1983Released
4:23

Did You Know?

Interesting facts and trivia about (I Love It When You) Call Me Names. By Songfacts®.

This song is about a masochist - a guy who likes it when his woman calls him names and beats him up. Armatrading sings it from the man's perspective, which many listeners didn't pick up on, believing the song is about a woman who gets beat up. The song is an example of Armatrading's sardonic comedy, but not everyone got it.

It was not a romantic couple that inspired this song, but rather two feuding band members. Armatrading recalled to Daniel Rachel in the book The Art of Noise: Conversations with Great Songwriters: "It's actually about two chaps on tour who were in my band. One of them was little and one was big and they were always arguing, always doing what it says in that song, but you kind of had the feeling that they loved it. Just getting at each other: you'd think, 'Get a room already.' They weren't gay. Like a terrier, that just gets any big dog."

In the 2013 interview with Rachel, Armatrading said this was the only song she's ever written while on tour.

Song Analysis

Key, BPM (tempo) and time signature of (I Love It When You) Call Me Names.
G♯Key
MajorMode
4/4Time Signature
146BPM

Album

The album (I Love It When You) Call Me Names is released on.

Released By

The record label that has released (I Love It When You) Call Me Names.
A&M
© 2010 A&M Records
℗ 2010 A&M Records

See your Spotify stats (with number of plays and minutes listened) and discover new music.

Music data, artist images, album covers, and song previews are provided by Spotify. Spotify is a trademark of Spotify AB.

6.3MArtists
77MSongs
13.8MAlbums
6.5KGenres
2.7MLabels
498.4KPlaylists