"Big Girls Don't Cry" is a song written by Fergie and Toby
Gad for pop singer Fergie's debut solo album
The Dutchess(2006). The song was released as the album's
fourth single in 2007 (see 2007 in music) and topped the charts
in several countries, most notably in Australia (for nine
consecutive weeks—also becoming the number-one single in the
ARIA's Year End Charts for 2007), and in the United States. It
was the most downloaded track in the U.S., with sales of more
than 3,080,000 copies sold. In July 2007, Fergie performed the
song at the Concert for Diana and Live Earth. By the end of
August 2007, the song became Fergie's third number one single
on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It was nominated in the 'Best
Female Pop Vocal Performance' category at the 50th Annual
Grammy Awards, which was held February 10, 2008. The song
appears in
Dance Dance Revolution X,
Singstar Pop Vol 2, and
Karaoke Revolution Presents American Idol Encore 2.
The song was listed at #89 on Billboard: All-Time Hot 100
Top Songs and the 13th most successful song of the decade at
the end of 2009 on the
BillboardHot 100 Songs of the Decade.
After "Big Girls Don't Cry" was written, Fergie and her
management felt that the song did not fit the theme of her
album and decided not to record it. However, her management
felt that the song was too strong to let go, so they decided to
shop the song around to different record labels. Eventually,
the song was sold to Bad Boy Records, where it was handed to
Jordan McCoy. McCoy's team felt they had a huge hit on their
hands and quickly recorded the song, assuring Fergie and her
management that they were going to release it as a single.
However, according to McCoy, after Fergie heard their
finished version, she had a change of heart and recorded the
song as well. Without the knowledge of Bad Boy Records, Fergie
went ahead and tagged it on to her album at the last minute.
Jordan and her team were upset by Fergie's decision, scrapped
the entire project and considered suing Fergie. However,
because Fergie co-wrote the song, she had partial ownership and
they could not sue her.
"Big Girls Don't Cry" is a moderate pop song written in the
key of G major. The tempo is composed in common time and
follows the major chord G/B-Csus2-D5. The song was compared to
as an exact 2006 version of
Wild Orchid.
The song has achieved high success worldwide, topping the
charts in over ten countries, including Australia, Brazil,
Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Mexico, Austria, Romania, Croatia
and the U.S. In Brazil the song was the most pleyed on the
radio in 2007. In the UK it surpassed "London Bridge" as her
highest charting solo single thus far, peaking at number two
(behind only Rihanna's 10 week chart topping "Umbrella"); the
single has spent 23 weeks on the UK Singles Chart Top 40 and 9
weeks in the Top 10.
After spending several weeks in the number two and three
positions on the U.S. Hot 100, "Big Girls Don't Cry" finally
ascended to number one, becoming Fergie's third Hot 100
number-one single, and second consecutive after "Glamorous" in
early 2007. Thanks to this achievement Fergie has become only
the second American female solo artist in the '00s to have
three chart-toppers from one album after Christina Aguilera in
1999-2000. In addition to the Hot 100, the song topped the
BillboardPop 100, Pop 100 Airplay, Hot 100 Airplay, and
Hot Digital Songs charts. It also became her first number one
on both the
BillboardHot Adult Contemporary Tracks chart and the
Adult Top 40, where on the later she became the first female
artist to top that chart after 52 weeks of number ones by male
artists. The song is one of the most successful singles of 2007
in the U.S., as it stayed in the top ten of The Hot 100 for 21
consecutive weeks, 18 of those in the top five.
It is most played song of 2007 on U.S. Mainstream Top 40
radio (becoming the number-one single of 2007 on the and the
third most successful track of 2000s on the same tally), and
the most successful song of 2007 by peak position on American
Top 40 (eight weeks at number one). It is Fergie's most
downloaded song in the U.S. with over 2,367,000 downloads, more
than "Fergalicious" who has sold over 2,315,000 downloads till
the first week of December 2007. It's the 3rd most downloaded
song of 2007 in the U.S. behind "Crank That (Soulja Boy)"
(+2,510,000) and "Hey There Delilah" (+2,416,000), and the 6th
in the U.S. history. "Big Girls Don't Cry" was ranked at #4 on
Billboard's Year-End chart for 2007.
"Big Girls Don't Cry" has become Fergie's most successful
single worldwide, surpassing "London Bridge". The song debuted
at number thirty-two and reached number one on its thirteenth
week, staying there for five consecutive weeks. The song stayed
in the chart for forty-nine weeks, twenty-six of which were in
the top ten. In Australia it was certified 2x Platinum by ARIA
for combined sales of over 140,000 copies, and ended as the
year's biggest hit, ranked at number-one on the ARIA Year-End
singles chart for 2007. It was also the longest running number
one single at the top spot with 9 consecutive weeks (10 in the
Download Chart) and the last to do so.
Also, despite only spending a week at #1 on the New Zealand
RIANZ singles chart, "Big Girls Don't Cry" has become the
fourth most successful single in RIANZ music history and the
second best seller in the country for 2007. It spent a total of
38 weeks on the chart.
The music video was directed by Anthony Mandler and began
production on March 30, 2007. The video had a 'First Look' on
MTV's
TRLon May 16, 2007 and has since peaked at #5 on May 24,
2007. The video topped Vh1's Top 40 Videos of 2007 list. Milo
Ventimiglia plays Fergie's love interest.
The video begins with Fergie getting out of her car (a red
1969 Mustang fastback) and going inside a warehouse where she
meets her band and practices. Meanwhile, she is seen singing
next to her boyfriend (Milo Ventimiglia), who is sleeping. She
starts walking through the house, and is then watching herself
and her boyfriend from a different point of view getting out of
her car. They go into the house, and her boyfriend gets out a
guitar and starts playing, while Fergie is singing. Later on,
she sees her boyfriend out the window with several guys, one of
whom passes him a small package, which is presumably drugs, and
it upsets her. Fergie then starts singing the chorus while she
is taking her clothes off a clothes line and putting them into
a suitcase. As the third verse begins, Fergie is walking around
a warehouse singing while wearing a tan-gray baby doll dress.
At the end of the song, she is seen getting into her car and
driving down the road.
There are two music videos: the main version features the
garage scene mixed with the others; the extended, in which the
song is performed twice, the first time it was sang features
all the scenes, excluding the garage scenes, the second time it
only features unseen garage scenes and the normal garage
sensual scenes.
The music video for "Big Girls Don't Cry" has been viewed
about 30 million times on popular video-sharing website
YouTube.
from the album
The Dutchess (Japan re-issue edition) and Sean Kingston
(Deluxe Edition)
A remix was made of the song in late 2007, which retained
the vocals of the original, but with a new, 1980s-reminiscent
sound, with none of the acoustic guitars present in the
original. Titled the "Big Girls Remix", it featured reggae star
Sean Kingston, who records his vocals over the new beat and
after his verses, it goes into the chorus of the original and
basically maintains Fergie's vocals for the rest of the
song.