Selfish Jean

"Selfish Jean" is a song by Scottish alternative rock band Travis, released as the second single from their fifth studio album, The Boy with No Name on 9 July 2007.

Lyrics

The title of the song is a reference to The Selfish Gene, a popular science book about evolution by Richard Dawkins. The song was written by Fran Healy in 2005 in his apartment in New York, and was demoed using Healy's own computer. He sampled the drum intro from the Iggy Pop song "Lust For Life", looped it to create a basic rhythm, and then played the song and recorded vocals over the top of the rhythm track. The demo was then taken to Travis drummer Neil Primrose as an example of what to play, and thus, the song exists in its current form. The lyrics for the song's bridge are taken directly from an earlier B-side, "Standing On My Own", which appeared on the 1997 single "Tied to the 90s".

Background

The single found its way onto the BBC Radio 2 playlist, receiving around twenty plays per week. Even though it charted at a relatively disappointing #30 on the UK Singles Chart, it is a song much loved by Travis fans and is performed at a majority of Travis concerts. B-sides for the single include the newly written song "You Bring Me Down", as well as two Squeeze covers - "Is That Love" and "Pulling Mussels (From the Shell)".

Jean

Jean may refer to:

In human names

In media and entertainment

In other uses

See also

Travis

Travis may refer to:

People and fictional characters

Places

Other uses

Selfishness

Selfishness is being concerned, sometimes excessively or exclusively, for oneself or one's own advantage, pleasure, or welfare, regardless of others.

Selfishness is the opposite of altruism or selflessness; and has also been contrasted (as by C. S. Lewis) with self-centeredness.

Divergent views

The implications of selfishness have inspired divergent views within religious, philosophical, psychological, economic and evolutionary contexts.

Classical

Aristotle joined a perceived majority of his countrymen in condemning those who sought only to profit themselves; but he approved the man of reason who sought to gain for himself the greatest share of that which deserved social praise.

Seneca proposed a cultivation of the self within a wider community - a care for the self which he opposed to mere selfishness in a theme that would later be taken up by Foucault.

Medieval/Renaissance

Selfishness was viewed in the Western Christian tradition as a central vice – as standing at the roots of the Seven deadly sins in the form of pride.

Boy (disambiguation)

A boy is a human male child or young man.

Boy(s) or The Boy(s) may also refer to:

Music

Performers

Albums

Songs