One girl, one cup

Stop it with your filthy mind. This is as pure and innocent as the driven snow.

When high-school comedy Pitch Perfect came out last year, no-one expected it to spawn a major US chart hit. But one song, performed by Anna Kendrick's character while auditioning for a college choir, spent 11 weeks in the Billboard hot 100, shifting half a million downloads. Pretty impressive for a modest, minute-long melody accompanied by a paper cup.

Anna Kendrick - Becca's Audition>

Interestingly, When I'm Gone (aka The Cups Song) wasn't originally in the script for the cult smash.

"I saw this video on Reddit," Kendrick told David Letterman. "And because I'm a huge loser, I thought the best way to spend an entire afternoon would be watching the video, like, 50 times, and teaching myself how to do it. So when they found out I could do it, they wanted me to do it in the movie."

I don't know exactly which clip inspired the actress, who you may recognise from Up In The Air, but as far as I can work out, the original was by English duo Lulu And The Lampshades, who uploaded their version in June 2009.

Lulu And The Lampshades - You're Gonna Miss Me

The song itself dates back to 1937, when it was performed by the fiddle-tastic JE Mainer's Mountaineers. Now, 76 years later, Kendrick has recorded a full studio version to accompany Pitch Perfect's DVD release. To be honest, the radio-friendly mix dilutes the charm of the a capella version somewhat, but the video is a whole ton of cute.

GUYS! GUYS! This is a music video we made for "Cups!" (I know! It's weird! But it happened! You should watch it!!!) vevo.ly/123c5Wp

— Anna Kendrick (@AnnaKendrick47) April 15, 2013

Anna Kendrick - Cups (director's cut)

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