Elvis Costello – I Want You

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  General Comment:It was such a pleasure reading these comments. I am 40 now and when I was 17 I had a very serious boyfriend who played me this song and wrote out the lyrics for me as a love letter. That was 1986 when the song came out. I never completely understood if his love for me was so beautiful, deep and enduring that it became an obsession, or if it actually had an unhealthy obsessive element. Is there a difference? Loving someone deeply and romantically becomes an obsession in our hearts and minds. When we love as deeply as the song describes we want to possess the person, even consume them. Now, all these years later, and we didn't end up together, i listen to the song and think of the love we experienced for each other, and how lucky i was to receive it. Thank you for these comments - they broaden my understanding even more.

  Flag freedbymusicon January 26, 2011   Link

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  General Comment:Well, Elvis is a master song writer. He's writing a song about what he's felt and what the rest of us are feeling now. That sick feeling where we know what's best for someone else. But the truth is something terrible to us. They've never needed us. The next step for us is to learn music and write for ourselves.

  Flag Pro777on August 27, 2010   Link

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  General Comment:The end of his relationship with Bebe Buell.

  Flag camera123on March 01, 2010   Link

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  General Comment:I listened to this song for a week straight after finding a girl cheated on me. It helped me get by pretty well. I also just found out that this girl I'm seeing was hanging out with her ex (and he's pretty upset that she moved on) and this song came on and it crushed him. How meaningful this song must be to crush somebody's soul like it... I dunno, it certainly just helped me cope with my issues. I guess everybody handles things their own way.
  
  The meaning behind it is pretty clear, though. It's clearly about a jealous ex-lover of some sort who just wants the person back and can't have them back.

  Flag pocketthesauruson December 10, 2009   Link

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  My Interpretation:minor lyrics correction - if i'm not mistaken, it's "some tatty compliment". (c.f. merriam-webster.com/dictionary/…)
  
  tatty, adj.: rather worn, frayed, or dilapidated : shabby

  Flag RedAlerton March 10, 2009   Link

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  Memory:Going through this right now. The mind's mixture of love, obsession, and possessiveness for the one who betrayed, hurt and emotionally (and feels like physically) dragged me through hell and back, causing me to slump into a bitter dark place, where I can only assume Elvis was when he wrote this.
  
  This song hits it's mark right in the centre of the heart, you can't help but stop and hang on every brilliant, honest and raw word.
  
  "He tossed some tattered compliment your way, And you were fool enough to love it When he said "I want you"" - Constantly asking yourself what he possibly could have said that she could not refuse or say 'no' to.
  
  "I want to know the things you did that we do too. I want to hear he pleases you more than I do." - Hearing that they did the things were 'special' to us kills me the most. And I for some reason am addicted to feeling the pain, asking the questions, not stopping and needing to find out more after the first confirmation there was something going on. A painful and dangerous addiction.
  
  "Did you call his name out as he held you down? Oh no, my darling, not with that clown..." - Constant images of this every day, especially as I go to bed. The mental image makes my physically ill.
  
  
  

  Flag stewiebgoodeon January 10, 2009   Link

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  General Comment:Obsession. Awesome. But in all honesty I don't want to ever feel this way, its heartbreaking to listen to. You just want to shake him up and tell him there are more fish in the sea.

  Flag Silver195on December 06, 2008   Link

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  Song Meaning:Actually, while the song is rather creepy (and awesome), it's not as simple as a cheating spouse. Originally titled "House", this song was a Side B that wasn't really ever meant to be recorded. Costello was drunk during the recording session. It is a tragic story told from the point of view of a man who's lover is admitted to an asylum, where she is repeatedly raped by a night guard. In her drugged and disorientated state, she is in a sense brainwashed into falling in 'love' with the guard, and grows distant to her anguished lover, who has figured out what has been going on, but can't do anything to stop it. By the end of the song, the man has been so distraught about the situation, he becomes insane himself...

  Flag Sub-Urban-Iteon November 18, 2008   Link

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    Plausible, especially because of
    
    "You've had your fun you don't get well no more
    I want you
    Your fingernails go dragging down the wall"
    
    and
    
    "If you need a second opinion as you seem to do these days"
    
    What is your source for this information? Need to know if it is true to understand the meaning. Though of course, the whole story can serve as metaphor for the simple explanantion of a 'cheating spouse'.
    
    Thanks.

    Flag ARvWDon June 03, 2012  
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  General Comment:And everybody is writing these clever comments, so I'm not even gonna try. Just wanted to say I love it a lot, both EC's and Fiona's version. The lyrics are beautiful, in a creepy way, kind of. But you understand him, right, so... Well, I was not going to try writing like a smart person.

  Flag kill_us_allon September 08, 2008   Link

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  General Comment:I think Ratman nailed it, I will only add that it seems EC intent was to take Bob Dylan's "I want you" combine it with the Beatle's (John Lennon's) "I want you (she's so heavy)" and forged them into a crowbar to tear open the heart of darkness that the jilted lover goes through when the object of his (or her)affection goes from present to past tense in the course of a conversation....

  Flag darnflooron February 15, 2008   Link

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