Songfacts®:

• Over Calvin Harris' buoyant yacht rock production, a lovelorn Charlie Puth desperately pleads to his crush, looking for some attention. He wishes she shares his obsession over her, but she barely glances at him. "We started off with the yacht rock beat and then Charlie was basically channeling Michael McDonald," Harris told Apple Music. "When you're Charlie Puth, you can do anything, so I think there's a shepherding that needs to happen sometimes with people that are just so talented that you need to kind of go, 'Well, what about this?' Or 'Try this. It's okay to sing like this.' Or 'It's okay to do it like this.' And I think once I kind of gave him permission to do that, he went with it and he was amazing at it."
• Dancehall artist Sheensea contributes a verse from the perspective of Charlie Puth's love interest. She brushes off his despairing appeals to give him a chance. "The Shenseea element kind of reminded me of those '90s hip-hop tunes that were kind of commercial and they had a disco sample, and then it would be like Lil' Kim on it or something like that," Harris said. "And because that beat is kind of like that and Shenseea was someone that I really wanted to work with, I was like, 'Well, this surely would work' - and it did, because she's brilliant."
• Calvin Harris, Charlie Puth and Shenseea co-wrote "Obsessed" with:
  
  Trini-Venezuelan songwriter Donny "Dizzycleanface" Flores. He also co-wrote Chris Brown featuring Justin Bieber's "Don't Check On Me."
  
  Jamaican-American singer- songwriter Jesse Boykins III. He received his first Grammy nomination for co-writing Steve Lacy's "Playground."
  
  Lance Shipp, Nathalia Marshall and Rachael Kennedy of the production and songwriting group Lionchild.
  
  Calvin Harris was the song's sole producer.