On this special holiday edition of Reminiscings of Youth, I'm keeping a promise I made when I posted Tracey Ullman's cover of "Breakaway" which had come out as her official debut single back in 1983. In actual fact, the first song that I and millions of other music video watchers had heard by the future godmother of The Simpsons was "They Don't Know", released in September that year. The video is very familiar to me and yet I had completely forgotten about Paul McCartney's cameo at the end.
As was the case with Ullman and "Breakaway", I didn't find out until much later that "They Don't Know" was a cover of an original version released in June 1979 by the late singer-songwriter Kirsty MacColl. Listening to MacColl's version, I got the impression of a gentle contemporary pop ballad. Meanwhile, Ullman's cover several years later (along with the video) has always hit me as a tribute to 1960s girl pop. What I hadn't known was that the cover had MacColl returning to help out in her pipe of "Baby!" from the original since Ullman couldn't really hit her note that high.
In Canada, Ullman's "They Don't Know" peaked at No. 5 on RPM while in America, it got as high as No. 8. The video is one that I remember having a long run on the music shows and basically "They Don't Know" ended up as being my one reminder of Ullman until she showed up several years later on FOX TV with her own comedy-variety show.
So, what singles were being released in September 1983?
Jiro Atsumi -- Busan Ko e Kaere (釜山港へ帰れ)
Akina Nakamori -- Kinku （禁区）
Naoko Kawai -- Unbalance （ＵＮバランス）
That's interesting
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