V03-T04 They Don't Know

.....I first knew this song from a Tracey Ullman video, made before she had an American television series. It was when the 'M' in 'MTV' stood for 'Music' instead of 'Misanthropy'. Finding this original version on a compilation by accident was a sweet surprise.

Volume 3: A KINDER, GENTLER ZERO TOLERANCE, track 4

• 03:01 "THEY DON'T KNOW" (Kirsty MacColl)
• performed by Kirsty MacColl
• original source: A-side, 7"Stiff BUY47 (UK) June, 1979
• and my source: VA4CD THE STIFF RECORDS BOX SET Demon/Rhino R2 71062 (US?) August, 1992

.....This is MacColl's debut single, not counting an EP she appeared on as a member of Drug Addix the previous year. None of the songs on that were credited to her and I'm guessing she's just fine with that. This, on the other hand, is pop music gold. My original notes from 1994 haven't really changed, so I'll just quote them below, followed by the current availability of this recording.

.....[from 1994:]Most Americans who know this song know it from the Tracey Ullman version recorded just a few years later [in 1983] (and, I believe, also for Stiff [it was]). That was before Ullman had her American television show on Fox (in fact, before there was a Fox). The video for the remake recast the meaning of the song: in it, Ullman plays a teenager with an enormous crush on Paul McCartney. Obviously nothing ever comes of it, but she grows up to be a bored housewife in a loveless marriage who still daydreams that McCartney will sweep her off her feet. (He does, sort of, when the real McCartney appears briefly at the end.)

.....The original MacColl version is more in the spirit of the mid-1960's British female 'mod' singers (Sandie Shaw, Cilla Black, Petula Clark, Lulu, etc.) who were in turn inspired by Motown and Phil Spector-produced girl groups. It sounds like one of many songs about a girl in a bad relationship, but sung from the girl's perspective so that it seems as though the rest of the world has gone crazy and turned against her. The lyrics to "THEY DON'T KNOW" are sufficiently vague and general that the song could just as easily be about any of the following:

• a) a paranoid schizophrenic speaking to one of their other personalities
• b) a gay rights anthem
• c) a Romeo-and-Juliet/West Side Story couple caught in an ethnic conflict
• d) an addict singing to their drug
• e) an acolyte singing to a cult leader
• f) a prostitute seducing a client
• g) an agent signing a band (see f)

.....[back to 2010:] There was no contemporary album to this single, so it doesn't appear on any reissue even as a bonus track. The year after the Stiff Box came out there was an unimaginative package of MacColl's Stiff material called THE ESSENTIAL COLLECTION (1993), but the year after I put together this mix MacColl supervised a replacement, GALORE-THE BEST OF KIRSTY MACCOLL (1995). Both contain "THEY DON'T KNOW".

.....On Monday, we take a break from the A-sides.