Pitbull & Ke$ha “Timber” hit #1

Timber Pitbull & Ke$ha

Writer(s): Lukasz “Dr. Luke” Gottwald, Armando Perez, Kesha Sebert, Pebe Sebert, Henry Walter, Jamie Sanderson (see lyrics here) Released: October 7, 2013 First Charted: October 20, 2013 Peak: 13 US, 14 DG, 13 RR, 11 A40, 11 UK, 18 CN, 4 AU, 22 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 10.0 US, 1.29 UK, 14.11 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 1592.18 video, 1221.97 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Armando Christian Pérez, known as Pitbull, was born in 1981 in Miami, Florida. The Latin rapper first charted in 2004 with M.I.A.M.I., a gold-selling top-20 album, and its top-40 hit “Cujo.” He landed his first top-10 hit in 2009 with “I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho)” and topped the charts with “Give Me Everything” in 2011. He’d racked up eight top-ten hits by the time he hit #1 in 2013 with “Timber.” The song was the lead single from his EP Meltdown and featured American singer Ke$ha. This was the ninth top-ten hit for each of them. In the UK, it was the third #1 song for each of them. The pair had previously worked together on the 2009 Pitbull song “Girls” and remixes of Ke$ha’s songs “Tik Tok” and “Crazy Kids.” Pitbull initially wanted Rihanna for the song but she wasn’t available. SF The song was produced and written by Dr. Luke among others. It hit #1 in some fifteen countries and sold nearly ten million copies worldwide in 2014. WK The song features harmonica, which gives it “a country square dance vibe.” SF Pitbull said he was inspired to use the harmonica after hearing Avicii’s hit song “Wake Me Up.” SF In 2014, Lee Oskar and others filed a copyright infringement lawsuit that the harmonica melody in “Timber” is identical to the one in Oskar’s 1978 song “San Francisco Bay.” SF Meanwhile the title, a reference to what lumberjacks yell when cutting down trees, “gives the song a rustic vibe and creates a play on the phrase ‘It’s going down.’ We know Pitbull won’t be working in a forest anytime soon, so it becomes a big party metaphor.” SF Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Pitbull DMDB encyclopedia entry for Ke$ha SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 8/8/2023.