The track became a commercial success, reaching number one in the United States, Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Norway, and Sweden.

He returned to work on the song several evenings later, with session musician Kevin Kendricks performing the bassline on the synthesizer.

[4] Months later, André 3000 worked with Pete Novak at the Larrabee Sound Studios in Los Angeles.

The song moves at a tempo of 159 beats per minute, and André's vocal range spans more than an octave and a half, from B3 to G5.

[4] He wonders if they are staying together just "for tradition", as in the lines "But does she really wanna [mess around] / But can't stand to see me / Walk out the door?"

[7] During the second verse, the protagonist gets cold feet and wonders what the purpose of continuing the relationship is, pondering the question, "If they say nothing is forever...then what makes love the exception?

", and the "fellas'" response, an overdubbed version of his vocals, is "Ice cold", a reference to one of André Benjamin's stage names.

topped the 2003 Pazz & Jop list, a survey of several hundred music critics conducted by Robert Christgau, with 322 mentions, beating runner-up Beyoncé's "Crazy in Love" by 119.

Pitchfork referred to it as the apex of the album and added that it successfully mixed Flaming Lips-style instrumentation with the energy of Prince's 1983 single "Little Red Corvette".

[17] Marcello Carlin of Uncut described the song as "Andre going power pop with overtones of early-'80s electro; The Knack meet side one of The The's Soul Mining.

"[18] Subsequently, Pitchfork gave it the number two slot in its "The Top 100 Singles of 2000–2004" feature in January 2005, bested only by OutKast's own "B.O.B.".

[2] Rolling Stone compared André 3000's vocals to those of "an indie-rock Little Richard" and the backing arrangement to the Beatles' 1969 album Abbey Road,[21] later ranking it at number 182 in their list of 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and ranking it at number four on their 2011 list of the "100 Best Songs of the Aughts".

[24] NME likened trying to classify the song as "akin to trying to lasso water" and described it as "a monumental barney between the Camberwick Green brass band, a cruise-ship cabaret act, a cartoon gospel choir and a sucker MC hiccuping 'Shake it like a Polaroid pic-chaaaa!'

The music video of the same name was likewise well received by critics, who regarded it as a contemporary piece of post-industrial performance art.

[35] At the 46th Grammy Awards, the song won Best Urban/Alternative Performance and was nominated for Record of the Year, but lost to Coldplay's "Clocks".

[38][39] It performed well across the continent, reaching the top ten in Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, and Switzerland.

[52] Nevertheless, Polaroid sought to capitalize on the allusion, hiring Ryan Berger of the Euro RSCG advertising agency.

While Polaroid did not release sales figures, its public image, which was in decline with the growing popularity of digital cameras, was bolstered by the song.

[56] The song was used as the namesake of Pocoloco’s Stand ability in Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, part seven, “Steel Ball Run,” which debuted in 2004.

The music video was filmed using motion control photography in two days in August 2003 on a sound stage at Universal Studios in Los Angeles, California.

[57] The video opens with the band's manager Antwan (Big Boi) talking to Ice Cold and Dookie backstage.

Ice Cold dances with one of the girls on stage, and the video closes with several friends of the band watching and discussing the performance.

was nominated for Best Short Form Music Video at the 46th Grammy Awards, but it lost to Johnny Cash's cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt".

[65] In 2006, Stylus Magazine listed it at number 72 on its "Top 100 Music Videos of All Time", comparing André 3000's dancing to James Brown's performances in the early 1970s.

In 2006, Mat Weddle, frontman of the unsigned folk band Obadiah Parker, performed an acoustic cover of the song at a local open mic night, and a friend of his posted a video of the performance on YouTube, which quickly became virally popular online.

[138] Inspired by slowcore band Red House Painters, Weddle's version moves at a much slower tempo backed by a rhythmic guitar strum and converts the breakdown into a "staccato chime".

[140] An acoustic cover of the song, sung by Sam Lloyd in his role as Ted Buckland appeared in the 2009 episode of Scrubs titled My Soul On Fire, Part 2.

This version saw lead singer Vessel accompanied solely by piano and only included the first two verses and the chorus.