Peak
49
Weeks
16
Score
740
Chart Year
2007
The song's music video was released on 3 July 2006.[41] Having been directed by Sophie Muller,[42] it contained a vengeance theme, similar to that of the song. It starts off with Allen sitting on the bed in her apartment, eating chocolate and cheese balls. Interleaved, shots of her and her ex-boyfriend spending time together appear as a memory.[41] He is played by Elliott Jordan.[43] As the bridge comes up, the scene changes to the singer standing on the corner of a street, talking to a man and paying him money. The man leaves and goes to some gangsters, giving them instructions and each a share of money. As Allen's former lover walks down the street talking on his mobile phone, one of the gangsters pushes him into an abandoned playground, where they are joined by a second gangster, and the pair give Allen's ex a beating.[41] Allen, witnessing the scene, smiles. She then meets with her bruised ex-boyfriend, and takes him to a coffee shop. There, he tried to explain to her how he was beaten by the muggers, not knowing that, meanwhile, they were breaking down his apartment door and destroying his furniture and possessions, including scratching his gramophone records.[41] The ex-boyfriend leaves the table for a while, enough time for Allen to put laxative pills in his coffee; upon returning, he drinks it and leaves the shop. After, he goes to his apartment, only to find it trashed and destroyed. Scavenging through what's left, he happily finds the record box, thinking they are intact, but he suddenly gets diarrhea as a result of the laxatives, but is unable to use his toilet, as it is clogged with his clothes.[41] He goes to Allen's apartment with his records, seeking consolation, unaware that she is laughing behind his back. As the video finishes, the scene changes to Allen walking down the street at night, smiling and singing the last chorus, while her ex-boyfriend, actually a disc jockey, is in a nightclub getting ready to play his music, but finds out that all his records have been scratched.[41] After the video was banned on MTV in the United Kingdom, Allen commented regarding this in an inverview: I got really offended when my single 'Smile' got banned [during after-school hours] from MTV in the U.K. because it had the word fuck in it. They said, 'We don't want kids to grow up too quickly.' But then you have Paris Hilton and the Pussycat Dolls taking their clothes off and gyrating up against womanizing, asshole men, and that's acceptable. You're thinking your kids are gonna grow up quicker because they heard the word fuck than from thinking they should be shoving their tits in people's faces?[44] DJ Ron Slomowicz of About.com criticised the music video, saying it was "mean-spirited", it would "alienate any sort of club fan base she might discover", and that if a male "had his friends beating up his ex-girlfriend, trashing her living space, drugging her and destroying her possessions, he would be branded as violent" and would be shunned, thus questioning the singer's taste level as well as her suitability as a positive role model for young girls.[45]
In this song Lily laughs at her ex-boyfriend, DJ Lester Lloyd, as he attempts to win her back after the terrible way he treated her in their relationship and the negative impact this subsequently had on her.In the Sun newspaper of September 19, 2006 she describes performing the song at the Secret Garden Party: "The festival was well good, particularly as Lester (my ex, who I wrote Smile about, and subsequently sold his story to the papers) had a tent positioned directly opposite the main stage. So he and his new girlfriend had no option but to watch me perform to a couple of thousand people singing Smile back to me. Oh, it's the little things eh!" >> The organ part was sampled from the song "Free Soul" by the '60s reggae group The Soul Brothers. This was Allen's first single, and it was an instant hit in her native England. She performed the song on several TV appearances and other promotional events, including Top of the Pops and Saturday Night Live. At the 2007 South By Southwest (SXSW) music fest in Austin, Texas, Allen declared that she was "So sick of this song" before performing it. Lily was an inexperienced songwriter when she sat down with pop hitmakers Iyiola Babalola and Darren Lewis (Nicole Scherzinger, Shakira) to write this. She explained in Daniel Rachel's The Art of Noise: Conversations with Great Songwriters: "I remember writing the verse and the chorus and then them going, 'OK, we just need a middle eight,' and I was like, 'I don't know what that is.' So I had to run out of the studio and call my manager. I was so embarrassed." After her manager explained the middle eight was "that piddly bit in the middle that's not the verse and not the chorus but kind of links the two," she came up with a series of la, la, la's to fill the space. In the video, Allen takes revenge on an ex-boyfriend (played by EastEnders actor Elliott Jordan) in various ways, including hiring gangsters to beat him up and spiking his coffee with laxatives. The clip was directed by Sophie Muller, who's known for her collaborations with Gwen Stefani, Shakira, Beyonce, and others.
When you first left me I was wanting more But you were fucking that girl next door What'd you do that for? (What'd you do that for?) When you first left me I didn't know what to say I've never been on my own that way Just sat by myself all day I was so lost back then But with a little help from my friends I found the light in the tunnel at the end Now you're calling me up on the phone So you can have a little wine and a moan And it's only because you're feeling alone At first, when I see you cry Yeah, it makes me smile Yeah, it makes me smile At worst, I feel bad for a while But then I just smile I go ahead and smile Whenever you see me You say that you want me back (want me back) And I tell you it don't mean jack (it don't mean jack) No, it don't mean jack (no, it don't mean jack) I couldn't stop laughing No, I just couldn't help myself See, you messed up my mental health I was quite unwell I was so lost back then But with a little help from my friends I found the light in the tunnel at the end Now you're calling me up on the phone So you can have a little wine and a moan It's only because you're feeling alone At first, when I see you cry Yeah, it makes me smile Yeah, it makes me smile At worst, I feel bad for a while But then I just smile I go ahead and smile La-la-la, la-la-la, la-la-la, la-la-la La-la-la, la-la-la, la-la-la, la-la-la La-la-la, la-la-la, la-la-la, la-la-la, la-la-la At first, when I see you cry Yeah, it makes me smile Yeah, it makes me smile At worst, I feel bad for a while But then I just smile I go ahead and smile At first, when I see you cry (I see you cry) Yeah, it makes me smile (makes me smile) Yeah, it makes me smile (it makes me smile) At worst, I feel bad for a while (feel bad for a while) But then I just smile (but then I just smile) I go ahead and smile (I go ahead and smile)
| Week | Chart Date | Position | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Feb 10, 2007 | 83 | 43 |
| 2 | Feb 17, 2007 | 54 | 72 |
| 3 | Feb 24, 2007 | 49 | 77 |
| 4 | Mar 3, 2007 | 67 | 59 |
| 5 | Mar 10, 2007 | 65 | 61 |
| 6 | Mar 17, 2007 | 82 | 44 |
| 7 | Mar 24, 2007 | 88 | 38 |
| 8 | Mar 31, 2007 | 83 | 43 |
| 9 | Apr 7, 2007 | 98 | 28 |
| 10 | Apr 14, 2007 | 96 | 30 |
| 11 | Apr 21, 2007 | 97 | 29 |
| 12 | Apr 28, 2007 | 97 | 29 |
| 13 | May 5, 2007 | 85 | 41 |
| 14 | May 12, 2007 | 95 | 31 |
| 15 | May 19, 2007 | 95 | 31 |
| 17 | Jun 2, 2007 | 94 | 32 |