Waterfalls

"Chasing Waterfalls" is TLC's way of expressing how people chase intangible dreams with no thought of the consequences. The first verse is talking about an inner city mother and son relationship. He is chasing "waterfalls" (money and respect by dealing drugs), but his mother knows this can only lead to a bad end. The second verse is talking about a man's relationship with a woman. His "waterfall" is casual sex. The lyrics say that he has a "natural obsession for temptation." This could mean he is cheating on someone or the woman he is seeing is cheating on someone. Either way, he contracts HIV and dies ("three letters took him to his final resting place"). TLC were big on AIDS awareness - Left Eye would often wear condoms attached to her clothes and in her glasses to promote safe sex.

Cee-Lo Green sang backup on this. He's well-known as a songwriter and producer, and as a member of Goodie Mob and Gnarls Barkley. Cee-Lo recalled to The Guardian newspaper March 22, 2008: "I was working at the same studio and of course I know the girls too, because we were on the same label, so they just asked me. I didn't realize at the time what a big song it was going to be."

The Atlanta production team Organized Noize, who produced the track, wrote this song with Marqueze Etheridge, and TLC's Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes came up with the rap. Lopes was dealing with some person problems at the time, which are expressed in her rap: she had a very turbulent relationship with the football player Andre Rison, and on June 9, 1994 she burned his new shoes in his bathtub, which set fire to his entire $2 million mansion. She pled guilty to arson, but did reconcile with Rison. (thanks, Jeana - Sterling Heights, MI)

This makes the "songs discussed in movies" list thanks to its use in the 2010 film The Other Guys, where Michael Keaton's character keeps unknowingly quoting TLC songs, starting with this one.

The video won the MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year in 1995, beating out "Buddy Holly" by Weezer and "Basket Case" by Green Day. The "Waterfalls" clip had lots of fancy computer generated effects, including a lot of water, which was notoriously difficult to render.

The rap lyrics Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes performed on this song were engraved in her casket. Lopes died in a car accident in Honduras in 2002.

Three-piece British girl group Stooshe released a cover of this song for their third single from their self-titled debut album in 2012. "We are huge fans and have met T-Boz, who told us she loved our version," Courtney Rumbold of the trio told The Sun. "It's meeting heroes like that that spurs us on, and we have the most loyal of fans." Their version peaked at #21 on the UK singles chart.

Stooshe managed to secure cameos from TLC's T-Boz and Chilli for their accompanying music video.