Astronaut

Album: Get Your Heart On! (2011)
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Songfacts®:

  • This song uses a stranded astronaut as a metaphor for feeling lost and alone, even if you're surrounded by other people. "It's a song about wanting to connect with other people who feel the same way that you do, who are like you," Simple Plan drummer Chuck Comeau explained. "I think that's a very universal desire of people to find people who share the same life vision that we do."
  • Simple Plan's fans became known as "astronauts" in the same way Mariah Carey's fans are "lambs" and Lady Gaga's are "monsters." It's an apt title, as Simple Plan has always fostered a community to connect with fans and let them know there are others like them who often feel misunderstood.
  • This was the third single from Simple Plan's fourth album, Get Your Heart On. Their first two album were released when their pop-punk sound was trending, and both sold over a million copies. On their third album in 2008, they brought in outside writers and tweaked their sound to lean more EDM, which was big. This felt a bit disingenuous, so they leaned into their original sound on Get Your Heart On. Though it all, they retained the same five members.
  • The Simple Plan songwriting team of Chuck Comeau and lead singer Pierre Bouvier got help writing this track from the British songwriters Jim Irvin and Julian Emery.
  • The music video was directed by Mark Staubach, who also did Travie McCoy's "Billionaire" and a few other Simple Plan videos, including "Summer Paradise" and "Perfectly Perfect." In "Astronaut," the space traveler is stranded on a barren planet, but finally finds another human when he comes across a girl astronaut. They kiss, and then the scene shifts to Earth, where they are simple a couple who has found each other.

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