Audio Autopsy, 1983: "They Don't Know" About Tracey Ullman's Brief Recording Career
After introducing America to "The Simpsons," Ullman recorded a modern pop classic whose music video produced a surprise cameo for the ages.
Presumably, we wouldn’t have had over three decades of The Simpsons without Matt Groening’s fractured family appearing regularly on the Fox network (US) from April 1987 through May 1990.
The jaundice-hued clan (Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa et al) began their hilarious and sometimes controversial life as a series of animated shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show before landing their own half-hour sitcom a week before Christmas in 1989. For them, and creator Groening, the rest is history (and a rather gaudy amount of math)!
A veritable Renaissance woman, Tracey Ullman has kept herself busy the last four decades acting, producing, writing, directing, and doing that comedy thing. Oh, yeah, she’s done some singing, too.
Her sophomore album, You Caught Me Out was released on Stiff Records in 1984 throughout Europe. But, unlike her 1983 debut on MCA Records, this album was never released commercially in the United States.
Because our focus will highlight one song in particular (“They Don’t Know” from her 1983 debut LP, You Broke My Heart in 17 Places), I thought it’d be appropriate to first give some background on that song’s composer.
"I'd better write something before I go in to see [the Stiff Records suits]. And that's when I wrote ‘They Don't Know’. I went around with a cassette, singing to an acoustic guitar. They liked it & signed me.”--Kirsty MacColl
British singer/songwriter Kirsty MacColl recorded her “They Don’t Know” for Stiff Records in 1979 (she wrote it three years before, at age 16); it peaked at #2 on the UK airplay charts, but a record distributors strike prevented any product from reaching stores, so there was no way it could appear on the UK Singles chart (with position based on sales).
Kirsty’s arrangement, with American songwriter/producer, Liam Sternberg (who wrote The Bangles’ “Walk Like an Egyptian”), producing:
Kirsty's version of “They Don't Know” wouldn’t see its album debut until 1995 on the singer's retrospective album Galore.
Twenty years of spotty releases and occasional successes (as well as singing on other artists’ records) preceded her horribly tragic boating-related death in the waters off Cozumel, Mexico in December 2000. She was 41.
Ullman’s debut “Breakaway” Single Leads the Way to Its “They Don’t Know” Follow-Up
An intriguing thread of early ‘60s girl group sounds is intertwined all over these artists and songs, and it’s not by accident, but it is telling how evident it all is so early on in our dive!
As Tracey revealed to US Magazine in November 1984, “Nobody ever thought I was a great singer. And, when you have a voice like Minnie Mouse, you have to sing ‘60s songs, really!”
“Breakaway” was Tracey Ullman’s debut single (in the UK, anyway) on Stiff Records, sharing MacColl’s label. The song was written in 1964 by Jackie DeShannon (the Bacharach-David song, “What the World Needs Now is Love” got to #7 for Jackie in 1965) and Sharon Sheeley.
While DeShannon recorded a demo, Irma Thomas was the first to release “Breakaway” (originally spelled “Break-a-Way” on her 1964 Imperial Records single B-side label). Never a hit for Thomas, Ullman’s 1983 arrangement (and subsequent #4 landing on the UK Singles Chart) made it a popular inclusion in Irma’s subsequent live performances over the years.
It was only released as a single in the US (for Ullman on MCA Records) in 1984 as her follow-up to “They Don’t Know,” but only reached #70.
Nearly twenty years later, here’s Ullman’s 1983 arrangement of “Breakaway,” produced by British producer/arranger/engineer, Peter Collins (Rush, Alice Cooper, Bon Jovi, Jane Wiedlin, Indigo Girls), with Ullman’s soon-to-be-trademark staging, dress, and bouffants of the era on full display:
“Ullman's rendition makes ‘They Don’t Know’ palatable to American audiences by [replacing] MacColl's fervent intensity with a bouncy cheerfulness and layers of synthesizers. It's a cheerful throwback to the innocent hits of 1960s girl-group rock.”--noted rock music critic, Ken Tucker, 1984, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Sometime in 1983, producer Pete Waterman, whose Loose Ends production company (which included Ullman’s “Breakaway” producer, Peter Collins) had provided Stiff with hit singles by a British all-female rock band, the Belle Stars, suggested to his friend, Kirsty MacColl, that she pitch “They Don't Know” to Ullman to record as her follow-up to “Breakaway.”
MacColl (whose father, folk singer Ewan MacColl wrote “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” which topped the US charts for Roberta Flack in 1972) picks it up from a 1994 interview: “I was on Polydor [Records] at the time and having a really bad time with them, and I was sort of thinking about selling everything I had and moving to Spain and being a hippie.
“My mate [Waterman] suggested that because she had this big hit with her first single, which I think was ‘Breakaway.’ She’d had a much bigger hit than they had expected, and they didn’t have anything else to follow it up, so they were looking for material. And basically they thought, I’m there writing the sort of songs that she wants to do and it seemed like a good partnership.”
With MacColl’s version in B Major, Ullman’s arrangement is a full step up, in the key of C Major. It’s MacColl’s voice delivering the high-pitched “Bay-beee” that follows the guitar solo during the post-bridge instrumental break, as Tracey’s range couldn’t cover that note.
Waterman himself brought in MacColl and the wife of Stiff Records president, Dave Robinson, Rosemary Robinson (whose chance meeting with Tracey at the hairdresser led to her eventual Stiff signing) to "add Shangri-La-type backing vocals,” referencing the “Shadow” Morton-produced Shangri-Las, who brought us mid-’60s classics like “Give Him a Great Big Kiss” and “Leader of the Pack.”
