No--*Neither* of You, as a Matter of Fact

547. HUMAN LEAGUE, "Don't You Want Me"
Produced by; written by
A&M/Virgin 2397 1982 Billboard: # 1

If there's one vibe the British have a lock on, it's bored passion, and during the early 80s, British bands like the Human League rode a restrained pulse bomb of it to a near dominance of MTV and the American charts. Probably the other most indelible example of it during that period was Animotion's 1985 hit "Obsession," but that hit was more annoying and laughable, especially if you saw the video.

This single worked much better, and not just because you could safety dance to it. It's got to be the oddest He Said/She Said narrative that pop has ever seen, the antipodal opposite of Otis Redding and Carla Thomas' red hot "Tramp." That song was all about sex, even if the lyrics themselves were mostly about trading insults. Here, it's harder to picture the two protagonists actually having sex, but they still make you curious about their relationship. You don't believe that either of them is telling the complete truth, but if you're not careful you'll catch yourself trying to figure out who's lying more. It's as if Noel Coward had decided to write a New Wave single, maybe during an elevator ride the way Cole Porter wrote "Bianca." If you're at the party where these two run into each other again, you don't want to take either of them home, but you do want a ringside seat for the reunion.