Michael Jackson sings part of the chorus, while his brother Jermaine Jackson additional backing vocals.
Due in part to the popularity of the music video, the song is sometimes used for Halloween celebrations, with cover versions found in various collections of Halloween music.
The music video to "Somebody's Watching Me" (which uses the radio edit instead of the album version) underscores the song's paranoid tone with a haunted house-inspired theme, including imagery of floating heads, ravens, graveyards, and shower scenes referencing Psycho.
"Somebody's Watching Me" became a major commercial success internationally, topping the charts in Belgium, France and Spain.
The song reached No. 6 in the United Kingdom, Rockwell's only Top 40 hit there.