Rockwell may be a one-hit wonder with the ‘80s classic “Somebody’s Watching Me,” but what a hit it is. It shouldn’t take more than 10 seconds of playing time for any Gen Xer to pick out which song it is. And the kooky creepy video that promotes the catchy gothic funk-pop track is equally memorable, making nods to Psycho, Halloween, and zombie movies.
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There is a lot of behind-the-scenes to the story, but here’s the quick take. Kennedy Gordy (aka Rockwell), is the son of Motown founder and hit/starmaker Berry Gordy. In 1982, when he was 18 years old, the young Gordy presented a demo to his father who was less than ecstatic about the tune. But his son would not be deterred. He worked on it for another year, enlistening the help of his childhood friend Michael Jackson, for whom he performed it to (with his faux British accent) and asked if he could sing on it. Michael’s brother Jermaine, married to Gordy’s sister Hazel, agreed to do background vocals. The recorded song features a rare guest appearance from the King Of Pop during the choruses.
The lyrics to “Somebody’s Watching Me” were not inspired by serious paranoid delusions; rather, they came from youthful observations and pranks. When Gordy was a kid he would look out of his bedroom window and see a neighbor in an adjacent apartment sticking his head out of his own window to peer into Gordy’s family’s space.
When it came to writing the song, Gordy recalls living with a young lady whom he would prank. “When she would take a shower, I would go up to the glass, wait until she was washing her hair and then press my face against the glass,” Rockwell told Rolling Stone in 2016. “She would open her eyes, see my face and go, ‘Ahhhh!!!!’” (Can you guess which stanza that inspired?)
Rockwell told actress Share Cherrie in 2016 that he was not happy with previous songs he had written, and he claims that after praying hard to God, inspiration struck and within two days he had written the lyrics to his future hit.
“I got on my knees and I prayed to God,” he told Cherrie. “I said, ‘Please Father, give me the creativity to write a song that will go to the top of the charts and tickle the tastebuds of the music connoisseur. Two days later, ‘Somebody’s Watching Me’ was a written deal. And it was so supernatural the way that it happened. The track was done. I had it on a four-track recorder and I played it, and I took a cassette recorder and sang the lyrics into it. And the melody and everything else came to me just like that. It was the easiest thing that ever happened. It was like something was speaking through me.”
Using the stage name Rockwell, Gordy later was signed to Motown without his father’s help, which he says baffled the musical patriarch. But he was in. While he did not go the nepo-baby route, Gordy still got help from some heavy hitters. At that point, Jackson’s Thriller was a mega-selling album, and he almost enlisted another future name.
Lenny Kravitz wrote in his memoir Let Love Rule that, after befriending Gordy at Beverly Hills High School, the latter previewed “Somebody’s Watching Me” to him because he thought the budding rock star could sing it.
“He came over to my mom’s house with the first LinnDrum drum machine which was really big and heavy and he had some sort of Roland keyboard,” Kravitz explained to Rolling Stone in 2020. “He’s like, ‘I got this tune for you and I think that you’re really gonna dig this. And he sings me the song and he gets to the hook and I’m like, ‘Wow, that’s good.’”
But Kravitz felt that Gordy should do it himself because he felt it really represented his personality. “At that time, [Kennedy] wasn’t thinking about himself as being an artist,” Kravitz continued. “Maybe he was thinking more about being a producer and a writer. But he offered me this song and next thing you know, the months go by and I was like, ‘Holy s–t!’ I hear this song on the radio and the rest is history.”
Debuting in late January 1984 ahead of his debut album’s release, “Somebody’s Watching Me” spent 20 weeks on Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart, peaking at No. 2 and selling 500,000 copies. The 2012 reissue of the track also went Gold. The album of the same name spent 30 weeks on the Top 200 albums chart, peaking at No. 15 and also selling a half million copies.
Rockwell had another Top 40 hit, “Obscene Phone Caller,” that spent 14 weeks on the Hot 100, peaking at No. 35. It’s a pretty decent electro-funk tune that makes for a cheeky companion to his big hit, with the implication of the song and video being that the caller is a woman. Muses Rockwell in that tune: “If Alexander Bell were alive today / would he want the telephone to be used this way?”
The next Rockwell album, Captured, did not fire up the charts the way its predecessor had. But at least Gordy can lay claim to crafting the hit he craved. Whether the tune was conjured from diving inspiration, supernatural forces, or just having the right talent with the right song at the right time, “Somebody’s Watching Me” remains a great ’80s hit and perennial Halloween favorite.
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Image via YouTube @LakeParadiseMusic2
