Somebody's Watching Me (3:57)

“Somebody’s Watching Me” is the debut single by R&B artist Rockwell, released on the Motown label in 1984. The song’s lyrics relate the narrator’s paranoid fear of being followed and watched. It featured former Motown artists Michael Jackson on the chorus and Jermaine Jackson on additional backing vocals. The song peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1984, and reached the top of the Billboard R&B singles chart, as well as reaching number six on the UK Singles Chart.

It was the only major hit for Rockwell. His follow-up single Obscene Phone Caller was Rockwell’s only other Top 40 single, reaching #35 on the Billboard Hot 100. In 2009, the song was ranked #20 on VH1’s 100 Greatest One Hit Wonders of the 80s.

The single’s music video underscores the song’s paranoid tone with a haunted house-inspired theme, including imagery of floating heads, ravens, graveyards, and shower scenes referencing the film Psycho. The mailman who appears in the music video for “Somebody’s Watching Me” also stars in the video for “Obscene Phone Caller”. This was a low budget video. Music video produced by The Wolfe Company, directed by Francis Delia, cinematography by Dominic Sena, production manager: Jason Braunstein, production coordinator: Jon Leonoudakis. Leonoudakis appears in the video as the visual metaphor “watching” Rockwell through the porthole of the front door.