"Pencil Full Of Lead" is the third single from Paolo Nutini

Paolo Nutini

Paolo Giovanni Nutini is a Scottish singer, songwriter and musician from Paisley. His father is of Italian descent, from Barga, Tuscany, although both his parents are Scottish, his family having been in Scotland for three generations....

's album, Sunny Side Up. The song was released in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 as a single on 2 November 2009, a music video of the song having been released on 20 October 2009. The song peaked at #17 on the UK Singles Charts and #33 on the Irish Singles Chart

Irish Singles Chart

The Irish Singles Chart is Ireland's music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by the Irish Recorded Music Association and compiled on behalf of the IRMA by Chart-Track. Chart rankings are based on sales, which are compiled through over-the-counter retail data captured...

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Promotion

Nutini performed the song on various UK TV shows including The Graham Norton Show

The Graham Norton Show

The Graham Norton Show is a British comedy chat show that is broadcast on BBC One in the United Kingdom. It was originally shown on BBC Two from February 2007 to May 2009 until it moved to BBC One from October 2009...

and, with his band The Vipers, performed the song with other album tracks at Willton Music Hall before the album was released. Nutini also performed the song live at the Royal Albert Hall

Royal Albert Hall

The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....

 in November 2009 for Children in Need

Children in Need

Children in Need is an annual British charity appeal organised by the BBC. Since 1980 it has raised over £500 million. The highlight of the Children in Need appeal is an annual telethon, held in November. A teddy bear named "Pudsey Bear" fronts the campaign, while Terry Wogan is a long...

.

The song was chosen as one of the Desert Island Discs

Desert Island Discs

Desert Island Discs is a BBC Radio 4 programme first broadcast on 29 January 1942. It is the second longest-running radio programme , and is the longest-running factual programme in the history of radio...

of Len Goodman

Len Goodman

Leonard Gordon 'Len' Goodman is a British professional ballroom dancer, dance judge, and coach. He is a leading personality on television dance programmes such as Strictly Come Dancing and Dancing with the Stars and runs a ballroom dance school in Dartford, Kent.-Early life and career:Goodman was...

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Critical reception

Angryape.com said:

The fact Paolo Nutini's second album Sunny Side Up still resides in the UK top 10 five months after it was first released in June, speaks volumes. It's songs like new single 'Pencil Full Of Lead' that have elevated the Scottish star from unknown singer-songwriter to a surprise household name and hit-maker in the three years since debut These Streets landed.

Continuing his love of classic sounds like rock-n-roll, folk, soul and jazz, this time Nutini lends his bluesy vocals (which appear to sound more weathered, and far beyond his years every time a new song arrives), to an uptempo ragtime pop track, littered with harmonicas, trumpets and jaunty percussion. Without fear of sounding overly cheesy, it's a timeless hit-in-the-making that'll still sound as feel-good in 30 years time.

Fraser McAlpine on the BBC Radio 1

BBC Radio 1

BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock...

 Chart Blog wrote:

This is a sentence everyone should carry round with them at all times. It would solve a lot of tedious chat using words like "vintage" and "seminal" and "authentic", or "cutting-edge" and "innovative" and (absolutely the very very worst worst of all) "zeitgeist".

There are things which are good, and there are things which are not good, and that (as Girls Aloud

Girls Aloud

Girls Aloud are a British and Irish pop girl group based in London. They were created through the ITV1 talent show Popstars The Rivals in 2002. The group consists of Cheryl Cole , Nadine Coyle, Sarah Harding, Nicola Roberts and Kimberley Walsh. They are signed to Fascination Records, a Polydor...

, who are good) once said, is that.

There are no guest rappers, no modern production effects on his voice, no lyrics about current TV shows, nothing about sleazy sex in hotel rooms, nothing about alienation, nothing about the state of modern urban youth and no disco stick.

He does, however, mention having a pencil full of lead, and if I'm not mistaken, that's a saucy metaphor. Either that or he's been sold a lot of lead-less pencils in his time, and after all, what is a pencil without lead but a stick?

UK CD Single

Music video

The music video for the song was added to YouTube on October 20, 2009. It shows a clay model of Nutini playing with an all female band. He starts to grope the band leading to one of the dancers slapping him across the face. His head is then squashed with bits of clay falling off. He runs away as the girls chase him, hitting a camera and tripping over a wire that the girls set up. The video ends with the women playing with parts of Nutini, finishing off with one of the girls making a mini-model of him in her hand, with the model trying to hide his naked body from view.

Chart performance

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Chart 2009	Peak position

End-of-year charts

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|UK Singles Chart

UK Singles Chart

The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...

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