DUSTY SPRINGFIELD – "You Don't Have To Say You Love Me"

An ocean of sound (remember that Ivor Raymonde was the father of Simon) to mask a quiet, meek (or should that be Meek?) plea for the singer’s own surrender. Today this would be sung in a muted, agreeable manner by Dido with tasteful sub-post-trip hop beats and perhaps an off-the-peg whale music/Northumbrian pipes sample to stand for “humanity.”

In 1966, however, “You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me” stood as the Blanche Hudson to “You’re My World”‘s Baby Jane. Vulnerability is important here, since Cilla’s performance – in a song which is all about vulnerability, in the same way that the North Sea is all around Redlands – is too strident, making us wanting to run a mile from her instead of hugging her. Yet it’s hard to miss the attendant irony, not only in Tom Springfield beating Dusty to the number one slot (as composer/lyricist for the Seekers), but also in Dusty having her only number one single with her most submissive song (“Stay Awhile” was always more about seduction than submission).

As with “You’re My World,” this was an imported Italian Eurovision/San Remo-style showstopping tearjerker with hastily scribbled English lyrics – in Dusty’s case, by her quick-buck carpetbagging managers (but weren’t/aren’t they all?) Simon Napier-Bell and Vicki Wickham

(but manager writing credits in the ’60s were not always to be trusted – for instance, the phenomenal Piccadilly (1965) double whammy of Nita Rossi’s “Untrue Unfaithful (That Was You)” and “Something To Give” may or may not have been authored by Gordon Mills; given Gilbert O’Sullivan’s subsequent lengthy court battle against the late Mr Mills, there is good reason to doubt the labels)

As a Euro-epic the record is immaculately, if theatrically, constructed – the opening heraldic/seraphic fanfare stopping dead to let Dusty’s lone voice creep in, like a wife wondering how to apologise to her husband for going to the bingo; the waltz-time piano triplets overlying the slow 4/4 pulse (anticipating Randall and Hopklrk (Deceased)), the serial little breakdowns betrayed by Dusty’s voice throughout (“Life feels dead and so unreal,” “There’s nothing more to feel”), the French horn three-note figure which will reoccur in the Milk Tray adverts and also at the beginning of Peter Wyngarde’s “Once Again (Flight Number 10),” the latter in many ways the answer record to Dusty’s, if she decided NOT to return to him. For there are elements of resentment and defiance at the beginning of the song – “It wasn’t me who changed, but you” and “That I have to FOLLOW you/And BEG you to come home?” – but these are flimsy and collapse instantly along with the singer, such that a few seconds later she is reduced to begging “I’ll never tie you down.”

And yet that defiance surfaces subtextually at the song’s climax – the key change, the gradual increase in tempo, the escalating orchestration and the final triple scream of “BELIEVE ME!” whereupon the entire song and life pause at the edge of the cliff.

The differences:
a) Also in 1966, “River Deep, Mountain High” decides to knock down the cliff altogether, even if only by dint of Spector locking Ike out of the studio.

b) For a sole Dusty chart-topper I would have preferred either the genuine, chirpy fuck-you defiance of “In The Middle Of Nowhere” or, if we need quietude, then her simple but generous take on Goffin and King’s “Going Back” wherein she looks at the world and decides it’s not her mirror.

c) That “I will understand – believe me” finale; her final surrender as she is chained and left in her dungeon. A cry of desperation rather than one of hope.

Oops. Totally screwed up my web page link. Never used blogger comments before. There. That’s better.

The Italian original was entitled “Io Che Non Vivo (Senza Te)” – literally “I Can’t Live (Without You)” – and its lyric was considerably more submissive and virtually drug-dependent (“I can’t get through a single hour of the day if you’re not there” etc.). Interestingly Connie Francis recorded it in Italian and had a sizeable hit with it in Italy at around that time, though Emilio Pericoli recorded the original version.

I want to respond separately to RJM’s observations about the queer subtexts here. I don’t think anyone can fully appreciate Dusty Springfield’s career without considering the gay aspects of it; much of her performance style–the hair, the make-up, the melodrama–is inexplicable otherwise. My basic hypothesis is that, being gay and feeling guilty about it (just see the Penny Valentine-Vicki Wickham biography), Dusty sensed that she’d failed in her attempt to be a “girl,” and thus became a sort of female female-impersonator. She’d appropriated a lot of drag-queen style by 1966, as if she were trying to hide herself under and over-the-top disguise.

Where this all connects with YDHTSYLM is in the venerable tradition of camp–queers have long had to hide their feelings in real life, and have therefore long sought the refuge of overblown melodrama in which to enact a catharsis that, on the surface, looks more comic than tragic. And Dusty knew just what sort of “drama queen” song she was recording. It worked–commercially at least. And she was still doing the camp thing two decades later with the Pet Shop Boys two decades later. The difference is that “What Have I Done to Deserve This?” stands as an unambiguous parody of the sentiments expressed in YDHTSYLM. But then again, it was much easier to be queer in 1987 than it was in 1966.

One point of correction: it was never against British law for lesbians to engage in homosexual acts–the law (repealed in 1967) only applied to men. This is not to say that lesbianism was acceptable in British society or in the pop music industry then, and Dusty’s belated “coming out” in the press ended her career for all intents and purposes until the PSBs came along. From all I’ve been able to discover, though, Dusty’s queerness had been a badly kept secret for many, many years and, sadly, her own life had parallels with YDHTSYLM.

One can only hope we live in more enlightened times now–but, as I live in the US, I’m not terribly sure of it.

Doctor Mod

i dont like dusty–i mean i know im a fag, and i like voices like hers, but i cant deal with it, and i have no idea why

I much prefer the Elvis version, where he plays it like a chauvinistic cad. In the final ‘Believe me, believe me’ you just know that he knows he’s lying.

I’m not sure Elvis would have appreciated the suggestion of a gay subtext though. Can’t see it myself either.

Dusty, wonderful voice, great music, what the hell does it matter if she is homosexual or not. Love is love the world around.

I am sick of the sexual revolution, why can/t we all be whatever and not show it or tell anyone, just enjoy.

Making out our great Elvis what a homosexual is the last straw. So what? I am 65 and I still think he was the most sexy charasmatic Guy ever. Just enjoy entertainment, entertainers,and get the ‘Gay’ word out of homosexual. Put it back were it belongs, having fun.

It is getting to be a sad world, Live and let live. The world will be a happier place for it.

We sure do over-analyze here. Just enjoy the song and that talent that produced it. Keep it simple.

DESERT ISLAND DISCS WATCH:

Betty Jackson, fashion designer(2002)

Maggi Hambling, artist(2005).

TOTPWatch: Dusty Springfield thrice performed You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me on Top Of The Pops;

31 March 1966. Also in the studio that week were; The Kinks, The Seekers and The Yardbirds. Jimmy Savile was the host.

7 April 1966. Also in the studio that week were; The Alan Price Set, The Bachelors and The Spencer Davis Group. Alan Freeman was the host.

28 April 1966. Also in the studio that week were; Manfred Mann, Nancy Sinatra and Trini Lopez. Jimmy Savile was the host.

None of these editions survive.

This was being impeccably whistled by a greengrocer outside his shop in Herne Hill this evening – a lovely pop moment.

I find this a whole lot more compelling and affecting than The Walker Brothers. Just as with Nancy Sinatra I hear a strong emotional truth wrapped up in, what may appear on the surface to be, a larger than life performance. What impresses me about Dusty’s performance is the sense that she is barely holding back her emotions whereas Cilla tends to over sell the performance.