Psycho stalker music

[mizarchivist]

What is up with 80s pop?

Have you ever really listened to "Jesse's Girl"? It's the heart-warming tale of a guy who's trying to steal his friend's girlfriend and is frustrated and confused that she's not charmed by his pickup lines and smooth talking. What a dick!

Yesterday I was listening to REO Speedwagon. "Can't Fight This Feeling" -a classic power ballad all about true love, and co-dependency. Again with scary stalker overtones when this guy is determined to kick it up a notch with his platonic female friend.

Tip of the iceberg, these. We won't even get into the poster child of dangerous relationships: Sting with his "Every Step You Take." Mind you, all three songs make me smile. They're nostalgic in their own ways. ... and next up Animotion's "Obsession." Classic, I say! What are your favorite stalker songs?

Comments

[wurmwyd.livejournal.com]

Hi There!

Hey if Jesse's not getting it done, maybe his girlfriend would be better off with Rick Springfield. If he can't keep her around, she's totally fair game. I say all's fair in love and war. (and I'm not too sure about war)

Now All I want to do is make love to you by Heart? That is a fucked-up song...

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

And everyone classifies "Every Breath You Take" as this great classic love song. I am like o_O "Do you not see how truly creepy this is?"

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but I saw an interview with Sting on VH1 when I was a teenager, wherein he discussed just how fucked up he thought it was that this song he'd written about a creepy stalking situation turned into a favorite love song.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

I remember reading or seeing an interview like that, too, where he said that's why he wrote "If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free." i.e. "GET A GRIP, PEOPLE!"

[zonereyrie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I remember that too.

[drwex]

a classic power ballad all about true love, and co-dependency

BWAH! You nearly made me sporfle my tea.

the poster child of dangerous relationships: Sting with his "Every Step You Take."

I'm trying to track down the rumor mill origin for the story that prior to making it in music, Sting was a teacher and that many of the early Police songs are near-autobiographical. This is particularly scary in respect to "Don't Stand So Close To Me." Wikipedia confirms he did work as a music teacher in a Catholic girl's school, but that's it.

[mizarchivist]

Yeah. Did he actually finish Nabokov? It did not end well. It didn't middle well, either. Eeeeeesh! The only way to make it only a wee bit less nasty is imagining him 22 and she 17-18. Still: dude- get a hobby!!

[catya.livejournal.com]

"this girl is half his age"...

[mizarchivist]

crap. You're right. Oh well. Creepy old man.

[feste-sylvain.livejournal.com]

Actually, if I remember the interviews from 26 years ago correctly, the student hit on him. Thus the opening line, "Young teacher, the subject of schoolgirl fantasies".

And yes, he knew how "Lolita" went. That's why the Nabakov reference, and why it comes directly after "He starts to shake and cough".

[zonereyrie.livejournal.com]

If you buy the 'iTunes Originals' Sting 'album' it has a number of interview tracks between the songs - on one of them Sting states, repeatedly, that "Don't Stand So Close To Me" was *NOT* autobiographical. :-) Made me think he'd beed asked that many times over the years.

[mangosteen]

I assert that any love song performed by one person can be a stalker song, if you assume that the target of the singer's affection has no idea that the singer exists.

[mizarchivist]

Very true!

[lifecollage.livejournal.com]

You know, this discussion fits right in with the "songs they'd never play at weddings if they listened to the lyrics" query.

I almost never listen to lyrics, so I'm a bad source for either discussion.

[fraterrisus]

i had some friends who played "Paradise By The Dashboard Light" as their First Dance.

i can't even really think of anything funny to say about that.

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

Nah. The joke just writes itself.

[feste-sylvain.livejournal.com]

My favorite one of those was the high school prom which featured Brick by Ben Folds Five.

[catness.livejournal.com]

"Songs Dr. Pepper would never have picked for a commercial if they'd listened to the lyrics".

Stacy's Mom.

*faint*

[caulay.livejournal.com]

I remember reading an interview with Sting about "Every Step You Take" in (I think) Variety (don't ask, it was a late night working periodicals in the library) during college, shortly after the song became a hit and explaining it was supposed to be creepy and he was more than a little taken back by all the people going on about what a "beautiful love song" it was.

And continuing the Police theme, how about "Wrapped Around Your Finger"?

And then there was one of the girls I hung around with in high school, who sang a lot of Air Supply songs, especially "The One That You Love". Not the worse offender but still a case of someone not letting things go.

And more recently (for some value of "recently"), Sarah McLachlan's "Possession" is about stalking and was written at a time when she was being stalked.

[feste-sylvain.livejournal.com]

Jesse's Girl: I was a DJ when this came out, and our general reaction at the station was "Rick Springfield? Isn't he supposed to be some soap opera actor?" We were appalled by Jesse's Girl, and found that you could replace "girl" with "car" everywhere in the song and it still scanned. We didn't play that song, but when the Chipmunks covered it as Jesse's Squirrel, we played that.

Can't Fight This Feeling: power ballad, to ensure that women would show up at the rock shows and the band could get laid. Had appeal because most women heard it as the "Nice Guy" finally noticing that they were romance material.

Every Step You Take: Sting knew what he was doing. Every song on that album is colored by the divorce he was going thru at the time (listen to Synchronicity II again). When Every Step You Take became a major dedication hit on Top 40, Sting was appalled, and wrote If You Love Somebody (Set Them Free) for his first solo album to make up for it.

