Nemo (song)
"Nemo" is the tenth single by Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish and the first single from the album Once.
The song can be heard in the ending credits of the 2005 film The Cave. A special version of the music video was released that contained scenes from the movie. For "Nemo", a big-budget video was made, the director was Antti Jokinen, who had previously worked with Shania Twain, Celine Dion and Eminem. The video was n° 1 on MTV Brasil Video Chart. The song was nominated for the Kerrang! Award for Best Single.
Tuomas Holopainen, the composer, has stated that the title is Latin for "nobody" and the song is based on his occasional feelings of being lost, longing for the past and feeling nameless. This contradicts speculations that the song simply borrows on a Nemo character of an earlier work, such as J. Verne's Captain Nemo, Homer's Ulysses alias Nemo, C. Dickens’ Captain Hawdon alias Nemo, W. McCay's Little Nemo, or the Disney Studio's film Finding Nemo. Asked about that T. Holopainen responded:
Track listing
Live performances
Nemo is the most played song by Nightwish, with well over 500 times as of March 2018.Charts performance
Once topped the album charts in Finland and Hungary. In the UK it could only chart at #87 after a chart entry of #101 the week before, but spent over 20 weeks on the top 200 plus a few re-entries. However it has been in the top 10 of the UK Rock Chart as recently as May 2008, highlighting the recent acclaim the band has had in the United Kingdom.Nemo was certified with Gold Disc in Finland one week after release, with more than 5,000 sold copies, and got Platinum disc after two weeks, with more than 10,000 sold copies.
Chart | Peak position |
Brazil | 51 |
Finnish Top 40 Singles | 1 |
Brazilian MTV Top 10 Charts | 1 |
Hungarian Singles Chart | 1 |
Greek Singles Chart | 2 |
Portuguese Top 50 Singles | 3 |
Norwegian Singles Chart | 4 |
German Top 100 Singles | 6 |
Slovakian Singles Chart | 8 |
UK Rock Chart | 8 |
European Hot 100 Singles | 11 |
Austrian Ö3 Top 40 | 12 |
Swedish Top 60 | 12 |
Swiss Top 100 Singles | 14 |
Dutch Mega Single Top 100 | 64 |
Sales and certifications
Personnel
The band
- Tarja Turunen — vocals
- Tuomas Holopainen — keyboard and piano
- Emppu Vuorinen — guitars
- Jukka Nevalainen — drums
- Marco Hietala — bass
- London Philharmonic Orchestra — Orchestra and chorus
Main crew
- Engineers and recorders: Tero Kinnunen, Mikko Karmila and Emppu Vuorinen
- Mixing: Mikko Karmila and Tuomas Holopainen
- Mastering: Mika Jussila
- Orchestral and choral arrangements: Pip Williams
- Conducted: James Shearman
- Orchestra Leader: Gavyn Wright
- Band photographer: Toni Härkönen