“I think people kind of filled in the blanks that it was about a school shooting, but I never say anything about a school in the song,” Foster says. MTV went as far as to remove the words “gun” and “bullet” from the chorus, and Columbia Records, which the band had signed with only months prior, began receiving complaints claiming the song was glorifying school shootings. On December 14, 2012, a few weeks after the song had peaked on the Hot 100, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting happened, and radio stations began to pull the song. That juxtaposition is part of what helped the song take off and then, later, what also brought it back down to earth. This all led to some people being taken aback when they realized the dark subject matter it addressed.įoster the People Attracts Hipsters, Moms with 'Pumped Up Kicks' Single Plus, the title “Pumped Up Kicks” doesn’t necessarily suggest the seriousness of the song’s subject matter. The song was tailor-made to be a hit because of its undeniably cheery melody - something Foster excelled in as a jingle writer before starting the band - and danceable groove. The song details a troubled teenager with homicidal thoughts that many people later took to mean a school shooting - written from the perspective of the teenager, the chorus is a warning to his victims (“You better run, better run, faster than my bullet”). Foster, who wrote, produced, engineered and plays each instrument on the recording, first created the drumbeat to sound akin to Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams,” and then crafted the lyrics. Why would you retire your most popular song? Well, it’s complicated.įoster The People had only just begun when “Pumped Up Kicks” took off. “It’s something that I’ve been wrestling with,” he tells Billboard. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, Foster says he might be ready to retire the song for good. So it may be surprising that, when reflecting on the song eight years after it reached No.
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