But if you really want a total creep-fest stalker song, you have to rewind back to the 1960s and the Beatles' Run For Your Life (which includes the dainty lyric, "I'd rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man").

[mizarchivist]

Oh yes!! One of my least favorite Beatles songs, ever. And I went through a reasonably thorough Beatlemaniac stage as an adolescent. Eeeeeesh. John was a disturbed man when he wanted to be.

[feste-sylvain.livejournal.com]

Wait; are you calling the guy who wrote Maxwell's Silver Hammer "disturbed"?

[mizarchivist]

But his crazy evened out Paul's bubblegum so nicely, don't you think? (Gaaaahhh! Don't get your crazy on me!)

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

Two words: Rocky Raccoon.

I love Paul and all, but with songs like that it's really, really hard to take him seriously. I've been maturing into a George fan since my 30's.

And John? Please. Wouldn't date him for anything. 'Jealous guy', indeed.

[tamidon.livejournal.com]

My mum told me she was a George girl when she was a teenager in 1960's England. I went and burned her a cd of all his tunes and realised that I, too, was a George girl.

[cutieperson]

haptotrope and i were working on a Stalker Mix a while back, which i sadly do not have a copy of.

but for new stalker songs, i like Freezepop's "Stakeout". the video is awesome.

[catness.livejournal.com]

*laugh*

I'm not sure where anybody ever got the idea that musicians were NICE. Should I even tell you that my biological father dedicated "Don't Stand So Close To Me" to me when I met him, at age 14? He used to always play that for me in his cover band. Talk about a pervert. *snicker*

I was going to say things about Sting but everyone else covered that already. (Friggin' MTV addicts.) I don't know a thing about REO's intentions, but Rick Springfield's song was chock full of irony, not confusion, in, "I've been funny I've been cool with the lines / Ain't that the way love's supposed to be." Rick wasn't stupid, but he knew his audience. ;)

The music business is *still* the last bastion of the truly macho and irresponsible male.

[mizarchivist]

*smooch*

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

Rick wasn't stupid, but he knew his audience. ;)

'You got my body dancin' tangoes in 3/4 time..."

Oh, hell yeah.

Just Remembered Another One

[feste-sylvain.livejournal.com]

You have to go back to the 1970s for this, but the Carpenters' Superstar is explicitly a stalker song. An obsessed fan starts believing that the love songs are being sung directly to her...

Don't you remember? You told me you loved me baby...

Re: Just Remembered Another One

[caulay.livejournal.com]

And from the same vintage, Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly With His Song", also about a fan believing the songs are aimed at her.

[ceo]

I have been told that Sting wrote "If You Love Someone, Set Them Free" in part as penance for how creepy "Every Breath You Take" was.

[quiet-elegance.livejournal.com]

Well if you're moving out of the 80's...
Barenaked Ladies, "Old apartment". In no way, shape or mean subtle.

[fraterrisus]

i was thinking of "Straw Hat and Old Dirty Hank" as a slightly less subtle stalker song, but yeah.

actually, it's sort of disturbing how many of the songs on Rock Spectacle are "love gone bad" songs.

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

How about creepy too-young-girl songs? Aside from the Depeche Mode Library Of Songs For Picking Up 15-year-old Girls (Little 15, Question of Time, and oh so many more), there's The Outfield and "Your Love." How about this:

Josie's on a vacation far away
Come around and talk it over
So many things that I'd like to say
You know I like my girls a little bit older
I just wanna use your love tonight
I don't wanna lose your love tonight

I ain't got many friends left to talk to
No-one's around when I'm in trouble
You know I'd do anything for you
Stay the night - we'll keep it under cover
I just wanna use your love tonight
I don't wanna lose your love tonight

...he's trying to convince a girl who's too young and who has a boyfriend who is out of town to come over for string-free humpin', in secret. Yeaaaaaah.

Rock music is full of screwed-up people, yep.

[cos]

The creepiest, most disturbing stalker song I know is on the album Geek the Girl by Lisa Germano... but it's not subtle or prone to being misunderstood by anyone. And it's from the early 90s.

[zonereyrie.livejournal.com]

Maybe The Cars' "My Best Friend's Girlfriend" is the other half of the "Jesse's Girl" story. ;-) "...and she used to be mine."

Hmm, J. Giels Band "Centerfold" is a little creepy to me.

I have to agree with another commenter that Heart's "All I Want To Do Is Make Love To You" is a very creepy song. "No, I just want a one night stand to make me pregnant because my guy is shooting blanks."

CREEPY PSYCHO MOVIES!

[moejoesqueegie.livejournal.com]

ah romance! And don't forget the creepy 80's stalking movies... was it Nicholas Cage or John Cusack lighting "I Love You" with lighter fluid on the front lawn... John Cusacks character did the radio thing on someone's front lawn right? Who was sleeping on the lawn in the sleeping bag?

I mean we all know, restraining orders are another way of saying I love you.

[samuraizergling.livejournal.com]

I've always thought that Happy Together by The Turtles (I know, not 80's) could go either way, depending on how the girl it was being sung about felt about the boy singing.

Imagine Me and You

*I DO*

*I think about you day and night*

Yea - stalkery.

[samuraizergling.livejournal.com]

And while we're on the subject - How did "Into the Night" by Benny Mardones ever get on the radio in the first place?

She's just sixteen years old
Leave her alone, they said
Separated by fools
Who don't know what love is yet

I mean yea, pedophile.