A Girl Like You (Edwyn Collins song)


"A Girl Like You" is a song by Scottish singer-songwriter Edwyn Collins from his third solo studio album, Gorgeous George. The song samples the drum track of Len Barry's single "1-2-3". It was released as a single and became a worldwide hit, reaching number one in Flemish Belgium and Iceland and the top ten in several countries, including Australia, France, Germany and the United Kingdom. In North America, "A Girl Like You" reached number 16 on Canada's RPM Top Singles chart and number 32 on the US Billboard Hot 100.

Production

The Sex Pistols drummer Paul Cook played vibraphone on the recording. Vic Godard performed backing vocals on the outro. The song had started out as "a more thrashy kind of guitar thing" and there had been a suggestion that Iggy Pop might record a version for the US market but before that could happen Collins' version was gaining airplay.

Copyright controversy

On 30 September 2009, Collins' manager posted to Collins' page on Myspace to discuss how Collins owned the copyright to the song and wanted to make it available to anyone as a free download, but Myspace only allowed major labels to assert the rights to tracks hosted on their site.
A later posting notes that, after the story was picked up by major news outlets, the song was once again available on the music player via Myspace.

Music videos

There are two different music videos for this song. The video in the United States showed an avant-garde depiction of its lyrics. The international video shows Collins singing over videos and silhouettes of dancers.

Track listings

CD single
  1. "A Girl Like You" – 3:59
  2. "A Girl Like You" – 5:42
French CD single
  1. "A Girl Like You" – 3:59
  2. "Out of This World" – 4:58
CD maxi
  1. "A Girl Like You"
  2. "Don't Shilly Shally"
  3. "Something's Brewing"
  4. "Bring It On Back"
CD maxi
  1. "A Girl Like You"
  2. "If You Could Love Me"
  3. "Don't Shilly Shally"
  4. "You're on Your Own"

    Charts and certifications

Weekly charts

Chart Peak
position

Year-end charts

Certifications

Appearances

The song appeared on the soundtrack of the 1995 movie Empire Records. It was also featured in season 1, episode 5 of Lucifer.