“Lonely Boy” by The Black Keys

"Lonely Boy" kicks the door in on El Camino, the Black Keys' 2011 album on Nonesuch, and it went out ahead of the record as the lead single. Dan Auerbach, Patrick Carney and Brian Burton wrote it, the band produced it with Danger Mouse, Kennie Takahashi engineered and Tom Elmhirst mixed, and nobody sanded off the grit.

It's garage rock at a sprint: a fuzzed-up riff that won't sit still, drums that stomp like a boot heel on a sticky dance floor, and a chorus built for shouting along. Auerbach, who wrote the words, turns the title's loneliness into a party. The video helped plenty, a single unbroken shot of one man dancing and mouthing along, and it became a hit in its own right. There was even a promotional 12-inch pressing for Record Store Day's "Back to Black" Friday event.

It went to the top of the Rock Songs chart in the US and of the alternative and active rock charts in Canada, climbed to number two in Australia, and became the band's highest-charting single in several countries. At the 55th Grammy Awards it took home Best Rock Song and Best Rock Performance and picked up a Record of the Year nomination on top.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.