“Addicted”
Dan Seals
Written by Cheryl Wheeler
Radio & Records
#1 (1 week)
September 9, 1988
Billboard
#1 (1 week)
September 24, 1988
Two decades before some Faith Hill cuts redirected Lori McKenna to a Music City songwriting side hustle, another Massachusetts folk singer had a big country music moment.
Cheryl Wheeler included “Addicted” on her 1985 debut album, and Dan Seals wisely resurrected it as the lead single of his 1988 album, Rage On. What’s most surprising to me about this track is its energy, which plays against the expectations of the soft-spoken Seals covering another soft-spoken singer-songwriter.
He’s able to scale up on this track because the songwriting is so cinematic. Wheeler paints a devastating portrait of a woman who was led to believe she was the center of a man’s world, but as she slowly realizes that she isn’t, she’s already too far gone. Yes, her man is doing her wrong, but this song isn’t about him. It’s about her own emotional struggles and the tortured debate in her mind about what to next. She’s lost her heart but held on to her agency, and you know she’s not going to stick around forever:
She wants to tell him not to call or come around againHe doesn’t need her now at all, the way that she needs himShe’s on the edge about to fall from leaning out and inAnd she don’t know which way to move
Wheeler’s point of view makes for a dramatic shift from the country music norm, weaving in a righteous anger that women in country music weren’t known for at the time. Even in a heartbreak song, our female protagonist is actively making her own choices, and she has enough self-awareness to realize that her heart hasn’t fully caught up to her mind.
It may seem strange to say that it’s a Dan Seals record that provides the strongest foreshadowing yet of where women will take the genre over the next decade. I think this is an indication that the new generation of female singer-songwriters would ultimately make the compelling work of the nineties country ladies possible. And it’s not just Wheeler who broke through with a male hit first. Matraca Berg’s first chart-topper was for T.G. Sheppard, Kim Richey broke through with a Radney Foster cut, and Gretchen Peters’ first No. 1 hit for George Strait.
I give all the props in the world to Dan Seals for finding this song and making it a hit. He’s never sounded this fired up on record, and it’s the song that powers his strongest vocal performance to date. Cheryl Wheeler won’t write another No. 1 country single, but she recorded one album for Capitol as a result of the Seals hit, and Suzy Bogguss had a big hit with a cover of “Aces” from that album. Her entire catalog is worth checking out. Start with “Since You’ve Been Gone” and “Makes Good Sense to Me.”
“Addicted” gets an A.
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The trio of excellent hits that came from the “Won’t Be Blue Anymore” album represented my favorite of Dan Seals’ distinguished discography, but “Addicted” was the hit that came closest to matching that triumvirate. At this point, Dan was consistent enough of a hit-maker to have played it safe and still cruised to the top, so it was refreshing that he continued to take chances. It’s clear that he’s spreading his wings both vocally and lyrically on this track, capturing the narrator’s extremely raw grief and anger with an intensity we hadn’t seen from him before. The intensity worked extremely well on this song, but at the same time, I’m glad he didn’t try to make it his new normal. It also makes for astonishing contrast that the heavy “Addicted” was Dan’s lead single from his “Rage On” album when the dreadfully silly “Love On Arrival” was the lead single from his next album.
Grade: A
I had not heard this song till earlier this year and it was instant love fir me! So atmospheric, so achingly beautiful! A + for sure! ACES by Suzy is one of my top songs of all time too! You can tell the songs are from the same writer!
I had only heard the Wheeler version before listening to Seals for this feature. I was lucky enough to have a good friend that I met in college who had the Wheeler catalog. She turned me on to so much great music.
“Aces” is my favorite Bogguss track by a mile, and I’m a big Bogguss fan. I still need to pick up her new album. I think it’s the only one I don’t have.
Surprisingly Blake Shelton did a really decent cover of the song in 2011.
https://youtu.be/U8ioEGB0jTE?si=E5AJc9rV14addoA1
Thanks for sharing. It’s actually kind of in Blake’s wheelhouse. I’ve always felt like Shelton could have had a much different career if he came of age in an earlier era and wasn’t steered by the suits to release so much “bro” nonsense.
I will go to bat for Blake Shelton ‘s career as-is when the time comes.
As for now, this Dan Seals hit is in contention for my unexpected favourite country single of all time, right alongside Steve Wariner’s “Some Fools Never Learn.”
The way the lyrics breathlessly flow and pour out of the chorus is still a stunningly intimate catharsis to listen to. The rawness and honesty of what is shared, cascade and fall over me like I am at the base of some intense and dangerous emotional waterfall. This song is a physical and visceral listening experience for me.
Hit-for-hit, Seals has recorded some absolutely epic and significant songs for a relatively short-lived country music chart career.
His ’80s’ output is every bit as worthy of rediscovery as is Eddy Raven’s, perhaps more-so.