'Don't You Want Me': The making of the Human League's daring classic

21 March 2025, 12:09

The Human League rubber-stamped their new sound with the success of 'Don't You Want Me'.

When The Human League formed in 1977, they were a very different group from the band that would eventually score global success with 'Don't You Want Me'.

Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh quit the band in 1980 to form Heaven 17, leaving founding member Phil Oakey and Adrian Wright with a job on their hands to replace them.

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A trip to the Crazy Daisy Nightclub in Sheffield city centre led to the recruitment of Susan Ann Sulley and Joanne Catherall as backing vocalists and dancers, though their roles soon grew.

That was enough for the tour the band had booked before all the departures, but the rush-recorded and released 'Boys and Girls' didn't actually include the newbies.

The girls were back for the 'Sound of the Crowd' single and Dare album in 1981, which included 'Don't You Want Me'. Here's everything you need to know about that global breakthrough.

Who wrote 'Don't You Want Me'?

The Human League - Don't You Want Me (Official Music Video)

With Ware and Craig Marsh long gone by this point, obviously they weren't involved in the writing of 'Don't You Want Me'.

It was Philip Oakey who came up with the words while Jo Callis and Adrian Wright came up with the synth-driven backing.

"'Don't You Want Me' started off as a vocal melody from Adrian," Oakey told The Guardian. "Jo Callis, our other synth player, funked it up but it didn't have a chorus."

Producer Martin Rushent insisted the song needed a chorus and sent Oakey away to another room. Two hours later he returned with "Don’t you want me, baby".

But there was a big change before the song was finished.

Don't You Want Me (Alternative Version / 2012 Remaster)

Both Virgin Records and Martin thought it wasn't quite right, so the producer and Callis worked together to remix it and soften it up.

Oakey wasn't a fan, and it's striking that the song wasn't one of the three singles that preceded Dare. That honour went to 'The Sound of the Crowd', 'Love Action (I Believe in Love)' and 'Open Your Heart'.

Phil wasn't even keen on the idea of releasing the song as the fourth single.

"The record company said, 'We're putting 'Don't You Want Me' out," Oakey told The Story of 1981.

"We said, 'No, it's our sort of Des O'Connor song'. I think is what we said at the time. Hence last track, side two, bit of a gap between the one before."

Is 'Don't You Want Me' based on a true story? What's the song actually about?

Human League - Don't You Want Me (1982) • TopPop

Given how Oakey plucked the then-17-year-old Susan Ann Sulley and Joanne Catherall from sixth form obscurity, many people think that 'Don't You Want Me' was about that fateful trip to the corner of York Street and High Street.

Despite Susan Ann and Phil playing the roles in song (and in the video), that wasn't the case at all.

"I've spent 40 years telling people I never worked in a cocktail bar," Susan moaned.

One person who did work in a cocktail bar was ex-League man Martyn Ware's girlfriend, so that may have been an influence on Oakey, but more direct inspiration came from a photo romance mag he was reading.

In fact, Phil lifted that iconic opening line from the song directly from the magazine.

More broadly, the song was inspired by the classic star-meets-girl, girl-becomes-star tale as depicted in the classic 1976 version of A Star is Born.

The lyrics are a proper bit of storytelling.

A guy hooks up with a cocktail waitress, takes all the credit for turning her into a superstar, and lords that over her, threatening to return her to obscurity.

After a chorus, the girl retorts that actually, she was always destined for stardom and would have achieved it without him. What's more, she's outgrown him and thinks it's really best that they part ways.

When was 'Don't You Want Me' released and where did it get in the charts?

'Don't You Want Me' was first available as the last track on Dare, which was in shops from October 16, 1981.

Against Oakey's wishes, it was released as a single just over five weeks later on November 27.

Despite plenty of Human League fans already having the song on the album, it was an absolutely massive hit.

It not only topped the UK singles chart (including earning the coveted Christmas number 1 spot) but also sold over 1,560,000 copies and was the biggest-selling song of 1981.

And a few months later, it even topped the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks in July 1982, sparking what was later dubbed by Rolling Stone as "the second British Invasion".

In 1995, a bunch of remixes released to coincide with the band's Greatest Hits album went to number 16.

Who has covered 'Don't You Want Me'?

Mandy Smith - Don't You Want Me Baby? (Official Video)

Given how massive and hooky 'Don't You Want Me' is, it's no surprise that it's been covered as many times as it has.

Weeks before she married Rolling Stones' man Bill Wyman, Mandy Smith released her version as 'Don't You Want Me Baby'. With that classic Stock Aitken Waterman sound, it was her sole Top 75 hit.

The Farm did even better, scoring a number 18 hit with their cover, which was originally recorded for the charity album Ruby Trax.

The Farm - Don't You Want Me (Official Music Video)

Swedish Eurodance group Alcazar scored a number 30 US hit with their version in 2002.

Other live and studio recordings over the years include takes from the likes of Texas, the cast of Glee, Ella Eyre, Bowling for Soup featuring Anti-Queens & Rival Towns and – shambolically and entertainingly at a live show in 2013 – old Human Leaguers Heaven 17.