You Wanted More

"You Wanted More" is a 1999 song by the Los Angeles band Tonic that originally appeared in the 1999 film, American Pie. It was released on June 26, 1999.^[1]

It was also featured on Tonic's second album, Sugar, released later in the year.

Lyrics

The lyrics include many lines beginning with "Love is": "Love is tragic", "love is strong", "love is surely better when it's gone", etc.

The chorus expresses that the singer's love interest was too demanding: "'Cause you wanted more/More than I could give/More than I could handle/In a life that I can't live".

Music video

The music video, directed by Niels Alpert,^[2] is set at a high school. Emerson Hart is shown both as a janitor in the hallway and playing with his band in the gymnasium. Scenes with cheerleaders wearing uniforms with the word LOVE in the gym are interspersed throughout the video. The principal's office and biology class are also shown, while students walk out of the building and make out on the quad at the end of the video.

Chart performance

The single peaked at #103 on the Billboard chart, keeping it just out of reach of the Billboard Hot 100, leading some to brand Tonic a one-hit wonder (with "If You Could Only See" being the band's only song to make the Top 40). Despite this, the song is well known in the United States due to its use in American Pie.

Although not a major pop chart success, "You Wanted More" peaked at #3 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Tracks chart and #10 on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks. chart. ^[3]

Its airplay peak was at #6 in October 1999, as "You Wanted More" was the sixth most often played song on alternative, pop and rock radio stations across the United States.^[4][5]

Critical reception

All-Reviews.com commented on the contrast between instrumentation and lyrics: "The music has tough rock guitar chords but the lyrics are a sappy account of what love is", and opined that Tonic's "desire to be all things to all people is illustrated by the song's opening".^[6]

References