Pump It

"Pump It" is a 2006 song by The Black Eyed Peas. It was released as the fourth single from The Black Eyed Peas' 2005 album Monkey Business. This song was also remixed for the deluxe edition of the group's fifth studio album The E.N.D. as "Pump It Harder". "Pump It" heavily incorporates music from Dick Dale's 1962 surf version of the song "Misirlou" (known by many for being featured in the 1994 Quentin Tarantino film Pulp Fiction). "Misirlou" is a popular folk song of Eastern Mediterranean origin, with an Egyptian version dating back to 1919, and a Greek version of 1927 which is believed to have been written by Tetos Dimitriadis, the arrangement of which is credited to Nicholas Roubanis for his 1941 released jazz version.

Origins

"I was in Brazil doing some CD," The Black Eyed Peas member will.i.am recalls. "I came across this compilation [disk] and I thought it was one thing but it turned out to be something else. The Dick Dale song Miserlou was on it. At first, I was angry this isn't what I wanted to buy," he laughs. "But then, really, that song is hot. I said, 'We should do a song like this.' I jump-started the computer and made some beats on the train. Then we had to fly to Tokyo and I tightened up the beat on the plane. Then I recorded vocals in this park in Tokyo, and that's how we recorded the song 'Pump It'."