The film
director David Lynch loves Chris Isaak, his Roy Orbison throwback style,
perfectly suits Lynch's 1950s nostalgia. He had already used two of his songs
in "Blue Velvet", but it took an instrumental of "Wicked
Game" in the 1990 film "Wild
at Heart", for Isaak's career to
really take off.
Isaak had
already released two albums that had not bothered the charts, and 1989's
"Heart Shaped World" seemed
little different, as its first single flopped too. However after the movie
appearance, "Wicked Game" started garnering airplay, prompting a
single release.
A brooding
and melancholy air percolate throughout the four minutes, with an obsessional
lust, desperate to resist, but futile like a moth to a flame. Isaak wrote it quickly, between a late night
phone call from a girl and her arrival. He knew she was wild and dangerous, but
he could not resist.
There is an Lynch-style
atmospheric opening ("The world was on fire and no one could save me but
you"), but he already knows the stakes ("It's strange what desire
will make foolish people do").
The beautiful
soft backing vocals warn him ("this
girl is only gonna break your heart"), but it is too late he has
already lost. Her callous disregard ("what a wicked thing to say you never felt this way")
triggering his plaintive declaration ("nobody loves no one").
Heart wrenching
lyrics, matched by Isaak's tearful croon hithting his falsetto highs. But most memorable is the shimmering guitar phrase from James Wilsey (using a tremolo
bar), the obvious attraction for Lynch. The recording was difficult,
with many takes, and in the end the bass and brushed drums come from previous
looped samples, married to Isaak's acoustic guitars
It took time,
but finally "Wicked Game" hit the top 10 hit in the US and UK in 1991, assisted
by the provocative black & white video with Helena Christensen. Today it remains an X-Factor staple, and
covered by Celine Dion and Lana Del Rey, and Gemma Hayes (my favourite).
A modern
classic in an old style.
Hear Now - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vKsSGyQf-M
Hear Next -
I have always "enjoyed"
his break-up album "Forever Blue"
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