Germany Picture Sleeve: Star-Club 148 565 STF
First UK Release: Philips BF 1497 / 320244 BF. Side B
First UK Release: Philips BF 1497 / 320244 BF. Side A
Netherlands Picture Sleeve: Philips 320 244 BF
A (Baby) You Don't Have To Tell Me
B My Love Is Growing
by The Walker Brothers
Released: July 8th, 1966. Label: Philips
(Baby) You Don’t Have to Tell Me is the Walker Brothers’ sixth single. Written by American singer-songwriter Peter Antonio of US doo-wop group The Chants under his performing pseudonym, Pete Antell, it was originally recorded by American singer Bobby Coleman for his only single release earlier that year.
Another song about the narrator’s heartbreak (“You don’t have to tell me, girl, because I know/ Baby, don’t you think I knew it long ago?”), it was arranged by Reg Guest and produced by John Franz. So was the B-side, My Love Is Growing, written by American singer-songwriter John Stewart. In the US, the B-side was changed to a Scott Walker and John Franz original, Young Man Cried. Its lyrics include the lines: “A million little things still run through my mind,/ The dream it’s getting late/But time has left me behind.”
After three previous number three singles, (Baby) You Don’t Have to Tell Me got to no. 13 in the UK charts, and spent eight weeks in the top 40.
Credits
A. (Baby) You Don't Have to Tell Me 2:28
Written By Pete Antell
Arranger Reg Guest
B. My Love Is Growing 2:22
Written By John Stewart
Arranger Reg Guest
Interview
Record Mirror, 31 December 1966
by Norman Jopling
“The other really big set-back we had was 'Baby You Don't Have To Tell Me'. We put that out after 'Sun Ain't Gonna Shine' and it just wasn't our image. The people who bought our records wanted to hear the slow, dramatic, heartbreak ballads that they could associate themselves with. We mirrored their way of thinking. But that record wasn't like that. I wanted 'In My Room' to be put out, and even 'Another Tear Falls' would have been OK. So we've got a lot of lost ground to make up.”
“But where we're going in the future I don't know. I can see us singing the same old songs and see us on stage, exactly the same movements and everything. It's very worrying. But there's not much chance in the foreseeable future of the group splitting up, even though we don't mix socially, and don't agree musically. I do feel responsible to a certain extent for the other two.
On the last LP I let John have more solos than me. I try to push him because I think he's good. In fact at one time I didn't used to sing – I was John's bass player!”
Scott Walker 1966. Photo by Jan Persson