The 1999 song that almost ended Stephen King’s marriage: “One more time and I’m going to leave you”
Despite building his livelihood on the back of telling terrifying stories populated by demons, deities, monsters, murderers, strife, trauma, and broken families, Stephen King has been a picture of domestic bliss throughout his entire career.
Even when the author was at his lowest ebb during his ongoing battles with drug addiction and alcoholism, he had the backing of his family. It was an intervention staged by his wife that became a turning point and helped King kick his substance abuse issues for good, underlining how close-knit a clan they’ve always been.
King met his wife Tabitha when they were both students at the University of Maine, and they’ve been happily married for over 50 years. She’s always been his biggest source of personal and professional support, even helping kick-start his ascent up the literary ranks by salvaging an abandoned manuscript of Carrie from the bin after he’d tossed it out in a fit of creative frustration.
On the surface, it would appear there’s nothing capable of fracturing the bond between the Kings, but there are always exceptions to the rule. In this case, it was something as innocuous as a song that runs for a little over three and a half minutes and was first recorded in 1949 before being repurposed half a century later as the backdrop to an infectious earworm that became an international hit.
It speaks to the strength of their relationship that it would take something so trivial to even jokingly threaten that stability. After decades of navigating the pressures of fame, addiction, and creative struggle together, it wasn’t personal conflict but something entirely absurd that momentarily tested their patience.
King’s musical taste has always leaned more towards rock, and not just because he enlisted AC/DC to record the soundtrack for his embarrassing feature-length directorial debut Maximum Overdrive, became close friends with the Ramones, and occasionally hangs out with Bruce Springsteen in his spare time.
There wasn’t a guitar to be found in the track that almost ended his marriage, though, even if there were an awful lot of trumpets. What song was played so incessantly around the King household that his wife threatened to initiate divorce proceedings if he carried on making her life a misery by having it perpetually blasting throughout their marital home? ‘Mambo No 5’, obviously.
The humour of the situation only underlines how different private life can be from public perception. For a writer so closely associated with darkness and dread, it’s almost fitting that one of the most light-hearted, inescapably catchy pop songs of its era would become the source of such domestic torment.
“Oh yeah, big time,” King admitted to Rolling Stone of the rumours he was a massive fan of the song. “My wife threatened to divorce me. I played that a lot. I had the dance mix. I loved those extended play things, and I played both sides of it. And one of them was just total instrumental. And I played that thing until my wife just said, ‘One more time, and I’m going to fucking leave you.'”
Lou Bega may have needed Monica, Erica, Rita, Sandra, Mary, and Jessica in his life, but he would have never stood a chance with Tabitha after King’s wife made it abundantly clear she never wanted to hear Mambo No 5 ever again if her husband wanted them to stay together.
