You Don't Have to Say You Love Me

"You Don't Have to Say You Love Me"
Single by Dusty Springfield
B-side	"Every Ounce of Strength" (Cropper/Hayes/Porter)
Released	28 March 1966
Format	7" 45rpm
Recorded	Philips Studio, Stanhope Place, London
Genre	Traditional pop
Label	Philips Records
Writer(s)	Pino Donaggio, Vito Pallavicini, Vicki Wickham, Simon Napier-Bell
Dusty Springfield singles chronology
"Little by Little" (1966) "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" (1966) "Goin' Back" (1966)

"You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" is the title of a 1966 hit recorded by British singer Dusty Springfield which proved to be her career record reaching #1 UK and #4 US: the song subsequently charted in the UK via remakes by Elvis Presley (#9/ 1971), Guys 'n' Dolls (#5/ 1976) and Denise Welch (#23/ 1995) with Presley's version also reaching #11 US in 1970. The song had originally been written with Italian lyrics and entitled "Io che non vivo (senza te)" and as such was a #1 hit in Italy for Pino Donaggio in 1965: as "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" the song reached #6 in Italy in 1983 via a remake by Wall Street Crash a vocal octet led by Keith Strachan. "En Koskaan", a Fennecized rendition subsequent to Springfield's English-language success with the song, was a Top Ten hit in Finland for Kristina Hautala in 1966-67.

Background

"Io che non vivo (senza te)" - "I, who can't live (without you)" - was introduced at the 1965 Sanremo Festival by Pino Donaggio - who'd co-written the song with Vito Pallavicini - and his team partner Jody Miller: the song took seventh place at Sanremo and as recorded by Donaggio reached #1 in Italy in March 1965. Dusty Springfield, a participant at Sanremo that year, was in the audience when Donaggio and Miller performed the song and despite having no awareness of the lyrics' meaning the song moved Springfield to tears. Springfield obtained an acetate recording of Donaggio's song but allowed a year to go by before actively pursuing the idea of recording an English version. By late-1965, the song had also been prominently featured on the soundtrack of "Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa" aka "Sandra", an Italian movie starring Claudia Cardinale.

On 9 March 1966 Springfield had an instrumental track of Donaggio's composition recorded at Philips Studio Marble Arch: the session personnel included guitarist Big Jim Sullivan and drummer Bobby Graham. Springfield still lacked an English lyric to record: eventually Springfield's friend Vicki Wickham, the producer of Ready Steady Go!, would write the required English lyric with her own friend Simon Napier-Bell who was the manager of the Yardbirds. Neither Wickham nor Napier-Bell had any discernible experience as songwriters: according to Napier-Bell, he and Wickham were dining out when she mentioned to him that Springfield hoped to get an English lyric for Donaggio's song and the two lightheartedly took up the challenge of writing the lyric themselves: "We went back to [Wickham]'s flat and started working on it. We wanted to go to a trendy disco so we had about an hour to write it. We wrote the chorus and then we wrote the verse in a taxi to wherever we were going." Neither Wickham or Napier-Bell had any understanding of the Italian lyrics of the original song: according to Wickham they attempted to write their own lyric for an anti-love song to be called "I Don't Love You"; when that original idea proved unproductive it was adjusted first to "You Don't Love Me" and then "You Don't Have to Love Me" which was finalized as "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" to fit the song's melody.

Springfield recorded her vocal the next day: unhappy with the acoustics in the recording booth she eventually moved into a stairwell to record. Springfield was not satisfied with her vocal until she'd recorded forty-seven takes.

Released 31 March 1966, the single release of Springfield's recording became a huge hit and remains one of the songs most identified with her. When Dusty died the song was featured on Now 42 as a tribute to her.

The song hit #1 in the UK,and #4 in the USA. The song proved so popular in the USA that Springfield's 1965 album Ev'rything's Coming Up Dusty was released there with a slightly different track listing, and titled after the hit single (the B side of the US single, "Little by Little" was issued in the UK as a separate A side and reached #17 there). In 2004, the song made the Rolling Stone list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time at #491.

