Gotye's 'Somebody That I Used To Know' Archive - Facts, Fun Stuff And Cover Songs!

29 May 2012

To celebrate Gotye's monster smash hit 'Somebody That I Used To Know,' featuring Kimbra scooping up 3 APRA awards last night (and countless accolades before that) we thought we'd create a little shrine to the track that's come so far!

Check out the full list of 2012 APRA Award winners here!

The track was written by Gotye (also known as Wally De Backer) as a way to express the break up tale from a perspective of a guy.

Check out what Wally had to say about why he wrote the song:



While originally meant as a solo lament, Wally has previously commented that he wrote the song "in quite a linear way", explaining that "I wrote the first verse, the second verse and I'd got to the end of the first chorus and for the first time ever I thought, 'There's no interesting way to add to this guys' story'. It felt weak."

That's when he started thinking of what female vocalists might be able to help extend the story!

Although we all know now that Kimbra was the lucky lady who got the part, controversially she wasn't Gotye's first choice for the song!

Check out what Kimbra revealed to us about which female vocalist might have been first choice.



Regardless of who was asked beforehand, it was Kimbra that killed the guest vocal role, and we can't imagine anyone else singing it better!

'Somebody That I Used To Know' has spawned so many cover songs and tributes that we don't even know where to begin! Let's start with this meme:


Check out our full gallery of Gotye memes!

We've also included a few of our favourite covers of the song below, including Glee's version, and Walk Off The Earth's -- who got 5 people to sing it using one guitar. Skilled stuff!

Congrats Gotye (and Kimbra) this is the little song that could... and did.











Finally, see the original version here!