Top Five Stalker Songs

I was thinking the other day about when my kids first heard "Every Breath You Take." They said, "That's weird. It's like a stalker song."



Pretty astute for two and four year olds.



Just kidding.



So I compiled a short list of "stalker songs," all of which I like but one. Here they are in increasing intensity of stalker content.



5. I've Got My Mind Set On You by George Harrison. Mainly because of the percussion, this song is a great example of the old American Bandstand recommendation: "It's got a good beat, and I can dance to it." Not many unique words in it, but we'll get to that later.



I got my mind set on you

I got my mind set on you

But it's gonna take money

A whole lotta spending money

It's gonna take plenty of money

To do it right child

It's gonna take time

A whole lot of precious time

It's gonna take patience and time, ummm

To do it, to do it, to do it, to do it, to do it

To do it right child



This is not a love song; this is an intricate scheme plotted out for months by someone with a single focus: "You shall be mine at any cost, including my own self-respect and sanity." It could've been the theme song to "Fatal Attraction."



4. I Wear My Sunglasses at Night by Corey Hart



I wear my sunglasses at night, so I can, so I can

Watch you weave then breathe your story lines

And I wear my sunglasses at night, so I can, so I can

Keep track of visions in my eyes



That last line makes absolutely no sense. But I wear my sunglasses at night, too, when I listen to this song because I'm embarrassed for anyone to know that I'm listening to it, but I do like it.



3. Private Eyes by OATES & HALL. I had to search high and low to find a pic of Oates on the left and Hall on the right, but I found it, because just once I want to say, here's "Oates and Hall!"



You cant escape my

Private eyes

They're watching you

They see your every move

Private eyes

They're watching you

Private eyes

They're watching you watching you watching you watching you



If you read that last line out loud, it will totally creep you out, but somehow it all seems OK when Hall & Oates are doing the stalking.



2. If I Was Invisible by Clay Aiken. The neglect of the subjunctive "were" in the title really bugs me, by the way. This irritation is surpassed only by the weirdness of the entire song.



I wish I could be

A fly on your wall

Are u really alone

Whose stealin' your dreams ...

If I was invisible

Then I could just watch you in your room ...

Saw your face in the crowd

I call out your name

You don't hear a sound

I keep tracing your steps

Each move that you make

Wish I could read

What goes through your mind Oh baby

Wish I could touch me

With the colours of your life



OK, this whole song is bizarro, but the highlighted phrases prove this goes beyond what craziness most stalkers will even admit to. And what those last two lines are about I don't know, but they made me make the "ew" face. Can you guess this is the one I don't like? And doesn't this pic make Clay look as though he is morphing into Daryl Hall?





1. Every Breath You Take by The Police. I'm not even going to print any lyrics here because every word is stalk-driven. When Jorge and I were in college, Every Breath was popular (#1 for 8 weeks in 1983). The comic "Bloom County" ran in our school newspaper. One edition featured Opus the penguin singing this song with alternative lyrics such as:



Every leaf you rake

Every fish you bake

Every pen you take

Every leg you break

I'll be watching you



Jorge and I were almost falling off our chairs laughing so hard. I'm talking about the crying and not breathing kind of hilarity. Now our kids laugh at US like that whenever we mess up lyrics. It's the "Opus Karma" phenomenon.



So, can you think of any songs to add to the stalker list?



In honor of one of these stalker songs, I'm including a spoof of I've Got My Mind Set On You, which, of course, is probably only funny if you know the song. And yes, this is Weird Al. You don't have to watch the whole thing to get the jist of the joke because it's as monotonous as the original song.