Building a Mystery

"Building a Mystery" is a song by Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan from her fourth studio album, Surfacing (1997). At a live performance, Sarah explains the song as being "basically about the fact that we all... have insecurities to hide, and we often do that by putting on a facade." She also goes on to say that "unfortunately, if we just be who we are, that's usually the more attractive and beautiful thing".

Censorship

The album version of "Building a Mystery," and the live albums Afterglow Live and Mirrorball contain the line, "A beautiful fucked up man." The radio version replaces this line with "A beautiful but strange man" or the original lyric garbled beyond recognition, and during performances on radio or television, Sarah often sings the line "A beautiful messed up man." ==Reception==

Reception

The song won the Juno Award for Single of the Year in 1998. The track also made Sarah McLachlan the recipient of the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at the Grammy Awards of 1998, beating Mariah Carey, Shawn Colvin, Paula Cole and Jewel. It came in at number 91 on VH1's "100 Greatest Songs of the '90s". ==Chart performance==

Chart performance

"Building a Mystery" became McLachlan's biggest chart hit in Canada, spending eight weeks at number one on the RPM 100 Hit Tracks chart and ranking at number one on the magazine's year-end chart for 1997. In Australia, the song reached number 97 in March 1998. ==Music video==

Music video

Directed by Matt Mahurin, the music video for the song features Moist front man David Usher. It features a man, described as McLachlan's boyfriend, taking points of light from wherever he travels and stitching some sort of garment. When McLachlan investigates in his absence, she finds that he has been assembling a skirt so decorated as to be lit with stars. ==In other uses==

In other uses

On 23 October 2001, "Building a Mystery" became the first song ever publicly played on an Apple iPod. Apple founder, chairman and CEO Steve Jobs selected and played a short portion of the song during the presentation in which he first introduced the iPod to the public at Apple Campus in Cupertino, California. ==Track listings==

Track listings

US CD and cassette single • "Building a Mystery" – 4:06 • "I Will Remember You" – 4:53 US maxi-CD single and Australian CD single • "Building a Mystery" – 4:06 • "I Will Remember You" – 4:53 • "Possession" – 4:39 • "Angel" (soft drum mix) – 4:30 ==Personnel==

Personnel

Personnel are lifted from the Surfacing liner notes. • Sarah McLachlan – writing, vocals, acoustic and electric guitars • Pierre Marchand – writing, background vocals, production, recording, mixing • Michel Pépin – additional electric guitars • Brian Minato – bass • Ash Sood – drums ==Charts==

Charts

Weekly charts Year-end charts ==Release history==

Source: Wikipedia ↗

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