Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” is a sexy song that sends you into a heated desire for another. The music is instantly recognizable, and the lyrics are sultry and captivating.
“Wicked Game” was released as a single on Friday, July 14, 1989, from his third album, Heart Shaped World, which was released a month earlier on Tuesday, June 13, 1989.
Before this, Isaak’s 1985 debut album, Silvertone, gained some attention when two songs, “Gone Ridin'” and “Livin’ for Your Lover,” were used in David Lynch’s 1986 film “Blue Velvet.” His second album, self-titled “Chris Isaak,” came out a year later with the memorable track “Blue Hotel,” but didn’t have much commercial success.
After its initial release, “Heart Shaped World” was a slow burn and peaked at number 149 on the Billboard 200, staying on the chart for about ten weeks.
“I remember where that title came from,” said Isaak. “We had a roadie and he had a little girl, really sweet. We were in some nightclub, and we were just starting out. She was drawing pictures. I looked at one of the pictures, and I said, ‘What is that?’ She said, ‘It’s the world.’ I said, ‘It doesn’t really look round like the world.’ She goes, ‘It’s a heart-shaped world.’ I went, ‘Thank you.'”
As for the song, Isaak says, “I remember I wrote ‘Wicked Game,’ and I thought, ‘The last thing we probably need is another ballad.’ They were always telling me, ‘You’re a good ballad singer, but write more rock ‘n’ roll stuff.’ I wrote that song and I really liked it. I brought it down to the band and we played it and we liked it. We recorded it and it came out like it had a life of its own. It wasn’t on the radio, and it wasn’t a hit. Nobody really knew us that well yet. Everywhere we played, we noticed when it came to that song, people would pay attention. We went, ‘We got something.'”
“I never called the record company ever in my life. I thought, maybe they’ll forget about me and they won’t fire me. But I actually called up and set up a meeting and I said, ‘I think this song could be a hit. We’re getting a great response. I want money to make a music video.’ They went, ‘Nope. We don’t think so. You know, it’s a nice song, but this isn’t the year for guitar-driven ballads.'”
It wasn’t until Lynch was searching for music for his new film “Wild at Heart,” starring Nicholas Cage and Laura Dern, that he asked Isaak if he had new music. Isaak suggested he look at “Heart Shaped World.” Lynch listened and connected to the sound of “Wicked Game.”
“David Lynch said, ‘I’m using this song in a movie. Hey, why don’t we have a video?’ I said, ‘David, because I don’t have any money,'” Isaak stated. “Pretty much on his own, he drove the project to make that video. People forget, but he made the first video for ‘Wicked Game.'”
“It’s very soulful, and it creates a mood,” Lynch stated in an interview with MTV in 1990.
“Wild at Heart” was released in the United States on August 17, 1990.
The Lynch-produced “Wicked Game” music video was put on MTV, stated Isaak, “but they would only play it while the movie was in the theaters. It played for a while, and the record was doing well, but they pulled it. By that time, it had caught on to some radio stations.”
In September, Lee Chesnut, the music director of Atlanta-based radio station Power 99 WAPW and a massive David Lynch fan, saw “Wild at Heart” for the third time and couldn’t get the music out of his head. The instrumental version of “Wicked Game” plays in the scene where Sailor (Cage) and Lula (Dern) are driving together at night and he opens up about his past.
“Each time I went back I got more excited about this hypnotic instrumental song in the film,” said Chesnut.
“At the time, I was at WAPW. The album had been out almost two years, and ‘Wicked Game’ had not been released as a single, and there were no plans to do so. I think the label had given up on it. I saw the David Lynch film, ‘Wild at Heart,’ where they used an instrumental version of the song. I saw the movie three times, and every time I saw it, the melody really stuck in my head, so finally, I dug out the soundtrack to the movie. When I found the song, it had vocals to it and I thought, ‘This is a hit record. I just know that it is,'” stated Chesnut. “So, I went to the Program Director and said, ‘Let’s just play it for a few days. If nothing happens, we can take it off. But I know in my gut that this is a hit song.’ Sure enough, about two days later it was our number one request, and record stores were going crazy calling us trying to find out where to get the album. From there, I called the label and convinced them to release ‘Wicked Game’ as a single. In the meantime, I personally got about twelve other stations to start playing it to see if the same thing would happen for them. Each station that put it on got the same reaction. About six or eight weeks later, the label finally released it as a single, and six months after that, it went Top 10.”
When the song played on the radio the station’s phones lit up. Chesnut began calling radio stations in Tucson, Memphis, and Seattle and encouraged them to play Wicked Game.
