1999Released
3:20

Did You Know?

Interesting facts and trivia about All Star. By Songfacts®.

When Smash Mouth released their debut album Fush Yu Mang in 1997, they built a fanbase thanks to the hit "Walkin' on the Sun." They heard from many of these fans when they were writing songs for their second album, Astro Lounge, which inspired "All Star." Like most Smash Mouth originals, it was written by their guitarist, Greg Camp, who told the story in a Songfacts interview. "When we were on tour for the first record, it's still when people were writing fan mail, like, in the form of paper and pencils and typewriters and stuff," said Camp. "We would get these big bags of fan mail and we would take them to the Laundromat and do our laundry and read all this mail while we were sitting around waiting for our clothes to get dry. And about 85-90 percent of the mail was from these kids who were being bullied or their brothers or older siblings were giving them s--t for liking Smash Mouth or liking whatever they're doing or the way they dressed and stuff. So we were, like, 'We should write a song for fans.' It was sort of like a daily affirmation. It was designed to be an uplifting, self-confidence building song."

This song about someone who excels at his or her endeavors was used extensively in movies, TV shows and commercials. Its commercial appeal was not lost on the band - lead singer Steven Harwell said that after recording the song, his first instinct was to sell it to advertisers. Some popular uses of this song: The 1999 film Mystery Men. The opening credits to the film Shrek. The movie Rat Race, where Smash Mouth performs the song at the end of the movie. Digimon: The Movie, where it is the last song played before the movie ends. The 1999 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, where Smash Mouth performed it. The movie Inspector Gadget.

The voice that says "go for the moon" came from an album of sounds from the Apollo moon mission issued by NASA. Greg Camp cooked up the song in his basement studio where he would use turntables to get beats and scratches. These audio clips are public domain, so Camp didn't have to pay to use it. NASA has made many of these audio files available online.

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Song Analysis

Key, BPM (tempo) and time signature of All Star.
BKey
MajorMode
4/4Time Signature
104BPM

Album

The album All Star is released on.

Released By

The record label that has released All Star.
Interscope
© 1999 Interscope Records
℗ 1999 Interscope Geffen (A&M) Records A Division of UMG Recordings Inc.

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