"Building a Mystery" is a song by Canadian singer-songwriter

Sarah McLachlan Sarah Ann McLachlan (born January 28, 1968) is a Canadian singer-songwriter. As of 2015, she had sold over 40 million albums worldwide. McLachlan's best-selling album to date is ''Surfacing (album), Surfacing'' (1997), for which she won two G ...

from her fourth studio album, '' Surfacing'' (1997). At a live performance, Sarah explains the song as being "basically about the fact that we all... have insecurities to hide, and we often do that by putting on a facade." She also goes on to say that "unfortunately, if we just be who we are, that's usually the more attractive and beautiful thing". Released on 9 June 1997, the song was an immediate top-40 and

adult contemporary Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the 1980s to the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul ...

hit, and it has received several accolades. Commercially, "Building a Mystery" was Canada's most successful single of 1997, topping the ''

RPM Revolutions per minute (abbreviated rpm, RPM, rev/min, r/min, or r⋅min−1) is a unit of rotational speed (or rotational frequency) for rotating machines. One revolution per minute is equivalent to hertz. Standards ISO 80000-3:2019 def ...

'' 100 Hit Tracks chart for eight weeks, and peaked at number 13 in the United States. "Building a Mystery" won the

Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance The Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance was a Grammy Award recognizing superior vocal performance by a female in the pop category, the first of which was presented in 1959. It was discontinued after the 2011 Grammy season. The awar ...

at the

40th Grammy Awards The 40th Annual Grammy Awards were held on February 25, 1998, at Radio City Music Hall, New York City. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the previous year. Performers * Will Smith – Men In Black/ Gettin' Jiggy Wit It * R. K ...

as well as the

Juno Award for Single of the Year Juno commonly refers to: *Juno (mythology), the Roman goddess of marriage and queen of the gods * ''Juno'' (film), the 2007 film Juno may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Fictional characters *Juno, a character in the book ''Juno of ...

in 1998.

Censorship

The album version of "Building a Mystery," and the live albums '' Afterglow Live'' and '' Mirrorball'' contain the line, "A beautiful fucked up man." The radio version replaces this line with "A beautiful but strange man" or the original lyric garbled beyond recognition, and during performances on radio or television, Sarah often sings the line "A beautiful messed up man."

Reception

The song won the

in 1998. The track also made

the recipient of the

at the Grammy Awards of 1998, beating

Mariah Carey Mariah Carey ( ; born March 27, 1969) is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Songbird Supreme" by ''Guinness World Records'', Carey is known for her five-octave voc ...

Shawn Colvin Shawn Colvin (born Shawna Lee Colvin, January 10, 1956) is an American singer-songwriter. She is best known for her 1997 Grammy Award-winning song "Sunny Came Home". Early life Colvin was born Shawna Lee Colvin in Vermillion, South Dakota, and ...

Paula Cole Paula Dorothy Cole (born April 5, 1968) is an American singer and songwriter. After gaining attention for her performances as a vocalist on Peter Gabriel's 1993–1994 Secret World Tour, she released her first album, '' Harbinger'', which suffe ...

and Jewel. It came in at number 91 on

VH1 VH1 (originally an initialism for Video Hits One) is an American basic cable television network that launched on January 1, 1985, and is currently owned by the MTV Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Global's networks division based in New Y ...

's "100 Greatest Songs of the '90s".

Chart performance

"Building a Mystery" became McLachlan's biggest chart hit in Canada, spending eight weeks at number one on the ''

'' 100 Hit Tracks chart and ranking at number one on the magazine's year-end chart for 1997. It also topped the ''RPM'' Adult Contemporary Tracks and Alternative 30 charts. In the United States, it debuted at number 18 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 in early September 1997 and peaked at number 13 a month later. It also spent 10 weeks at number one on

Adult Alternative Airplay Adult Alternative Airplay (also known as Triple A or Triple A Airplay, and formerly Adult Alternative Songs and Triple A Songs) is a record chart currently published by ''Billboard'' that ranks the most popular songs on adult album alternative radi ...

; in February 2021, for the chart's 25th anniversary, ''Billboard'' ranked the song at number 38 on its list of the 100 most successful songs in the chart's history. In Australia, the song reached number 97 in March 1998.

Music video

Directed by Matt Mahurin, the music video for the song features Moist front man

David Usher David Usher (born April 24, 1966) is a Canadian musician, best-selling author, keynote speaker, and activist best known as the front man for the band Moist. He has also released a number of solo albums. He is the founder of Reimagine AI, an art ...

. It features a man, described as McLachlan's boyfriend, taking points of light from wherever he travels and stitching some sort of garment. When McLachlan investigates in his absence, she finds that he has been assembling a skirt so decorated as to be lit with stars.

In other uses

On 23 October 2001, "Building a Mystery" became the first song ever publicly played on an Apple

iPod The iPod is a series of portable media players and multi-purpose mobile devices that were designed and marketed by Apple Inc. from 2001 to 2022. The iPod Classic#1st generation, first version was released on November 10, 2001, about mon ...

. Apple founder, chairman and CEO

Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American businessman, inventor, and investor best known for co-founding the technology company Apple Inc. Jobs was also the founder of NeXT and chairman and majority shareholder o ...

selected and played a short portion of the song during the presentation in which he first introduced the iPod to the public at Apple Campus in

Cupertino, California Cupertino ( ) is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States, directly west of San Jose, California, San Jose on the western edge of the Santa Clara Valley with portions extending into the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The ...

Track listings

US CD and cassette single # "Building a Mystery" – 4:06 # " I Will Remember You" – 4:53 US maxi-CD single and Australian CD single # "Building a Mystery" – 4:06 # "I Will Remember You" – 4:53 # "

Possession Possession may refer to: Law *Dependent territory, an area of land over which another country exercises sovereignty, but which does not have the full right of participation in that country's governance *Drug possession, a crime *Ownership *Pe ...

" – 4:39 # "

Angel An angel is a spiritual (without a physical body), heavenly, or supernatural being, usually humanoid with bird-like wings, often depicted as a messenger or intermediary between God (the transcendent) and humanity (the profane) in variou ...

" (soft drum mix) – 4:30

Personnel

Personnel are lifted from the '' Surfacing'' liner notes. * Sarah McLachlan – writing, vocals, acoustic and electric guitars *

Pierre Marchand Pierre Marchand (born 1958) is a Canadian songwriter, musician and record producer. Marchand is known for his ongoing collaboration with Sarah McLachlan, having produced all of her albums since '' Solace'' in 1991. He also co-wrote several of M ...

– writing, background vocals, production, recording, mixing * Michel Pepin – additional electric guitars * Brian Minato – bass * Ash Sood – drums

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Release history

References

{{Authority control 1997 singles 1997 songs Arista Records singles Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance Juno Award for Single of the Year singles Music videos credited to Alan Smithee Music videos directed by Matt Mahurin Nettwerk Records singles RPM Top Singles number-one singles Sarah McLachlan songs Songs written by Pierre Marchand Songs written by Sarah McLachlan