Daily Jam - Obsession

I mentioned picking songs for a wedding reception a couple of days ago on this column, and I’m coming back to that concept again today. Before my wife and I were married, there was much discussion as to what song would play during our first dance, with both of us pitching ideas back and forth to see what might stick. Serious contenders included Stevie Wonder’s “I Believe (When I Fall in Love it Will Be Forever)” and Blur’s “To the End,” but ultimately we settled on a classic slow dance with The Flamingos’ “I Only Have Eyes For You.” I think we chose well.

But while we were suggesting and listening to different possibilities, we came across several songs, some having been used in weddings we had attended in the past, that came off sounding a tad…amiss. That is to say, sure The Sundays’ take on The Rolling Stones’ classic “Wild Horses” (the cover now a classic in its own right) is a wonderful and beautiful song, and sure it can evoke feelings of love and such, but at the end of the day, it’s just kind of…stalky. In fact, it’s kind of amazing how many audio laments of unrequited love can feel a little creepy in the right context. I’m pretty sure every song The Police ever recorded was about stalking someone to some extent.

Now none of these songs ever blatantly comes out and screams restraining order, as they’re generally cloaked in metaphor and imagery, so it’s pretty refreshing when one comes along that wears its stalker card right on its proverbial sleeve. And so we have synth pop band Animotion’s wonderfully hooky and endearing 1984 hit “Obsession.” The song, a cover originally penned and recorded by Holly Knight and Michael Des Barres a year earlier, is all propulsive beats, sweeping and jabbing synths, and lust, lust, lust. There are no hidden layers or allegories, our protagonists simply wanting to know what they have to do in order have sex with their obsession. And goddamn it’s fun and danceable.

Maybe we should have played it at our wedding.

Listen below, our Daily Jam.