CLIFF RICHARD – “Please Don’t Tease”
Of all Cliff’s No.1s, “Please Don’t Tease” is the one where he tries hardest to be a ‘British Elvis’. Even Elvis at this point wasn’t really doing Elvis, and Cliff’s weedy glottals certainly don’t do the job. Everything you have ever suspected or heard about British pop’s lack of fire is on shame-faced show here: Cliff sings “You love me like a hurricane” with no indication that a hurricane might be any different to a mild breeze off the Isle Of Wight. His “doggone” is embarrassingly vicarish. It’s left once again to Hank Marvin to salvage something from the track, and even his perfunctory solo is clumsy. This milky trundle was selected as a single by a fans’ poll, and I’m sure they were delighted with it.
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“My new record Please Don’t Tease was one picked out of 21 others I’d recorded, by members of my own fan club. I’m glad this one was chosen because Bruce Welch, my rhythm guitarist, wrote it.
“The boys are always writing numbers. They get the opening bars of a melody; it may be actually during a recording session, or while we’re on tour. Then they’ll come to me, play the three or four bars they’ve got and ask me if I like it.
“That’s what happened with Please Don’t Tease. It’s the first number Bruce has written on his own – and I sure hope for his sake as much as for my own it makes it.”
Awww.
Yes it’s milky, and Hank (Silvery Rain, The Joy Of Living, Throw Down A Line) was the Shad most likely to steer Cliff into more challenging terrain rather than chipper Bruce. Still, it’s cute, with a very C86 asexuality (Cliff actually sounds a little frightened when he sings “you love me like a hurricane”*) that does relate it directly to the next number one: file under the Englishman’s fear of sex. It’s interesting that Cliff’s fans gave this the nod over straight ahead rocker Nine Times Out Of Ten; the band thought that was strong enough to release as a follow-up, fans’ nod or no, and it settled at no.3.
*Hello Neil Young? Not exactly a common or garden phrase, and Hank is his major guitar hero (see sleeve of Buffalo Springfield again).