"Hide and Seek" is a computer-assisted voice-only song written, produced, and performed by English singer Imogen Heap. The song was released in 2005 as the first single from her second album Speak for Yourself. The single was certified gold by the RIAA on 3 April 2009. Itself influenced by Paul Lansky's "Her Song", the track was later sampled in Jason Derulo's "Whatcha Say", a song receiving international success. As of 2009 the song has sold 647,000 copies in United States.
Heap's commentary
In a 2005 interview, Heap stated that the song's lyrics were ultimately about having painfully lost someone and how others react to things that happen to someone else.
Composition
The original version is performed with a keyboard-controlled digital harmonizer generating distorted harmonies of Heap's voice, lending the song its memorable altered a cappella sound.
Music video
The music video for the song was directed by Joel Peissing, featuring Heap singing against a gently flashing white backdrop. The video is presented in a heavily pillarboxed format.
Covers, remakes, and samples
Canadian guitarist Antoine Dufour recorded a solo guitar version of the song. It is featured on his album Convergences. British alternative rock bandFightstar covered the song as a B-Side to their single, "The English Way". This is performed mainly by lead singerCharlie Simpson on vocals and piano, and second vocalistAlex Westaway performing backing vocals. The Christiancrunkcore band And Then There Were None has also covered the song. Additionally, English rock/folk artists The Dunwells recorded a guitar-only version of the song with three-part harmony featuring vocalists Joseph Dunwell, his brother David Dunwell, and the band's drummer, Jonny Lamb singing counterpoint. It is featured on the band's 2012 EP Leaving of the Rose. British band Amber Run also recorded a cover of the song in 2012. Jason Derulo's 2009 single "Whatcha Say" prominently sampled Heap's song. The single topped the Billboard Hot 100. The song is covered by Tim Waurick with Jordan Litz on his first album, TimTracks, released in 2010. Slushii did a cover of "Hide and Seek", saying there that he wanted to cover one of his favorite songs. In 2017, musician Jacob Collier published his version of the song to YouTube. On May 22, 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Tim Blais published a cover/parody titled "Quarantine."
Other appearances in media
The song gained popularity after being featured as background music at the climax of the season two finale of the American television seriesThe O.C., later parodied in a 2007 Saturday Night Livedigital short called The Shooting. This later became a popular Internet meme, spawning many parody videos, with the music typically overlaid on dramatic scenes from television shows, video games, movies, and anime, mainly those involving a shocking or slow-motion death of a major character. The song also appears in the films The Last Kiss, The Town, Warren Miller's Off the Grid and Three Steps Over Heaven. It has also been featured in the series So You ThinkYou Can Dance, ', Smith, The L Word, ', Gossip Girl, , the German telenovela Anna und die Liebe, Nirvanna the Band the Show, the Norwegian television drama :no:Skam |Skam and the Hulu mini-series Normal People.
