"Pompeii" is a song by English indie rock band Bastille. It is the fourth single from their debut studio album Bad Blood and the first to get major airplay and promotion. The song was released as the album's fourth single on 12 January 2013. It reached number 2 in the UK Singles Chart, number 4 in Australian ARIA Chart, and number 5 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number one on the Alternative Songs chart. Furthermore, according to the Official Charts Company, it was the UK's most streamed song up to June 2014.

Lyrically, the song is about the Roman town of the same name, which met its fate with the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. It was nominated for British Single of the Year at the 2014 BRIT Awards. A mashup of the song with Rudimental and Ella Eyre's "Waiting All Night" was performed live by Rudimental, Eyre and Bastille at the aforementioned ceremony.

According to the sheet music on Musicnotes.com, the song has a tempo of 128 beats a minute and is written in the key of A major with a chord progression of D-A-F#m-E.

The official music video was filmed in Los Angeles and Palm Springs, California. It was directed by Jesse John Jenkins and produced by Tova Dann. The video was first released onto YouTube on 20 January 2013 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's been infected as well. He climbs a mountain and looks out at the view, before turning around to reveal his own eyes meanwhile have turned black as well. The story is an allegory for the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Pompeii.

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Wikipedia