Sweet About Me

Album: Lessons To Be Learned (2008)
Charted: 6
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Songfacts®:

  • This was used in a TV advertisement for Sure Upside Down deodorant in the UK.
  • This was co-written by the then 16-year-old Cilmi together with Xenomania. The UK production house who are best known for their work with Girls Aloud ("Sound Of The Underground," "Call The Shots") also produced the track. "We all went to Paris and bought loads of these obscure Parisian psychedelic records," Cilmi recalled to The Independent October 25, 2013. "'Sweet About Me' is inspired by a riff from one of those records, and it was written really fast. You know when it's really good, because it just comes out like vomit – word vomit."
  • Gabriella Cilmi told I Like Music about this track: "'Sweet About Me' has that same hypnotic feel that a rocking boat has. I was listening to a lot of early psychedelic music around the time I wrote it. The songs saying that were all going to make mistakes, so we might as well have fun while were making them."
  • This reached #1 in Gabriella's native Australia. After dropping from the top spot, it returned to the premier position, knocking the Queen of Pop, Madonna, off from the chart peak. The 16-year-old became the youngest Australian artist to reach #1 in their home country, beating the record held by Australian Idol winner Casey Donovan by 19 days.
  • This was the most played song in the UK in 2009 according to PRS for Music, the body that collects royalties for songwriters.
  • The song is said to be Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher's favourite song of 2008.

Comments: 1

  • Mark from Auckland, New ZealandGuys... you've spelt her name wrong! It's CILMI(pron: Chill me)! Born Ocotber 10 1991 in Dandenong Melbourne Australia. An Italian Catholic family, she went to Scared Heart Girls College. Now living in London, and studies by correspondence. She's only 16 at the time of this post. About to play support for the Sugarbabes UK Tour and then for James Blunt on his Australasian Tour. I did a radio interview with her this week, and she is more like a 30 year old in wisdom. Also there's a possible blood line to Frank Sinatra... but that's yet to be confirmed. Apparently her Great Great Great Grandmother's surname was Sinatra.
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