Someone's Looking at You

"Someone's Looking at You"
Single by The Boomtown Rats
from the album The Fine Art of Surfacing
B-side"When the Night Comes"[2]
Released18 January 1980[1]
Genre
Length4:27
LabelEnsign Records (UK)[2]
Columbia Records (USA)
Songwriter(s)Pete Briquette & Bob Geldof
Producer(s)Robert John "Mutt" Lange[2]
The Boomtown Rats singles chronology
"Diamond Smiles"
(1979) 		"Someone's Looking at You"
(1980) 		"Banana Republic"
(1980)

"Someone's Looking at You" was the third and final single from The Boomtown Rats' album The Fine Art of Surfacing.[4] It peaked at number two on the Irish Singles Chart and number 4 on the UK Singles Chart in February 1980.[5]

It is an organ-based song that paints a humid picture of 1984-style government surveillance and has been described as a "gently humorous song about paranoia".[6] The second verse starts "They saw me there in the square when I was shooting my mouth off about saving some fish. Now could that be construed as some radical's views or some liberals' wish". This refers to singer Bob Geldof's participation in a Greenpeace anti-whaling rally in London's Trafalgar Square.[6] Geldof's website describes the song as a personal statement on fame.[7]

Charts

Chart (1980) Peak
position
Canada Top Singles (RPM)[8] 86
Ireland (IRMA)[9] 2
Netherlands (Single Top 100)[10] 48
Norway (VG-lista)[11] 6
UK Singles (OCC)[12] 4

References

  1. ^ "Music Week" (PDF). p. 18.
  2. ^ a b c "Boomtown Rats, The - Someone's Looking At You (Vinyl) at Discogs". Discogs.com. Retrieved 2014-04-10.
  3. ^ DeGagne, Mike. "Someone's Looking at You by The Boomtown Rats - Track Info | AllMusic". allmusic. Retrieved 5 March 2023.
  4. ^ William Ruhlmann. "The Boomtown Rats | Biography". AllMusic. Retrieved 2014-04-10.
  5. ^ Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19th ed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. p. 71. ISBN 1-904994-10-5.
  6. ^ a b "Rats article". Authorsden.com. Retrieved 2011-10-13.
  7. ^ [1] Archived July 9, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  8. ^ "Top RPM Singles: Issue 9488b." RPM. Library and Archives Canada.
  9. ^ "The Irish Charts – Search Results – Someone's Looking At You". Irish Singles Chart.
  10. ^ "The Boomtown Rats – Someone's Looking At You" (in Dutch). Single Top 100.
  11. ^ "The Boomtown Rats – Someone's Looking At You". VG-lista.
  12. ^ "Boomtown Rats: Artist Chart History". Official Charts Company.