Out Of My League

Album: More Than Just A Dream (2013)
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Songfacts®:

  • Fitz and the Tantrums are a soul/pop band from Los Angeles consisting of vocalists Michael Fitzpatrick and Noelle Scaggs, guitarist and saxophonist James King, bass guitarist Joseph Karnes, keyboardist Jeremy Ruzumna and drummer John Wicks. This was released as the lead single from their second album, More Than Just A Dream.
  • The song became the group's first #1 hit on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart. It made history by completing the slowest climb to the summit of the chart, at 33 weeks, surpassing the 32-week trek of Neon Trees' "Animal" in 2010.

    Fitz and the Tantrums' milestone was usurped by Meg Myers version of "Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)," which took 42 weeks to crawl to the top spot in 2019 and 2020.
  • An alternative rendition "Out of My League (version française)" was also released for French/Canadian radio. This version has most of the verses sung in French, while the chorus remains in English.
  • A decade after its initial release, "Out of My League" found new life when multitudes of TikTokers used it in their videos.
  • According to Noelle Scaggs, this only became a Fitz and the Tantrums tune because she was too nervous to pitch it to Young the Giant. When she ran it by Michael Fitzpatrick first, he insisted the Tantrums record it instead. Its success made her reevaluate her rigid stance on what kind of material was appropriate for the band.

    "It was one of those songs that I didn't think was for us and ended up being for us," she explained in a 2023 Songfacts interview. "Back then I was so adamant about what was for us and what wasn't. It proved me wrong. I love that song for that reason."
  • This was used on these TV series:

    Law & Order: Special Victims Unit ("Exchange" - 2019)
    Revenge ("Blood" - 2014)
    Camp ("Pilot" - 2013)

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