"Counting Stars" is a song by American pop rock band OneRepublic from their third studio album, Native (2013).
[5] In September 2023, OneRepublic released a reimagined version of the song, featuring a slower tempo and a new backing track.
[7] In an interview with the Official Charts Company, Tedder said, "I had the idea for Counting Stars originally in the summer of 2012 when I was in the Hamptons.
I ended up coming across this weird song that had this indigenous folk sound to it that just struck me like lightning.
"[11] The band explained that the song is about "laying in bed awake at night when you're stressed out of your mind, thinking 'How are we gonna make ends meet?
The video features the band performing the song in a gloomy ground floor of a building surrounded by hanging light bulbs, interspersed with scenes of several people in a religious revival service on the upper floor, dancing along with the song.
At the end of the video, the ceiling collapses, causing one of the people in the service to fall through the floor into the room the band is performing in.
[16] The song peaked at number two on January 18, 2014, and stayed there for two weeks behind "Timber" by Pitbull, featuring Kesha.
[22] On October 11, 2014, the Official Charts Company confirmed that "Counting Stars" had sold 1 million copies in the UK.
[8] On February 28, 2022, Live Nation Entertainment confirmed that song had sold 41 million copies worldwide.