The Music of "I Want You"

I don't know what is the power of these three words, but in terms of music, I guess it depicts, in my opinion, a kind of risk-taking, exciting and heart-throbbing sexual desire (healthy or unhealthy) in people. And no wonder, typing these 3 words in Youtube leads me to these three amazing songs I have heard before, all in rather different contexts using the same three words.

1. I Want You - Savage Garden



A 90's Savage Garden song that appears frequently to my memory on MTV. This song to me tells about sexual desire that can survive by its own without deep knowledge of a person. It gets lost in itself and requires no explanation. Personhood is relegated behind emotions, and it seems the person is more interested in the get-lost-in-myself feeling that excites him, like most teenage infatuations. No suprise that this song is rather psychedelic, and you can hardly make out the lyrics except the chorus where it simply says, 'Ooh, I want you...' It doesn't matter. Notice how many times 'I don't know' actually appears in the song:

"Ooh I want you
I don't know if I need you
But ooh I'd die to find out"

"I don't need to try and explain
I just hold on tight"

"But a look then a smell of perfume
It's like I'm down on the floor
And I don't know what I'm in for"


2. I Want You (She's so Heavy) - The Beatles



Proably in the same category as Savage Garden's song, just that this song is much simpler and much more musically complex. The whole song repeats "I want you, I want you so bad..." throughout the whole song intermittenly interchanged with a segment that conspicuously loses its love flavour and changes to much slower, heavier riffs for the lyrics 'She's so heavy...' What can this mean? Do the Beatles mean that the relationship is out of true commitment and enduring support for the woman who is in some kind of hardship or trouble? I can only guess. In any case this song is very different from the earlier kind of love songs that they did.

"I want you,
I want you so bad
It’s driving me mad, it’s driving me mad."

The above video is taken from 'Across the Universe', and takes on a Vietnam war interpretation in line with the movie's plot.

3. I Want You - Elvis Costello



Now, the best for the last. Fiona Apple's cover is amazing and is currently stuck in my head. This song is the most complex lyrically and brings a host of emotions, mostly that of passion (some say obsession), about a man who had a wife who committed adultery with another man. This song is angry, hateful, painful and passionate all rolled into one. It tells of the intense passionate longing of a man after the whole person of the woman he loved.

Bravo!

"Oh my baby, baby,
I want you it scares me to death
I can't say anymore than I love you
Everything else is a waste of breath."

"I want you
I'm afraid I won't know where to stop"

"I want you
Did you call his name out as he held you down
I want you
Oh no my darling not with that clown"