Dave Barry implicitly accused this song of misogyny, placing it in the “‘Songs Women Really Hate” chapter of his famous book of bad songs, but I think that’s missing the point. It’s clear from Vikki Carr’s tortured delivery (which, by the way, is one of the all-time great performances in pop music history) that this is not supposed to be even remotely romantic. It’s a heartbreaking and disturbing look at a woman with a serious neurosis (I believe today we’d use the word ‘codependency’) who can’t stop herself from blindly ‘loving’ a man who has clearly treated her horribly. I actually see it as kind of obliquely feminist in that it’s portraying this mindset as a serious and frightening problem. It’s also quite ahead of its time: we wouldn’t start routinely getting these openly unhealthy obsession songs in popular music until the Alternative Rock era.
Verdict: Good.