Hence the quotemarks around “love” in my first sentence. I’m fully aware of the fact that the emotions a stalker feels are really not love in any meaningful sense of the word, but if asked they will claim it’s “love”
The sentiment that one’s significant other should be there, metaphorically, for you is based on reciprocity. Portions of the verses indicate the two are no longer together, so that moves the song clearly into stalking. There still is an element of love being expressed, though.
It’s the second creepiest choice for wedding music next to one couple who used Lyle Lovett’s L. A. County
I’ve heard rumors that some couples have used Pearl Jam’s “Betterman”, which is about a woman who wants to leave an abusive relationship but fears she can’t do any better.
Of course it’s a song about obsession/stalking.
But it’s not nearly as bad as this:
*If you hear somebody knocking on your door
If you see something crawling across the floor
Baby it’ll be me
And I’ll be looking for you.
If you see a head a-peeping from a crawdad hole
If you see somebody climbing up a telephone pole
Baby it’ll be me
And I’ll be looking for you.*
Oo, creepy. Betcha didn’t know Jerry Lee Lewis wrote the mother of all stalking songs (“It’ll Be Me”). :eek:
I wonder if that’s true. I do recall some TV show in which a couple is getting married, and they argued over using the song. It was kind of done subtly though. If I recall the bride was incredulous, and the groom said something like, “Hey, I love Pearl Jam!”, but they never went into the details - it was sort of a joking nod to the audience.
The song is definitely about stalking. It’s confirmed by the Police and I think the lyrics speak for themselves.
I will say though that as a child I had a much more innocent mind and I thought this song was a father singing to his daughter. He’d be watching her as she grew up, eventually ‘leaving the nest’, so it was a bittersweet feeling for the father.
As others have mentioned the author has clearly labeled it as a song about obsessive love veering into stalker territory; so much so, that he wrote “If You Love Somebody (Set Them Free)” as a palate cleanser. The music is purposefully upbeat. Sting has done this before; listen to the lyrics of “Can’t Stand Losing You.” On first listen it’s a cute little ditty about a guy who gets dumped, but it’s a pretty twisted tale of a guy who threatens suicide if his girlfriend leaves him. And the protagonist is a stalker, too.
I think there’s some pretty dark stuff going on in the mind of Mr. Sumner, there…
I wouldn’t necessarily go that far. He’s definitely watching her in a stalkery way, but he’s not necessarily threatening her. I don’t know whether he has any intention of doing something, or whether (like the title character of the Kinks’ “Art Lover”) he’s content just to watch.
Doesn’t the sinister, broody music mean anything to them?
You ask whether the song is about love or stalking but your poll doesn’t contain the latter as an option, as such.
Good point!
The only people I know who think it’s a normal love song - after listening to the lyrics properly at least - are not terribly bright people.
I went to a wedding a few years back in which the couple danced to Kelly Clarkson’s “Because of You,” a song that is transparently about domestic violence. I think that’s creepier.
I thought the nefarious line was pretty obvious.
I’ve heard of people dancing to “One” by U2. It’s a break-up song. (In fact, wasn’t it partially inspired by a gay man telling his estranged father that he’s dying of AIDS?)
Bono thought fans were nuts when they told him they used the song at their wedding.
Hey, at my high school prom they played “Excitable Boy” by Warren Zevon. 
Obviously, whoever chose the music wasn’t listening to the lyrics - just the boppity beat … or at least, so I hope.
For those unfamiliar, the lyrics contain the following:
Wait, are we still talking “Every Breath You Take”? I don’t get sinister and broody at all from the music. It sounds more reflective and nostalgic to me.
I go for stalker. But I can see how someone not looking close could mistake it. This and the other examples listed in this thread all fall prey to what I call “commercial syndrome”. Ever notice how a commercial will pick some popular song to sell their product, and then snip out one sentence or refrain that sounds like it makes the point they want, but conveniently ignore/delete the part that is counter to the image they want to convey? As if nobody will recognize the song, realize what the rest of the lyrics are, and put 2 and 2 together? Well, that’s because a lot of people either don’t pay attention to lyrics (“they’re just mouth music”), or don’t understand all the lyrics and only pick up the refrain or a line here and there. So someone can pull out, for example, the lines
And the lights of L.A. County
Look like diamonds in the sky
When you’re driving through the hours
With an old friend at your side
and latch on to that as a sentimental expression of being together, and totally miss the part about the ex driving with his 45 to track them down at their wedding and shoot them dead. Oops.
Yikes!
Double Yikes!
Actually, it seems more about emotional abuse from a parent, perhaps mother after divorce, that made the narrator emotionally repressed. But perhaps domestic violence played a role in that mother’s trauma.
Again, if you look at it in a certain light, with the last lines
One love
One blood
One life
You got to do what you should
One life
With each other
Sisters
Brothers
One life
But we’re not the same
We get to
Carry each other
Carry each other
and project that into the message of the song that they are trying to celebrate. But the song as a whole is about the narrator telling off someone else for not being this way.
I agree. The music softens the lyrics. They don’t sound as bad in the performance as they appear on paper.
Skald, this is simple. Do you have a goatee?
Oh, wait, you wanted to still talk about the song? I thought that was pretty well settled.
Quoth Irishman:
My favorite (though non-creepy) example of this was Philadelphia cream cheese using the opening line of “New York, New York”.