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"Little Black Submarines" is a song by The Black Keys, written by Dan Auerbach/Patrick Carney/Danger Mouse.
It's from their album El Camino and was released as the album's fourth single on October 8, 2012. The song begins as a quiet acoustic ballad before transitioning to a loud, hard rock arrangement in the second half. Critics praised the song and called it one of the highlights from El Camino. The song was a success on rock radio, reaching number two on the Alternative Songs chart in the US and the Alternative Rock and Active Rock charts in Canada. The group filmed a music video with director Danny Clinch at the Springwater Supper Club and Lounge, a dive bar in Nashville, Tennessee. "Little Black Submarines" was certified gold in America.
"Little Black Submarines" originated as a song recorded by guitarist Dan Auerbach and producer Brian Burton that saw several alterations. The band recorded it "four or five different ways" before playing it in a sparse, acoustic arrangement. The group had a louder version of the song, but since they felt it "wasn't completely working", they spliced it after the acoustic version to create a mix with two contrasting sections. According to drummer Patrick Carney, the harder-rocking second half was the first time that the band played that arrangement. He said, "That whole ending is the first take we played, just figuring out what we're doing and riffing on that idea. That's why that part of the album feels the loosest. It's how Dan and I play. It's live in the studio, just guitar and drums, with the instruments bleeding into each other." Auerbach called the electric portion of "Little Black Submarines" the "closest representation of our live show than anything we've done before". The song concludes with a guitar solo that Auerbach described as his "jock-rock moment".
The music video for "Little Black Submarines" was directed by Danny Clinch and filmed during the group's live performance at the Springwater Supper Club and Lounge, a small dive bar in Nashville, Tennessee. The venue, formerly a speakeasy, was the first place in the city to obtain a liquor license. Auerbach said, "It's a really cool building. It's been there forever. It's got a lot of history. It's one of three or four different little small dive bars in town. It's special because it's so old." The Black Keys allowed a small number of fans into the venue for filming of the one song before deciding to play an entire show. They originally had a storyline in mind for the video but ultimately abandoned the idea in favor of a conventional performance video. Auerbach said, "We all just sort of kind of mutually agreed that it should probably just be the performance and not any of the other extra stuff. Luckily we had live footage so we turned it into a live video. We just sort of said 'You know, it was fun kind of performing here at a small club with the fans. Why don't we just have it be that?'" The video premiered on September 4, 2012.
An autostereoscopic version of the video was featured on Nintendo Video for the 3DS on the premiere date.
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