The main riff is reminiscent of Cold Sore Super Stars from Desert Sessions Vol 7 & 8.
According to Homme, "No One Knows" existed before the recording sessions for Songs for the Deaf:
"We have patience with music, a year or five years down the road it may kind of rewrite itself and become what it's supposed to be. There's two songs on this record that are over five years old, you know? 'God Is in the Radio' and 'No One Knows'".[7]
Recording for Songs for the Deaf began in March 2002 at three studios across California. Though the liner notes credit Homme and Eric Valentine with producing the majority of the album – including "No One Knows" – Homme credits Valentine with merely recording the beginning of the album for contractual reasons.[8]
Reception
"No One Knows" has received critical acclaim from critics. In The Guardian review of Songs for the Deaf, Dave Simpson said "'No One Knows' has killer riffs to spare".[9]Playlouder were similarly enthused, calling the song "soulful, like the last gasp of the hero in an old western".[10] Eric Carr of Pitchfork Media called it an "easy groove" and "four-to-the-floor slime of the highest quality".[11]
"No One Knows" was awarded the number one position on Australian national radio station Triple J's annual Hottest 1002002, with four other Queens of the Stone Age tracks also charting.[12] The March 2005 edition of Q magazine placed it at number 70 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks, saying of the song, "Possibly the only full-on, legs akimbo guitar great to be based around a rhythm that goes oompah-oompah, here Josh Homme joined the ranks of the immortal."[13] In September 2006, it was placed at number 13 on NME's list of the 50 Greatest Tracks Of The Decade.[14]Rolling Stone placed "No One Knows" at number 97 on their list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time, saying of the track, "QOTSA guitarist and overall mastermind Josh Homme found the sweet spot between hooky hard rock and the pulverizing metal he'd grown up playing."[15] The song was listed at number eleven on the 2002 Pazz & Jop list, a survey of several hundred music critics conducted by Robert Christgau.[16]
In 2011, NME placed it at number 18 on its list, "150 Best Tracks of the Past 15 Years".[18] In 2013, "BBC 6 Music" placed it at number 16 on its "6 music's greatest hits" voted for by over 100,000 listeners.[19] To celebrate the twentieth anniversary of its "Hottest 100" poll, Australian radio station Triple J ran a "Hottest 100 of the last 20 years" poll in June 2013. Songs that were released between 1994 and 2012 were eligible for the poll and "No One Knows" was voted into eleventh position.[20][21] In 2014, NME placed it at number 99 on its list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time".[22] In 2016, Louder Sound ranked the song number one on their list of the 10 greatest Queens of the Stone Age songs,[23] and in 2021, Kerrang ranked the song number two on their list of the 20 greatest Queens of the Stone Age songs.[24]
Chart performance
"No One Knows" was released as a single on November 26, 2002 and became the most successful single from Songs for the Deaf. The song's peak placings of number one, number five and number 51 on the US Modern Rock, US Mainstream Rock (where it lasted for twenty-eight weeks) and the Billboard Hot 100 charts respectively remain the highest of the band's career.[25] "No One Knows" is also the band's highest charting single on the Dutch Singles Chart (where it reached number 39) and on[26] the Irish Singles Chart (where it peaked at number 26).[27] It reached number 15 on the UK Singles Chart.[28]
The music video for "No One Knows" was directed by Dean Karr and Michel Gondry;[29] Gondry filmed the first half in June with Karr taking over in July.[30] Josh Homme has said Gondry was chosen because he "did all those videos for Björk and we're huge fans of Björk, so we're excited".[31]
The video is split into two sections and switches between them throughout. The first has band members Homme, Nick Oliveri and Mark Lanegan driving a truck at night, whereupon they hit a deer. When they get out to inspect, the deer proceeds to attack them before going on a rampage in their International Scout, with the three band members tied to the hood of the car. The deer's rampage only stops when it falls in love with a doe statue decorating a garden, proceeding to make love with it after mounting the heads of the band members on the wall like trophies. The second section of the video is of Homme, Oliveri, Troy Van Leeuwen and Dave Grohl performing the song against a black background.
"No One Knows" has been covered by numerous groups, including The Section Quartet on their 2007 album, Fuzzbox,[33] and Franco Saint de Bakker,[34] with the song appearing on their 2004 release Live At The Ancienne Belgique.[35] It was also covered by Razorlight as part of Jo Whiley's Live Lounge Tour on September 26, 2008.[36]The Divine Comedy often covered "No One Knows" at live shows and one such performance appears on their 2004 DVD, Live at the Palladium.[37]Mark Ronson also covered the song as a B-side to his single "Stop Me", and it later charted in the UK by itself.[38]The Vaccines released their cover version in January 2021.[39]
The song was the first Queens of the Stone Age track to be remixed by British musical outfit Unkle. The "No One Knows" remix appeared as a B-side on the follow-up single, "Go with the Flow", as well as on the EPStone Age Complication.[40][41]
^Pitchfork Staff (August 21, 2009). "The 200 Best Songs of the 2000s". Pitchfork. Retrieved October 21, 2022. This powerful slab of punch-drunk boogie rock stands as the most visible piece of QOTSA's legacy...
^Rolling Stone Staff (June 28, 2018). "The 100 Greatest Songs of the Century – So Far". Rolling Stone. Retrieved May 31, 2023. But perhaps what Grohl meant is that no matter what the current trends are, the 21st-century blues-rock grind of "No One Knows" is timeless.
^"The 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 2008-05-30. Retrieved 2008-10-05. "With this enduring throwback to the T. Rex beat, QOTSA guitarist and overall mastermind Josh Homme found the sweet spot between hooky hard rock and the pulverizing metal he'd grown up playing. More than a few of the last half-decade's modern-rock bands have taken their cues from this hybrid of downtuned menace and AM-radio sugar frosting."
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