Weapon of Choice (song)

Bootsy Collins and Fatboy Slim in 2008

"Weapon of Choice" features Parliament-Funkadelic and Bootsy's Rubber Band bassist Bootsy Collins, who provides the lead vocals. On the album version, Collins's normal vocals are heard through the right audio channel; the same vocals, distorted to a much deeper pitch, are heard through the left. The song features a prominent sample of Sly & the Family Stone's 1968 song "Into My Own Thing", as well as samples from "All Strung Out Over You" by The Chambers Brothers and "Word Play" by The X-Ecutioners, the latter of which was previously sampled on Fatboy Slim's song "Don't Forget Your Teeth", the B-side to his single "Right Here, Right Now", and "Gangster Trippin".

The chorus of the song, "You could blow with this, or you could blow with that...", is a homage to the Black Sheep song "The Choice Is Yours (Revisited)", which features a similar chorus. The lines "Walk without rhythm/and it won't attract the worm..." is a quote from the science fiction novel Dune, while the line "tone of my voice" may be the titular weapon, as used by some of the novel's characters.[2] The line "halfway between the gutter and the stars" refers to a line in Oscar Wilde's play Lady Windermere's Fan: "We are all of us in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars," and was also used as the album title.

The radio edit is referred to as the "Attack Hamster Edit", and is the version featured on Fatboy Slim's greatest hits album The Greatest Hits – Why Try Harder. Collins's vocal tracks, both normal and distorted, remain intact, though the distorted track is now barely audible. It peaked at No. 137 on the UK Singles Chart. The song was briefly featured in the 2001 film Joe Somebody, and was also featured in the Malcolm in the Middle episode "Malcolm vs. Reese". It was used in the E3 Trailer of Skylanders Swap Force.

On the album, the song segues from "Retox" and thus the ending of "Retox" is on this track. At 5:06 on the "single version", the last second (5:05) gets repeated many times until it finishes at 5:36. However, on the album, the last two seconds get repeated until 5:23, and scratching sounds start at 5:14 until the conclusion at 5:45. The single version and album version also have several other differences, including the ordering of vocal snippets towards the five-minute mark.

The "Weapon of Choice" video, featuring Christopher Walken, is particularly acclaimed for its choreography.

The music video was filmed in the lobby of the Marriott Hotel (now the L.A. Grand Hotel Downtown) in Los Angeles in December 2000. Directed by Spike Jonze, the video features actor Christopher Walken, who trained as a dancer in musical theatre before his acting career. Walken had asked Jonze to film his dancing, and Jonze suggested that he participate in the video.[3] Fatboy Slim had originally been scheduled to have a cameo role in the video, replacing Walken in the harness shots, but was unavailable that weekend because his wife was giving birth.[3]

In the video, Walken wakes up from a nap in an empty hotel lobby and begins to dance and fly around the area, eventually sitting and going back to sleep in the same chair where he began.

The "Weapon of Choice" video won six awards at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards.[4] Walken was awarded one of MTV's "Moonmen" for Best Choreography. The clip was also ranked number one in a list of the top 100 videos of all time by VH1 in April 2002 that was compiled from a music industry survey.[5] The Swedish actor Mikael Persbrandt has also danced in a version of the music video that was directed by Malik Bendjelloul.[6][7][8] In 2012, British comedian and presenter Rowland Rivron also won charity TV show Let's Dance for Sport Relief with his re-enactment of the video's choreography.[9]

Walken has cited the involvement of Jonze as one of his main motivations for appearing in the video, which he also welcomed as a chance to do "something different". He also noted that as a trained tapdancer, dancing to electronic music actually suited him well.[10]

"Star 69" / "Weapon of Choice"

"Weapon of Choice 2010"

"Star 69" / "Weapon of Choice" double A-side chart positions

Other versions

• ¹ – "Weapon of Choice"

• Weapon of Choice music video on YouTube