Do Stalker Songs Exist?

On my way home from picking up lunch today, Death Cab for Cutie’s “I Will Possess Your Heart” was playing on the radio.¹ As I listened to its truly excellent slow-build introduction,² I reflected on how I found a great deal of meaning in this song (and a lot of their songs) when I was younger. But if you really think about the lyrics, it’s kind of messed up? “You reject my advances/and desperate pleas/I won’t let you let me down/so easily” is absolutely a statement conjured by the mentally unwell. I resigned myself to relinquish this song to the playlist of stalker songs, because apparently that’s what it was.

I’ve had a playlist of stalker songs in my head for decades at this point. “Every Breath You Take”, “One Way or Another”, “Private Eyes”, “Found Out About You,” Obsession.” As it turns out I’m not the only one who has been compiling such a playlist, Wikipedia has a whole page. But the contrarian in me (and the teenager in my that still really likes Death Cab for Cutie) rebounded at the idea as I considered it this afternoon. Are these really stalker songs? Do “stalker songs” really exist?

What really is a stalker song? Is it just a song sung from the perspective of someone who is stalking someone else? What constitutes stalking? Following someone home?³

How can we be really sure stalker songs aren’t just ham-handed attempts to reconcile with unrequited love? Certainly, I think this might apply to “I Will Possess Your Heart.” What about the others on that list? Sting supposedly didn’t intend for “Every Breath You Take” to come off so stalkery.⁴ What about Animotion’s “Obsession”? It reads a lot more like a ham-handed lament to me moreso than an express intent to stalk someone (does best Valley Girl impression oh my god I’m like, so obsessed). “Private Eyes” just reads like calling someone on their BS, not so much stalking them.

That leaves “One Way or Another,” quite possibly my least favorite song, and “Found Out About You,” a song that I like quite a lot. Both of these songs do actually describe following someone, waiting outside their house to see if the lights are on, observing the target’s behavior, and so on. So yeah, those are actually stalker songs sung from the perspective of the stalker.

…unless they are meant to be satirical. Does it still qualify as a stalker song if it’s a joke or a critique of the type of person who would stalk someone else? “One Way or Another” is certainly hammy enough to seem like satire, but supposedly Debbie Harry really wrote it about being really stalked. “Found Out About You” might be satire, but I think if it is the earnestness of the performance and other lyrical content seems to undermine that point, at best.⁵

So in conclusion, yeah, stalker songs exist. But probably not as many as you might think. Depending on your definition, I guess. This is not to say that the lyrics in IWPYH⁶ aren’t messed up, again assuming they’re not satire they reflect someone with a deeply unhealthy attachment with another person and an apparent lack of chill. Who knows what teenage me was thinking.