Sour Girl
"Sour Girl" is a single by Stone Temple Pilots. The song was written by singer Scott Weiland and guitarist Dean DeLeo for the band's fourth album, entitled No. 4.
Background
wrote the song about his first wife, Janina Castaneda. They got married in 1994, as Stone Temple Pilots were becoming popular in America. "Everyone is convinced that it's about my romance with Mary ," Weiland writes in his autobiography Not Dead and Not For Sale. "But everyone is wrong. 'Sour Girl' was written after the collapse of my relationship with Jannina . It's about her. 'She was a sour girl the day that she met me,' I wrote. 'She was a happy girl the day she left me… I was a superman, but looks are deceiving. The rollercoaster ride's a lonely one. I pay a ransom note to stop it from steaming.' The ransom note, of course, was the fortune our divorce was costing me. And the happy state, which I presumed to be Jannina's mood, was because she had finally rid her life of a man who had never been faithful.""Sour Girl" also appears on the compilation albums Thank You and Buy This. It was the only Stone Temple Pilots song from No. 4 to reach the Billboard Hot 100, where it peaked at number 78.
Music video
A music video was released to accompany this single, and stars Sarah Michelle Gellar, who was a huge fan of the band, as the female lead in the video. At the time, Gellar was a rising star thanks to her TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and her movies Cruel Intentions and I Know What You Did Last Summer.The trippy video was directed by David Slade, whose work includes episodes of Hannibal and the movie .
The clip features little people in costumes that look like the Teletubbies, which were big at the time. The band claimed this was a coincidence, and that the creatures are based on a dream Weiland had.
The clip was nominated for Best Cinematography on MTV Video Music Awards in 2000.
Charts
"Sour Girl" was one of STP's biggest hits since the Core and Purple era. Billboard ranked "Sour Girl" at #88 on its list of the 100 Best Rock Songs of the 2000s. The song peaked at number four on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart and number three on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart. To date, this remains to be the band's only entry on the Hot 100.| Position | |
| Australia | 66 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot 100 | 78 |
| U.S. Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks | 4 |
| U.S. Billboard Adult Alternative Songs | 6 |
| U.S. Billboard Alternative Songs | 3 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot 100 Airplay | 73 |
Awards
Track listing
- Sour Girl
- Sex & Violence
- Sour Girl