When You're Falling


"When You're Falling" is a song by world music group Afro Celt Sound System, released as the first single from the band's third studio album Volume 3: Further in Time. The song features vocals from Peter Gabriel, Iarla Ó Lionáird, and members of Screaming Orphans.

Background

Peter Gabriel provided keyboards and vocals to "When You're Falling" and discussed his involvement with the track in a 2001 interview.

Release

"When You're Falling" was serviced to US adult album alternative radio stations in June 2001 and debuted on the Billboard Adult Alternative Airplay chart at No. 8 for the week dated 9 June 2001, making it the highest debut on the chart that week. Billboard announced that "When You're Falling" would be serviced to hot adult contempoary radio stations on 9 July 2001 and would later be issued to alternative stations around the same time.
When You're Falling" was released as a physical single in July 2001. Adam Wren of Leftfield created a remix of the track, which was included on the commercial single. Music Week called the song "a curiously weak choice for a single" that more closely resembled Gabriel'smusic than the work of Afro Celt Sound System. They also felt that the song would have little appeal outside their most dedicated fans.
Adam Berg directed the song's music video, which featured Gabriel in certain scenes. The music video was added to VH1 during the week of 22 July 2001. It was also made available on the Real World Records website.
Following the September 11 attacks in the United States, Slate reported that Clear Channel Communications distributed a memorandum to various program directors. The memorandum contained a list of over 150 songs that they believed contained "questionable lyrics", with one of those songs being "When You're Falling". The vice president of programming at Clear Channel had assembled the list for radio programmers and advised them to exercise restraint when selecting songs to broadcast.

Track listing

CD single
  1. "When You're Falling" – 3:44
  2. "When You're Falling" – 4:35
  3. "When You're Falling" – 5:16
  4. "When You're Falling"
Promo CD single
  1. "When You're Falling" – 3:40
  2. "When You're Falling" – 4:14
Promo CD single
  1. "When You're Falling" – 3:40
  2. "When You're Falling" – 4:14
  3. "When You're Falling" – 5:14
  4. Call-out hook