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Weak and Powerless

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Weak and Powerless"
Single by A Perfect Circle
from the album Thirteenth Step
ReleasedAugust 4, 2003 (2003-08-04)[1]
StudioPerfect Circle (North Hollywood, California)
Genre
Length3:15
LabelVirgin
Songwriters
Producers
A Perfect Circle singles chronology
"The Hollow"
(2001)
"Weak and Powerless"
(2003)
"The Outsider"
(2003)
Music video
"Weak and Powerless" on YouTube

"Weak and Powerless" is a song by American rock band A Perfect Circle. It was released as the lead single from their second album, Thirteenth Step. The song became their highest-charting single, topping the US Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks and Modern Rock Tracks charts. A remix of the song was featured in the Underworld soundtrack.[3]

Music video

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The music video, directed by the Brothers Strause, features a nude woman with long, white hair, as seen in various artwork for the album, crawling through the woods, collecting various reptiles, and throwing them into an amblypygi -filled pit. The commentary by Maynard James Keenan provided for the video stated the model's name as Tonya, a woman who had never done this type of work before. There are two versions of the video; edited and unedited. In the unedited version the woman's breast and pelvic areas are clearly visible. These areas of the body are darkened and blurred for the television version and the scenes are sped up. Various camera and computer effects are used throughout the video. The video saw significant airplay upon release and is included on the aMOTION DVD/CD. The end of the video features a barely audible shampoo commercial.

Remixes

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One of the most prominent aspects of "Weak and Powerless" is its various layers of clean guitars and vocals, which build the relatively soft yet highly active verse into a powerful chorus. A remix of the song was made, entitled "Weak and Powerless (Tilling My Grave Mix)" and featuring instrumentation by Danny Lohner, Wes Borland, and Josh Eustis. This version is significantly heavier than the album version and was featured in the soundtrack to Underworld. Borland told Cleveland Radio station 100.7 The Buzzard in an interview at the time of the soundtrack's promotion that he and Lohner wrote the remix by putting the song up in Pro Tools and stripping away everything but Maynard's vocals, leaving the three of them to write new music around the vocals.

Track listings

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US single

No.TitleLength
1."Weak and Powerless"3:15
2."Blue" (Bird Shake mix)3:55

Canadian and European single

No.TitleLength
1."Weak and Powerless"3:15
2."Crimes"2:35

7-inch single

Side A
No.TitleLength
1."Weak and Powerless"3:15
Side B
No.TitleLength
1."Weak and Powerless" (Tilling My Grave mix)3:02

Charts

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References

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  1. "Going for Adds". Radio & Records. No. 1515. August 1, 2003. p. 27.
  2. Coffman, Tim (November 11, 2022). "10 Most Underrated Nu Metal Songs". WhatCulture.com. Retrieved April 12, 2024.
  3. "Underworld [Original Soundtrack] - Original Soundtrack | Songs, Reviews, Credits | AllMusic". AllMusic.
  4. "Billboard Hot 100". Billboard. November 8, 2003. Retrieved July 14, 2026.
  5. "Mainstream Rock Airplay". Billboard. November 22, 2003. Retrieved July 14, 2026.
  6. "Alternative Airplay". Billboard. November 1, 2003. Retrieved July 14, 2026.
  7. "2003 Year End Charts: Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks Titles". Billboard. December 27, 2003. Archived from the original on March 27, 2004. Retrieved July 14, 2026.
  8. "The Year in Charts 2003: Most-Played Modern Rock Songs". Airplay Monitor. Vol. 11, no. 51. December 19, 2003. p. 43.
  9. "2004 The Year in Charts: Most-Played Modern Rock Songs" (PDF). Billboard Radio Monitor. Vol. 12, no. 51. December 17, 2004. p. 49. Retrieved March 14, 2026.