La La La

Story of Song

A plea for all the grownups to stop acting their age and get in touch with the kid inside them. Naughty Boy explained what inspired the song to Radio.com, saying: “You don’t have to listen to everything you’re told. Sometimes it’s cool just to block it out and act like a kid. I’m a kid, pretty much, in my mind.” The song was influenced by the sentiments of No Doubt’s hit tune ‘Don’t Speak.’ Naughty Boy said: “It’s affected a lot of people and that’s ultimately what I want to do with my music.”
Naughty Boy talked about the music video with The Source Magazine. The video was shot in Bolivia and inspired by the The Wizard of Oz. He said: “I would make you think this hotel could be anywhere in the world. It could be in your mind, it could be in your back garden, or it could be in Bolivia where ‘La La La’ was shot. And the sentiment with that video is about the boy and if you think of the boy as being me, and then he grows up to run this hotel which is everyone’s role playing, so that’s my role. But it’s almost like the boy — he’s going to the source. In the video you see him going to this mountain and he blocks out everyone, his mom and dad. He makes these imaginary friends and I think when the world becomes a bit of a bad place sometimes you have to go to the source of what’s making it bad, you know?”

Release date

Released May 18, 2013

Songwriter/s

Shahid “Naughty Boy” Khan – Al-Hakam El-Kaubaisy – Frobisher Mbabazi – Sam Smith – James Napier – James Murray – Mustafa Omer – Jonny Coffer

Label

Virgin EMI – Naughty Boy – Capitol

Chart Rankings

US – 19

UK – 1

GERMANY  – 2

In the UK, ‘La LA La’ became the biggest selling song of 2013 and topped the UK Singles Chart. It is Naughty Boy’s first number 1 single in the UK. The British Phonographic Industry certified it Double Platinum for sales over 1.2 million copies. In the US, it reached number 19 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and was also certified Double Platinum for sales over 2 million copies. The IFPI in Denmark certified it Quadruple Platinum for streams over 7.2 million copies. The single topped the charts in Belgium, the Czech Republic, Italy, and Lebanon. It managed to reach the top 10 charts in several countries including Australia, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Scotland, Slovakia, Spain, and Switzerland. It was certified Triple Platinum in Sweden, Double Platinum in Australia and Italy, Platinum in Germany, New Zealand, and Switzerland, and Gold in Belgium, Canada.

Artist’s age on release date

Shahid Khan “Naughty Boy” was 28, Sam Smith was 21 years old.

Cover Versions

Jasmine Thompson – Pentatonix – Jannine Weigel – Megan Nicole – Angelika Vee – Kiesza – Isyana Sarasvati & Rayhan Maditra – RUNAGROUND – Noah – Hope Murphy – Earlyrise – Brandon Skeie – Amber Whitworth – Zack Knight – Ugur Baloglu (violin & piano) – Jacob Wellfair, Spencer Rees & Georgina Revell – Jegz – Jason Chen & Megan Nicole