Ongoing History Daily: The weird story behind The Lumineers’ Ho Hey

The biggest song in the Lumineers’ catalogue is probably “Ho Hey” from their self-titled album. It was born out of anger and frustration. After playing a bunch of shows in Brooklyn to audiences who were bored, indifferent, or both, they wrote the song with the “ho hey” shouty bits in an attempt to get their attention.

When it was released as a single, it started a slow climb up the various charts. The big initial boost came when it was used in a commercial campaign for Microsoft’s Bing in the US. Then it was picked up by an energy company in the UK. And then it was in the trailer for the movie Silver Linings Playbook.

In the end, “Ho Hey” spent 62 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, tying the record for the longest stay on that chart. It has also sold more than four million copies and streamed 1.3 billion times. Not bad for a song written out of frustration.