A Lyrical Look
…”Makes the listener instantly recall the feeling they had when there really was a ‘me and you’ only, and for a time at least, nobody else existed.”
Sometime in 2016, a YouTube viewer, David Rowell, made this insightful comment about the song and its lyrics: “It is damn well lyrically perfect, but more than that, it creates and sustains believable emotions, empathy, and even tenderness. When you hear this in any 3-minute pop song, you feel something real and authentic. Kirsty MacColl wrote many great songs, but to me, if this was all she ever wrote, then her legacy is assured.
“‘Cause they don’t know about us, and they’ve never heard of love’...these are the absolute clincher lines in this song, which elevate it to the level of sublime pop. This couplet simply and ingeniously makes the listener instantly recall the feeling they had when there really was a ‘me and you’ only, and for a time at least, nobody else existed.”
Kirsty On Tracey’s Take
Of Tracey Ullman’s version, MacColl once said (according to her official website), “Once a song has been recorded, it’s no longer down to the writer to decide who does it anyway. So, anyone can record any song they’ve heard that’s been published.
“A lot of people do know my version which was a big airplay hit in 1979. It was number two in the airplay charts between Wings and ABBA, so I think quite a few people heard it. But it didn’t really bother me (when Tracey had the hit version). I don’t mind a bit of reflected glory!”
Ullman’s “They Don’t Know” went to #2 in the UK and got to #8 on the US Singles chart in Autumn 1983.
“Both versions of [‘They Don’t Know’] sound like they could be machines (the snare sound is pretty consistent), in which case it could be the same basic program with a different bass, guitar and piano.”--Engineer Phil Chapman
Phil Chapman, the veteran engineer who mixed Tracey’s version, had this to say about comparing Kirsty’s and Tracey’s recordings:
“I’ve listened to the two, and the backing tracks are similarly arranged, but not identical. Tracey’s is a semitone up on Kirsty’s, and, although Kirsty re-sang the backing vocals (the harmonies on the last verse are different), neither of them could get the ‘Baby’ to sound as good as Kirsty’s original, so it was pitched up and flown in.
“I may well get corrected on this next point: Although the early [Tracey] tracks were recorded with live musicians, the later ones were played to drum machine, sometimes not adding a real drummer.
“Both versions of [‘They Don’t Know’] sound like they could be machines (the snare sound is pretty consistent), in which case it could be the same basic program with a different bass, guitar and piano.
“Also, ‘They Don’t Know’ is three-part harmony, if you include Tracey’s melody as the middle part, and I guess I must have balanced them equally (so Kirsty’s background vocal appears as prominently as Tracey’s lead).”
The Official Video (Which Got “Heavy Rotation” Play on MTV in the Mid-’80s)
Here’s what the song could “look” like, with producer Peter Collins’ hand-in-glove sonic realization the perfect complement to Tracey’s overall “era-vision.” Notice Collins’ fuller production (compared to Sternberg’s MacColl effort), with piano, distinctive bass line, background vocals, and the tubular bells (only hinted at in the original) all mixed up front.
They add up to an aural pastiche that, while a dangerous inch away from “cluttered,” give a fitting yet subtle nod to a Phil Spector side (or, at the very least, a Tokens-produced Laurie Records/Chiffons track).
There are dozens of “They Don’t Know” cover versions extant. Of the ten or so I previewed, not one cared or dared to attempt a certain “look” or to evoke an era as Tracey did. Did they decline because they thought “it’s been done”? Maybe. Or, lacking imagination, did they just not even bother to do anything but treat it as just another song to cover? Likely.
And, of course, if you’re new to this video, I envy your first look at the surprise cameo that awaits:
Or, could it be Kirsty and Tracey conspired (from across the ocean and across the years) to re-create Diane Renay’s “Kiss Me Sailor” musical aura circa 1964? A full and revealing look into Miss Renay’s 1964 “segue singles” of “Navy Blue” and “Kiss Me Sailor” can be enjoyed here:
To more fully appreciate what Ullman’s talents brought to the song’s total production, here’s a live performance video from Dutch TV in 1983 (includes brief interview).
Granted, Tracey and the gals are singing to track, but Ullman’s consistency in presentation is ultimately a bow to Kirsty MacColl and her wonderful, 3-minute, I’m-gonna-say-it….perfectly-crafted pop song:
Ullman, in a 2017 UK Guardian interview, answered the question: “If you could edit your past, what would you change?” Tracey: “I would have stopped making records after ‘They Don’t Know’.”
Many might lament that assertion, as human nature dictates that we inevitably enter “the land of what might’ve been” whenever the opportunity presents itself.
But, at the same time, Tracey’s answer gathers all the elements surrounding Kirsty’s brilliantly evocative song snapshot: Without this composition, Peter Collins’ smart production, and Tracey’s period-specific vision, we wouldn’t have this Polaroid One-Step of a living, breathing 45, vintage 1964.
This was a great read, Brad. I always loved how Ullman's single brought the whole 60s girl group ethos into the 80s even as Bananarama were reinventing it for the new wave kids like me. But I love it for bringing the world the genius of MacColl, and when she died, it broke my heart in 17 places.
This was a cracking read, thanks for the wander down memory lane.
I loved "You Broke My Heart in 17 Places", as well as the singles at the time, and had a huge crush on Tracey back then.
I heard Tracey's influence a few years ago in Duffy, though she was likely influenced directly by 60's girl groups and the Northern Soul scene of the 60s to the 80s.