"Try" is a pop song written by Luso-canadian singer Nelly Furtado and Brian West for Furtado's second album, Folklore (2003). It is produced by West and was released as the second single from the album in February 2004. It is featured in the television show Smallville in the episode "Delete", and in the Joan of Arcadia episode "Only Connect".
Furtado said the song "is about the reality of love. My energy used to just go everywhere, but now I'm more grounded because I've found true love. The idea here is that, yeah, sometimes life sucks. But life is only so long, and somebody can come along who makes you want to be a better person. You just have to roll with the punches. So "Try" is not a happy-go-lucky song. It has a strange arrangement because the chorus happens only twice, and the end is improvisational. It's like one of those epic power ballads." The Los Angeles Times said of "Try", "Her unfettered enthusiasm wins out as she sings of passion for life".
"Try" is the opening song from the 1997 Michael Penn album Resigned.
A music video for the song was directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and was shot with the crew (and certain members of the cast) of Boogie Nights while the movie was in its editing process. The entire music video is filmed start to finish for over three minutes without any cuts whatsoever (a trademark of Anderson's which he employs in scenes for nearly all of his films). The video features Penn walking briskly down a narrow but long hallway with dozens of doors.
The video was filmed in downtown Los Angeles in the longest hallway in North America (the hallway is just over a quarter of a mile long).
Phillip Seymour Hoffman makes two appearances in the video, the first time handing Penn a microphone and a guitar, the second time holding a boom mic in front of him. He is wearing a Planet of the Apes T-shirt and a jacket with the words Angels Live in My Town printed on it (a reference to Boogie Nights). Thomas Jane and Melora Walters are also among the various cast members from Boogie Nights that have small parts in the music video.
The music video can be found on the New Line Platinum DVD edition of Boogie Nights.