Cover versions

English-language cover versions

"You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" has been recorded by many artists, including:

• Elvis Presley (Single b/w "Patch It Up") - Recorded June 6 1970 at RCA's Nashville studios: released October 6, 1970: #11 "Billboard" Hot 100 * No. 1 U.S. easy listening) * #9 UK 1-23-1971
• Tom Jones, The Midnight Special - 1976, 1981 U.S. T.V. SPECIALS
• Clay Aiken as an iTunes exclusive bonus track for his 2010 album Tried and True
• Lynn Anderson
• Jessica Andersson
• Michael Ball
• John Barrowman
• Cher
• Vic Damone
• Taylor Dayne
• Kiki Dee
• The Floaters - #28 R&B/ December 1977
• The Four Sonics - #32 R&B * #78 "Billboard" Hot 100/ March 1968
• Connie Francis
• Robert Goulet
• Guys 'n' Dolls - #5 UK/ 3-20-1976
• Tracy Huang (黃鶯鶯/黃露儀), Taiwanese female singer, on her 1980 LP album Songs Of The 60’s
• Jill Johnson
• Kong Ling (江玲), Hong Kong female singer, on her 1968 LP album Kong Ling Today
• Larz-Kristerz
• Juliana Luok (陸小雅), Hong Kong female singer, on her 1974 LP album Killing Me Softly
• Brenda Lee
• Shelby Lynne
• Maureen McGovern
• Lani Misalucha
• Matt Monro
• Carla Thomas
• Nadia Turner first sang it on 1960s night (Top 12) during American Idol (season 4), and received judges' acclaim.
• American Idol season 6 finalist Stephanie Edwards
• Ramiele Malubay (released as an American Idol live performance single on the iTunes Music Store in 2008)
• Smokey Robinson & The Miracles
• Denise Welch whose 1995 remake was a double A-side hit with "Cry Me a River" at #23 UK
• Mel Tormé issued as a bonus track on the 1997 CD reissue of Right Now!
• Isao Tomita
• Mary Byrne
• Jerry Vale
• Wall Street Crash, a vocal octet led by Keith Strachan had a #6 hit in Italy with "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" in the summer of 1983 after competing with the song at Festivalbar
• In 1983, The Shadows recorded an instrumental version of "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me".

International cover versions

The Italian original "Io che non vivo" has been remade by Milva, Morgan, Patrizio Buanne and Russell Watson. In October 1965 Richard Anthony recorded a French rendering of "Io che non vivo (senza te)": "Jamais je ne vivrai sans toi", which served as the title cut of an album release. Also in 1965 a Catalan rendering of "Io che non vivo" entitled "Jo no puc viure sense tu" was recorded by Renata.

Most international versions of the song were subsequent to Dusty Springfield's 1966 success with "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" and reference that version's lyrics rather than the Italian original.

One of the earliest non-English renderings of "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" was the Finnish "En koskaan" recorded by Kristina Hautala on May 24 1966: entering the Finnish Top Ten in November 1966 - in effect succeeding Springfield's version which had peaked at #6 in Finland earlier that month - "En koskaan" spent eleven weeks in the Top Ten peaking at #6. Subsequently "En koskaan" was remade by Lea Laven on her 1978 album release Aamulla Rakkaani Näin and also by Kurre on his 1979 album Jäit Sateen Taa.

Other renderings of "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" include that in German: "Alle meine Träume" - (recorded by) Peter Beil, also Corry Brokken and also Ingrid Peters; Turkish: "Anlamazdın" - Ayla Dikmen; Danish: "Du Kan Gi' Mig Hele Verden" - Grethe Ingmann; Dutch: "Geloof me" - André Hazes; German: "Ich Sage, Wat Ich Meine" - Trude Herr; Czech: "Jarní Víra" - Laďka Kozderková; Danish: "Jeg har ikke brug for løfter" - Ulla Pia; Croatian, both: "Moju ljubav nisi hteo" - Nada Knežević and "Nemoj reći da me voliš" - Sanjalice; German: "Unser Traum Darf Niemals Sterben" - Angelika Milster; Swedish: "Vackra sagor är så korta" - Marianne Kock, also Jan Höiland and also Anne-Lie Rydé; and Spanish: "Yo que no vivo sin tí" - Iva Zanicchi. "Yo que no vivo sin tí" was remade by Luis Miguel on his 1987 album Soy Como Quiero Ser: this version ranked at #26 on the Hot Latin Tracks in Billboard.

This song was covered by the late Singaporean singer/songwriter/lyricist Su Yin (舒雲) in Mandarin Chinese language with Chinese lyrics written by himself and given the title name of 祝福你, appearing on his LP album 黃昏放牛＊一片青青的草地, and released by EMI Columbia Records in 1967. While in 1969, Hong Kong female singer Frances Yip (葉麗儀) recorded the song in alternate Mandarin Chinese and English language mode under a title name of 誰令你變心/You Don't Have To Say You Love Me, on her EP album 不了情 with the local Life Records.

See also

• List of number-one singles from the 1960s (UK)
• List of number-one adult contemporary singles of 1970 (U.S.)