Day After Day #147: I Got You

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4). 

I Got You (1980)

Sometimes songs just stick with you. Especially when you're in your formative years. I was 12 when I was watching a Toronto show called The New Music that would play music videos and do interviews with artists. A video for "I Got You" by a band I'd never heard of called Split Enz came on and I was mesmerized. 

As it turns out, Split Enz had been around since the early '70s, when the band was formed in New Zealand by Tim Finn and Phil Judd. The band had more of an art-rock sound in those early days and released a few albums before Judd left and was replaced by Tim's younger brother Neil, who became the band's co-lead singer along with his brother. The sound shifted towards power pop and two more albums followed in the late '70s. 

But Split Enz didn't have any hit records until 1980's True Colors, which featured "I Got You," a song sung by Neil Finn. It was a pop song about obsession a full three years before the Police released "Every Breath You Take." And it's no less creepy.

"I got you, that's all I want/I won't forget, that's a whole lot/I don't go out, now that you're in/Sometimes we shout, but that's no problem/I don't know why sometimes I get frightened/You can see my eyes, you can tell that I'm not lying."

The song leans into the creep factor with eerie organ and reverb effects on the vocals, while at the same time remaining ridiculously catchy.

"There's no doubt, not when I'm with you/When I'm without, I stay in my room/Where do you go, I get no answer/You're always out, it gets on my nerves."

The song was an instant hit for the band, going to #1 in Australia and New Zealand, but it also broke the band overseas. In Canada, where I was living, it was a huge radio favorite and went to #13 on the singles chart, while it went to #12 in the U.K. It was less successful in the U.S., but it still got to #53 on the Billboard Hot 100. True Colors did hit #40 on the Billboard 200, though.

Split Enz had success with their next few albums, Waiata and Time and Tide, but Tim Finn left to pursue a solo career in 1983 and the band released one more album before splitting in '84. Neil Finn and drummer Paul Hester ended up forming Crowded House a few years later and went on to greater success than Split Enz over the next several years.

I never bought a Split Enz album or saw them in concert, but I've always loved "I Got You." That's the power of great songwriting right there.