It is the fourth single from their debut studio album Bad Blood and was released on 11 January The song's title and lyrics refer to the Roman town of the same name that was destroyed and buried in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD The song has a tempo of According to Dan Smith, the song is written as a conversation between two victims of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius , stating in an interview, "I was reading a book that had some picture of the people who got caught up in the volcanic eruption.
And it's just such a kind of dark powerful image, and it got me thinking about how boring it must have been emotionally after the event.
To be sort of stuck in that same position for hundreds and hundreds of years. So, the song is sort of an imaginary conversation between these two people who are stuck next to each other in their sort of tragic death pose.
The video was first released onto YouTube on 20 January at a total length of three minutes and fifty-two seconds. The video follows Bastille frontman Dan Smith , as he wanders about an empty-looking Los Angeles , before realizing the few people around all have unnatural vacant black eyes. He steals a car and drives into the desert to escape them, but the car breaks down and he soon realizes he has been infected as well. He climbs a mountain and looks out at the view, before turning around to reveal his own eyes have turned black as well.
With over 26 million streams by June , "Pompeii" became the most streamed song of all time in the UK at that time [ 21 ] and has sold , copies there. The song reached number one on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart in October and began climbing the Billboard Hot chart.
