Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High?

Album: AM (2013)
Charted: 8
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Songfacts®:

  • The third single from AM, this is the last in the album's trilogy of question-mark songs following "R U Mine?" and "Do I Wanna Know?"
  • Set at 3am at some party, frontman Alex Turner told Q magazine the song was inspired by a voicemail he got "along those lines."

    The 3 a.m. hour seems to inspire a lot of songs. "3 AM" by Matchbox Twenty and "25 Or 6 To 4" by Chicago both take place in this timeframe.
  • The song's music video was directed by the Chicago-born photographer Nabil Elderkin and recorded the Monday after the band's Glastonbury headline performance. It finds a drunk Alex Turner hallucinating as he leaves a the Howl At The Moon pub in Hoxton, London, where he's been drinking with his bandmates. The singer and stumbles through the streets of East London repeatedly texting a girl called Stephanie in a fairly literal interpretation of this ode to booty calls and debauchery. "I had no idea the shoot was going to be so explicit," model Lamie Stewart, who plays Stephanie, told NME. "I missed an email, so when I turned up I was like... riiiight! The scene where I have sex with the man in the kebab shop was quite hilarious, especially: the kebab guy was actually the sweetest thing. He was more nervous than I was! I've been a fan of the band for a very long time, since 6th form, so was very happy when I won the role to be in the video, despite being passed around via Alex's drunken mind state!"
  • This was the Arctic's first song to make the Top Ten on the UK singles chart since their 2007 #5 hit "Fluorescent Adolescent."

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