“I Want You” by Elvis Costello & the Attractions

Elvis Costello cut "I Want You" with the Attractions for Blood & Chocolate, his 1986 album, with Nick Lowe producing, and it went out as the record's second single, a gutsy pick for a song this unsettling. It's a love song gone rancid: the narrator picks over the details of his lover's cheating and keeps coming back to the title after every line, obsession curdling into torment, all at a slow, dirge-like crawl that ends with Costello worrying two dissonant notes in a short, jagged guitar solo.

Costello himself described its sound as "the aural equivalent of a blurred polaroid" and made no apologies for the murky fidelity, likening it to a pornographic snapshot, broken glass and blood on the wall included. It has won critics' praise since, picked up cover versions from several other artists, and, bitter as its words are, Costello has noted that it gets used as the opening dance at weddings.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.