The 5 Creepiest Love Songs

Thought 'Someone Like You' was just a paen to the bittersweet aftertaste of lost love? Think again...
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Thought 'Someone Like You' was just a paen to the bittersweet aftertaste of lost love? Think again...

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Love can be a tortuous business, and there a million openly sinister songs about unrequited love, obsession, lust, vengeance and general nastiness to prove it. That’s not what I want to address here. It would be a statement of the bleedin’ obvious to write about Robert Smith or Trent Reznor wanting to fuck you like an animal, Billy Corgan pulling his dearly beloved’s crooked teeth to make her perfect just like him, or Nick Cave bashing poor old Kylie’s brains in with a rock. What’s more disturbing is the type of creepy love song that manages to fly under the radar: songs that are eagerly (mis)understood, as heartfelt declarations of love and passion while actually implying breaches of numerous laws, not to mention boundaries of taste, decency and mental wellness. Songs that grown men and women serenade each other with and hold close to their hearts as ‘our song,’ when the briefest analysis of the lyrics is enough to make a rhino’s skin crawl. So here are the top 5 creepiest love songs – quick, someone call the police.

Adele – Someone Like You

“I hate to turn up out of the blue, uninvited,” says the UK’s favourite spurned lover, “but I couldn’t stay away, I couldn’t fight it. I had hoped that you’d see my face and be reminded that for me it isn’t over.” Since she’s already established that any relationship took place some time ago and the subject of her affections is now married to someone else, creepy doesn’t even do this justice.  Just how many years have passed here? How long has she been hiding in the bushes? Time to move on, love. And whose benefit is the chorus for? To convince herself, or simply lull her victim into a false sense of security before he finds his cat mutilated on the doorstep? “Never mind, I’ll find someone like you. I wish nothing but the best for you.” If that were the case, would you really be here crying in the rain outside the patio doors and frightening the children? I think not. It’s to be hoped that the former Mr Adele has invested in a state of the art home security system, because it looks like he’s going to need it.

Yhe Police – Every Breath You Take

Where’s Sting hiding? Under the bed? In the wardrobe? Or has he simply set up CCTV cameras in strategic positions throughout the house? Either way, he’ll be watching you.  He has form here as well – just a couple of years before this touching tale of stalking and covert surveillance, he was confessing his temptation at the advances of schoolgirls in ‘Don’t Stand So Close To Me’. So they’re just stories. Fine, but is there really any need for couples to play this as the first dance at their wedding? Their relationship must have an interesting back story that they’re not sharing.

Enrique Iglesias – Escape

Sorry, Enrique, it doesn’t matter if you’re a hot-blooded Latino male, oozing passion from every pore. The fact of the matter is that there are laws against this kind of thing. “If you feel like leaving, I’m not going to make you stay but soon you’ll be finding you can run, you can hide but you can’t escape my love.” Excuse me? Is that romantic or is this some sick game of cat and mouse? There’s the door – but I’ll be on you by the time you get to the end of the driveway. “It was good, it was bad but it was real and that’s all you have.” Because I’ve already killed your family and removed all traces of your existence – you belong to me now! This kind of thing is exactly the reason restraining orders were invented.

Frank & Nancy Sinatra – Something Stupid

It’s not the content of this one that’s abhorrent, it’s the context. Yes, it was originally written and performed by a husband and wife folk duo and yes, not every pop song is autobiographical anyway. But whose idea was it to have a father crooning to his daughter about blowing his chances of getting her in the sack? It just ain’t right. Suspension of disbelief is all well and good, but once that father/ daughter image is in there, it’s pretty damn hard to shake. There are some songs you just wish you could forget.

Neil Diamond - Girl You’ll Be A Woman Soon

Rock has a well-stocked catalogue of unnervingly inappropriate songs about young girls. Half of Chuck Berry’s material would be kicked into touch by every radio station on the globe if it was written now, and that’s not even to mention Springsteen’s ‘I’m On Fire’ or Ringo’s ‘You’re Sixteen’. Legal age of consent is one thing, but common morality is another and grown men singing about girls still in school uniforms is enough to chill the blood. But for sheer creepiness, none of them come close to Neil Diamond’s sinister classic. “Girl, you'll be a woman soon. Please, come take my hand. Girl, you'll be a woman soon; soon you'll need a man.” Our bold narrator waits in the wings crossing off squares on his calendar until a small matter of days and weeks converts him from common pervert to lothario - evidence if it were needed that grooming was going on long before we had an Internet.

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