That time Scully made Mulder a lip sync video in the 90s

What’s the predicted outcome of writing a song that’s entirely about wanting to fuck an actor? Irrelevance? Side eye? A restraining order? In 1999, which all in all was a weird time culturally, singer Bree Sharp had a different result. She wrote ‘David Duchovny, Why Won’t You Love Me’ in a moment of obsession with The X-Files and, consequently, David Duchovny. The song is clever and plays up Sharp’s deep, real obsession with Duchovny through FBI and alien metaphors and puns, but with lyrics like David Duchovny, I want you to love me/to kiss and to hug me/debrief and debug me, she probably didn’t expect or particularly want Duchovny to stumble across the song.

But he did, and has said since that he “would play it in the car” because he thought it was “a good song”, adding that he then memorised it and got caught “singing along to it with the window down”. Next, Gillian Anderson thought it would be funny to make a video of it, so after requesting Sharp’s permission, two writers’ assistants organised for everyone they could find to participate in a huge, ridiculous, extremely 90s lip-syncing video that they then presented to Duchovny at the Christmas party.

“The whole point of this video is that it's so random and so funny. That's why I think it sort of has this like underground status now, because it's completely bizarre and makes no sense. It's pop culture in action” Bree Sharp

For the people on a show to be so appreciative of fan-made work is rare, and the video itself is a stunning piece of work. It mixes footage of Duchovny on The X-Files with clips of the entire cast and crew lip syncing to the song. It also features a ton of celebrities who were on or around the 20th Century Fox lot at the time – notably Brad Pitt (in Tyler Durden get up), Sarah Michelle Gellar (as Buffy), Whoopi Goldberg, all of KISS, the cast of Frasier, and Jerry Springer. Sharp has called the video “so exciting, and so shocking, and underground, and wonderful” and said that “the whole point of this video is that it's so random and so funny. That's why I think it sort of has this like underground status now because it's completely bizarre and makes no sense. It's pop culture in action”.

Despite being relatively unknown (in part because the video was never released, due to the huge cost that would be attached to getting all those celebrities to sign off on it) the song and video had a huge impact on Sharp’s life and got her a record deal. Years later, in 2015, she remade the song to celebrate The X-Files reboot and performed it live at a launch party for Duchovny’s book. Either because Sharp’s song is so legitimately good (it is) or because a universal crush on Mulder will never die, it is still resonating with people. Plus, the video still functions as a perfect, grainy time capsule of the late 90s and early 00s. Watch it above.