Steal My Girl

This piano ballad is like a love story, the person saying that everyone is going to “steal his girl” ends up the only one to actually get the girl. They’ve grown up together since they were teenagers, probably why he has the get-go from her parents. Co-writer Julian Bunetta explained in an interview that the idea behind this song happened randomly, he said: “I think, if I recall correctly, we were playing a drum beat and it just sort of came out. Somebody said that line and it was like, ‘Woah, yeah I relate to that,’ and we all looked around and was like, ‘Yeah, I like that, I can totally relate to that.'” In another interview with MTV News, Bunetta revealed that there were actually several girls that inspired the track, he said: “It’s based on everybody’s experience, you have six guys in a room that have all been in love before and we all have jealousy some are better at hiding it than others, but we don’t like when people hit on our girlfriends. But it was more of a joyous thing, it just speaks to how happy you are with this person. If you have something great, everyone is going to try and take it from you. And that also speaks to the fan base, I think, ’cause of other groups trying to steal the 1D fan base there are a lot of layers.” He continued talking about the resemblance of the piano at the beginning of ‘Steal my girl’ and the 2006 ‘It’s Not Your Fault’ by New Found Glory and the 1983 single ‘Faithfully’ by Journey, he said: “When we sat down and played the piano lick, nobody had any references in their head about what they wanted to write or anything and then I saw all the things about that Journey song. At the end of the day, the lyric and the melody have nothing to do with any other song that I have ever heard. Sometimes there’s only so many things you can do with a piano at that tempo.”

Release Date: September 29, 2014

Songwriter/s: Wayne Hector – John Ryan – Ed Drewett – Julian Bunetta – Louis Tominson – Liam Payne

Label: Syco – Columbia

Chart Rankings: In the US, the song reached number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaked at number 17 on the Mainstream Top 40 charts. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certified it Gold for sales over 500,000 copies. In the UK, it peaked at number 13 on the Official Charts company and was certified Platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). The song topped the charts in Denmark and Greece, reached number 2 in Scotland and was within the top 10 charts in Australia, Czech Republic, Ireland, New Zealand, Portugal, Slovakia, South Africa and Spain. It was certified Platinum in Australia and Canada, in Italy and New Zealand it was certified Gold.

Artist’s age on Release Date: The band was active for 4 years when they released this song.

Cover Versions: Before You Exit – Cimorelli – MattyBRaps – Landon Austin – Robbie Jay – Josh Levi – other amateur Youtubers covered this song.