Q1: What is the exact title and original artist for the song containing this lyric?
A1: The track is titled "Don't You Want Me," recorded by the British synth-pop group The Human League and released in 1981 on their hit album Dare. Search strings like "dont you want me like i want you baby" are colloquial misrememberings of the primary chorus line, "Don't, don't you want me?"
Q2: Who are the two vocalists singing back and forth on the track?
A2: The lead male vocal is performed by front-man Philip Oakey, while the responding female vocal is delivered by Susan Ann Sulley. Backup harmonies throughout the song feature bandmate Joanne Catherall.
Q3: Is the storyline based on an actual real-life event between the singers?
A3: No. While Oakey did discover Sulley and Catherall dancing in a Sheffield nightclub, the song’s narrative, concerning an older man who plucks a woman from a cocktail bar and tries to control her career, was inspired by Philip Oakey reading a photo-story in a woman's magazine, combined with themes from the 1954 film A Star Is Born.
Q4: Why was Philip Oakey originally against releasing the song as a single?
A4: Oakey felt the track sounded overly commercial, flimsy, and soft compared to the darker, experimental synth-pop direction The Human League originally pursued. Virgin Records executive Simon Draper insisted on pushing it as a single, turning it into the band's biggest career commercial success.