By mid-December, the song started to climb the charts. Isaak mysteriously appeared on the back cover of Billboard with an insight into the brief history of Wicked Game, along with a subtle nod to Chesnut:
“A single spark leads to spontaneous combustion. It starts deep in the South, where a lone radio programmer is struck by a song so mesmerizing he can’t get it out of his head. Soon, listeners flood the station with calls, stores can’t keep it in stock and programmers in other cities pick up the story and plug into the heat. This is how the “Wicked Game” begins.”
Isaak’s record label, Warner/Reprise Records, rushed out a CD single along with a new music video. The video was directed by renowned photographer and director Herb Ritts, who also produced music videos for Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey, and Madonna.
“Then they came back and said, ‘OK, let’s make a video with Herb Ritts.’ I remember Herb saying, ‘There’s this girl and she’s not really known, but she’s good. Her name is Helena Christensen,'” recalled Isaak. “Herb asked if I had any notes. I said, ‘Cut me out and put more of her in.'”
“There is only one girl that reminds me of what this song is about,” stated Ritts.
By March 1991, “Wicked Game” broke into the Billboard Hot 100 Top 10, peaking at No. 6, and Chris Isaak’s album “Heart Shaped World” became Warner’s best-selling album at the time, surpassing other artists like Madonna, Vanilla Ice, C&C Music Factory, Paul Simon, and Jane’s Addiction.
Billboard noted that the new music video for “Wicked Game” featured “Herb Ritts as the eye behind Chris Isaak’s sizzling video, shot on the black beaches of Hawaii. The sexy piece features a beautiful model, clad only in men’s BVDs,” which were a popular underwear brand.
In addition, Rolling Stone crowned “Wicked Game” as the sexiest music video of all time.
Lyrically: Wicked Game by Chris Isaak
The inspiration for “Wicked Game” came from a late-night phone call and was written in 15 minutes.
“This one I wrote really late at night and it was written in a short time, because I remember that a girl had called me and said, ‘I want to come over and talk to you,’ and ‘talk’ was a euphemism. And she said, ‘I want to come over and talk to you until you’re no longer able to stand up.’ And I said, ‘Okay, you’re coming over.’ And as soon as I hung up I thought, ‘Oh, my God. I know she’s gonna be trouble. She’s always been trouble. She’s a wildcat. And here I am, I’m going to get killed, but I’m doing this.’ And I wrote ‘Wicked Game’… It’s like you start thinking about it, and by the time she came over to the house, I had the song written. And I think she was probably upset because I was more excited by the song. (Laughing) I was like, ‘Yes, you’re gorgeous, baby. But listen to this song!'”
“Wicked Game” explores the conflict between the heart’s red-hot desire and the mind’s rational judgment. The opening lyrics capture this tension:
The world was on fire, and no one could save me but you
It’s strange what desire will make foolish people do
I never dreamed that I’d meet somebody like you
And I never dreamed that I’d lose somebody like you
“It’s about 4 a.m. in the morning and [a girl] called to say ‘I’m coming over to your house’… Right after I said okay, I thought ‘I should never have allowed this person to come over to my house… I know what’s going to happen,'” said Isaak. “It’s just about what happens when you have a strong attraction to people who aren’t necessarily good for you.”
“I never dreamed that I’d meet somebody like you / And I never dreamed that I’d lose somebody like you.” Isaak captured the duality of love as it can feel like a dream come true with the eventual flip side of experiencing unimaginable loss.
No, I don’t wanna fall in love (this world is only gonna break your heart)
No, I don’t wanna fall in love (this world is only gonna break your heart)
With you, with you
(This world is only gonna break your heart)
Knowing that it’s possible to fall in love could only lead to eventual heartbreak, especially with this one person. The swinging pendulum between the heart (temptation) and mind (logic) persists.
What a wicked game to play to make me feel this way
What a wicked thing to do to let me dream of you
What a wicked thing to say, you never felt this way
What a wicked thing to do to make me dream of you
“Wicked” is an impeccable word choice to describe the emotion of the game at play.
During an interview with The Dini Petty Show, host Petty stated that she realized while watching the music video that Helena Christensen’s character “not once did she look at you, and was sort of like she was bored with you, and you were like in love with her.” Isaak responded, “Yeah, that was the idea. She was distant. She was based on a real thing.”
“I like the fact that I don’t get the girl,” Isaak recalled. “She’s not kissing me, she’s kind of ignoring me through the whole video, and that kind of matches the song, which is, you know, ‘I’m in love with you, but you’re playing me.'”
The song continues and the verses repeat with your mind drifting away thinking about possibilities and potential consequences.
Isaak ends “Wicked Game” with a double negative that could shift the meaning of the lyrics. “Nobody loves no one” grammatically translates to “Everybody loves somebody.” However, emotionally it’s a constant reminder that love, at its worst, feels like a wicked game where no one wins.
