HELEN SHAPIRO - “You Don’t Know”
(12th August 1961)
Polished as a pebble in a pocket, but there’s something about this I can’t warm to, a pall of drabness around it. Maybe it’s the arrangement, stately with prissy chirrups of strings. Maybe it’s Helen’s mopey sultriness: unrequited love songs can be heartbreaking, but they can also be unpleasantly inert and passive. Shapiro’s prematurely smoky voice is quality, but her delivery is distanced and distracted - where’s the motivation for the mystery boy to notice her? Love isn’t a right. 4
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harry morrison on June 4th, 2007
Helen Shapiro’s ‘You Don’t Know’ is the perfect teenage angst song, and beautifully delivered by a deceptively young new singer. The lyrics are poignant (so a secret it must stay . . .) All teenagers have sad secrets, and Helen expresses this sadness eloquently. Beautifully, yet unobtrusively orchestrated by Martin Slavin, this deservedly reached no one in the uk.