in balance (equilibrium), also the name of the 1958 Alfred Hitchcock classic

Furthermore, musical theatre composer Andrew Lloyd Webber is referred to in the additional lyrics in the liner notes.

Verse 2

"Chickety China the Chinese Chicken" - Reference to "checkady-choco, the chocolate chicken", a lyric from the Tribe Called Quest song "Scenario". Also reference to a strain of bird flu that was in the news at the time
The X-Files - TV series
dans la maison - French for "in the house"
Smoking Man - character from The X-Files
Harrison Ford
- actor
Frantic - 1988 movie starring Harrison Ford
Sting
- musician
Tantric - a form of yoga, practiced by Sting
Snickers - candy bar whose slogan was "Snickers really satisfies"
Akira Kurosawa - Japanese movie director, who had a famous film, "The Seven Samurai
"
Sailor Moon - anime cartoon series

Furthermore, Luke Skywalker and Yoda from the Star Wars movies are referred to in the additional lyrics in the liner notes.

Final verse

The Robbie - soccer tournament held at Birchmount Stadium in Toronto.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for One Week ]

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