Wicked Game
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"Wicked Game" is a song that was originally released by Chris Isaak in 1989. It can be found on his Heart Shaped World album. Despite being released in 1989, it didn't become a hit until January of 1991, when it reached #6 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The "wicked game" is played by a woman who appears to have tricked the singer into loving her: "What a wicked game to play, to make me feel this way / What a wicked thing to do, to let me dream of you". The popular music video directed by Herb Ritts featured top model Helena Christensen rolling on the beach with Isaak. A previous version of the video was commissioned for the Wild at Heart soundtrack, and was directed by David Lynch [link]
The song was also used in the episode of Friends, The One Where Ross and Rachel...You Know, accompanying the 'you know' moment.
Cover versions
- The Finnish band HIM remade this song, first using it in their demo, then their EP , then another recording on their first album Greatest Lovesongs, Vol. 666, and lastly on the British and American versions of their sophomore album Razorblade Romance. The last recording they made of it then reappeared on their compilation album And Love Said No - The Greatest Hits 1997-2004. With "Wicked Game" on their EP and first album, HIM gained quite a bit of fame in their native Finland. HIM frontman/singer/songwriter Ville Valo had this to say about "Wicked Game": "I went to Pasila's library and borrowed the soundtrack-vinyl of Wild At Heart and recorded it on tape. So with Linde we tried to 'learn' the song from the tape. It was kind of funny, that we learnt the song a bit wrong. We didn't hear the guitar parts well enough from that 'bad quality' tape. We also heard the lyrics wrong, and when the song was later recorded to our first EP, there were a few funny mistakes in the lyrics."
- The video artist Pipilotti Rist also recorded a version of this song and made a video shot in the interior of a European café.
- Irish band JJ72 released an acoustic version of the song on their 2003 UK single release 'Always and Forever'
- Giant Drag added a cover of the track to the European release of their Hearts and Unicorns album
- The German dance/techno-outfit Novaspace recorded a version of the song for their 2004 album Cubes.
- In May 2005 rumours circulated and were even confirmed that a cover of Wicked Game would be Girls Aloud's next single. However, the girls decided to not release the single and include it on their album. But when the album Chemistry materialised there was no cover of Wicked Game included.
- Heather Nova included a cover on her 2005 album Redbird.
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