@stitchedmouthgirl

8 months ago

FUN FACTS: Metric actually didn’t write this song specifically for the movie. The writers did go to Metric to write a song for the movie, picking Metric as Envy was inspired by Emily Haines (Metric’s front woman and lead vocalist), it’s unknown if they did so and someone didn’t like it or if they just didn’t. However Brie Larson listened to a lot of Metric whilst getting to Envy’s character and heard this song and realised how much the lyrics sounded like Envy singing about Scott. Black Sheep was written sometime before or during 2009 for Metric’s Fantasise album, however didn’t make the cut and was left on the shelf. Until 2010 it was released on it’s own right before Scott Pilgrim was released (I imagine Metric decided they had to release it if it was going to be used in a movie). I’m actually not sure how Brie Larson heard it considering Metric hasn’t even released it yet. I don’t imagine she was given permission to go through Metric’s unreleased material but anyway. So she decided this song was perfect for the movie and the writers went back to Metric and instead asked for the rights to use Black Sheep, Metric agreed but there was a little disagreement on who would sing it. Edgar Wright (and Brie) wanted it to be covered by Brie Larson, likely because Larson and Haines voices don’t sound similar (at least not in the official Black Sheep song because Haines’s voice is heavily auto tuned) and Brie Larson can sing. But Metric wanted Emily Haines’s voice instead. They made an agreement to have Haines’s version on the soundtrack and to have Larson’s only in the movie, and even then cut the song early on so you don’t really hear Larson’s version (although I think this one was mainly done by the movie editor’s for pacing reasons, not another condition from Metric). Metric really didn’t want the song covered and did everything to prevent Larson’s version from even happening, I think was both because Metric wanted the publicity and because the song is very personal for Haines (she wrote the song herself about an ex boyfriend). They wouldn’t even let Larson sing the song publicly (at most she was allowed to repost the movie version but couldn’t sing it live due to rights). Larson’s version wasn’t supposed to be released at all, but it was somewhat demanded by fans, after Edgar Wright was allowed to post the full Brie Larson version to YT for the movie’s promotion. I doubt this was liked by Metric but they had already given Brie Larson permission to record her version for the movie so this was still within rights. It seems that in 2020, Metric finally caved and posted Brie Larson’s full version on their YT channel and giving Larson permission to sing a small version on her own channel. It’s a little too late and not enough in my opinion, since although I don’t love Brie Larson, her version of Black Sheep is just significantly better than Haines’s. That’s just my opinion though (I still love Metric though). Also Black Sheep was originally called Freddy, named after Emily Haines’s ex who she wrote the song about. However it was changed to Black Sheep to avoid being sued by Freddy. Also the lyrics originally had a much more sexual tone but was changed, I don’t know why though but I’m glad it was because I love the lyrics the way they are. And the song was left out of the Fantasise album because it was considered too weird, like the song had no direction when Haines’s started writing it and although she never exact said the rest of the band hated it she kind of implied it whilst in an interview for Scott Pilgrim. The song also just didn’t match any of the other songs on the Fantasies album, so really no one knew what to do with it before Scott Pilgrim. And even after really because Metric never made their own music video for it, the Scott Pilgrim video with Larson’s version that Edgar Wright posted is the well known music video for Black Sheep even though Metric had really nothing to do with it.

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