RONAN KEATING – "When You Say Nothing At All"

Well, quite.

I would add, however, that this is a cover of an (apparently well-known) country song. My dad (a musician and a fan of Alison Krauss’s version) played it at my sister’s wedding, and felt he needed to point out that it “Wasn’t a Boyzone song” before he started. Even with this special day in mind, I still find it difficult to shake the memory of The Ronan Lilt though.

Listening to the Alison Krauss’ version, I realise that I don’t mind the actual song; I could imagine it on a mixtape nestling nicely between some James Taylor and Christopher Cross. It’s just Ronan’s delivery and the, err, celtic-pipes maybe, in the middle that slightly set my teeth on edge. Also, it is my imagination or has he moved closer to Westlife territory with this one?

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Well the video was quite nice, so there’s that.

Given that the end of Boyzone didn’t seem particularly acrimonious – and seem to be good friends to this day – you have to wonder what Ronan and his team hoped to achieve by his going solo. We’ve already seen how the Take That solo careers found Gary self-consciously staking his claim as a ‘serious artist’ to terminally dull effect, Robbie going through a rebellious phase (commodified with an overly on-the-nose George Michael cover) before channeling his showman persona through Guy Chambers’ appealingly inclusive songwriting, and Mark Owen going a bit indie.

If there’s a branding shift in Ronan’s solo career, it’s very subtle. Where Boyzone generally revived well-known songs from sources as diverse as Tracy Chapman, The Bee Gees, The Osmonds and Billy Ocean – applying the same syrupy, unambitious production style and vocal approach no matter who they were covering – Ronan alone became the Cilla Black of American country music.

The fact that the last Boyzone single was in exactly the same mould as almost all of Ronan’s subsequent solo hits speaks volumes about Louis Walsh’s shrewdly low-risk approach to managing his artists. Ronan, presumably, was just happy to keep picking up the cheques.

When You Say Nothing At All is a nice song, and Ronan isn’t ambitious enough to ruin it. The worst thing you can say about it is that outside its obvious home as a safe wedding slow-dance, it makes you feel, well, nothing at all.

At least Geri pissed people off.

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Is this the shortest Popular review yet?

Write-ups like this always make me stupidly happy. I will never forget reading one of a Def Leppard album called YEAH! in the NME, which got 0/10, and simply read “NO!” Tickled me for days, that did.

As for this…it’s one of those odd cases of The Singer Not The Song, I reckon. It’s a perfectly servicable country ballad – not heard the other versions of it – done a relative injustice by a vocalist with all the charisma of a wet flannel. I do seem to recall it never being off the radio, mind, so I’m gonna give it a workingman’s 4.

A fairly uninspiring plundering of Pablo Neruda’s “Me gustas cuando callas”. I never much liked Neruda and it would take more than a pretty guitar figure to make his problematic gibberish into a decent song. 2 is about right.

There have been plenty of songs less worthy of the attention given them – in some ways this whole blog is an exercise in excessive detail. I hope this doesn’t become a habit.

A lot of wedding references already in the comments, and sure enough we had this as the first dance at ours. It’s a lovely song and a decent, heartfelt performance by Ronan; spoilt towards the end by a horrible key change, but you don’t need to listen that far to get the idea. (7-and-a-bit)

Re15: This, I think, is as close as Mark E Smith got to a soupy love ballad. Rather splendid it is too.

(Re16: ah, I was beaten to the punch).

I listened to the previous versions of When You Say Nothing At All. Better, but still not great – surprised to find I preferred the Whitley one to Alison Krauss. In all versions, I hate the bit where the drums kick in (and the drums continue to be horrible on all of them).

The Webster reference doesn’t work in the UK, of course, and I would guess not in Ireland either.

We should be grateful we were spared “the Collins Concise it could never define…”

Re 19: We don’t say freeway either. You’d have to be quite dim not to get the reference.

Enjoy the silence. (3)

Re24: But do you think people would really have been going, ‘Who the fuck is Webster?’ Considering how much of a struggle many people have hearing lyrics anyway, I don’t see what the risk of not changing would have been.

Imagine if Ronan had been given You’re The Tops – I wonder how many lines would have survived. “It’s in France? Can we change it to Natural History Museum?”

The Websters change does sum up his career. I may have said it before – I always think of Ronan Keating as the Alan Shearer of pop: solid, dull, predictable, literally with a stiff upper lip; he carries himself like a police constable. Look at that cover – it looks like the national anthem is playing behind him.

I just don’t think Websters dictionary is very obscure. Maybe ‘dim’ wasn’t the right word but please don’t pick a semantic fight.

There is actually a bit more to this single than meets the eye. Firstly, Boyzone were still very much an extant band at this point and there was one more single to come before they quietly entered hiatus. Secondly, their hits compilation was in the middle of a nine week (non consecutive – a two followed by a seven) when this single was released and WYSNAA actually featured on that album, despite being a Ronan solo track. Obviously this was also featured on the soundtrack to the film Notting Hill and this could be seen as a clever marketing ploy to see if Keating was marketable as a solo act – if not the single could be treated as a one off and Boyzone could carry on as before.

After this song entered at the top the mid weeks suggested that Ricky Martin would return for a fourth non consecutive week. Curiously Keating recovered to hold on and Martin slipped to third. Mention must go here to the song in second place – Better Off Alone by DJ Jurgen featuring Alice Deejay (often wrongly credited as the performing artist) which began a three week lock down at number two, outselling all three chart toppers concerned.

A couple of end notes and apologies for the brackets. Firstly when Notting Hill won best soundtrack at the following year’s Brit Awards (the presentation itself famously disrupted by a face off between Ronnie Wood and Brandon Block) I remember the person accepting the award (I’m not sure who) made a catty comment about Keating trying to pass himself off as the songwriter. And secondly I can’t think of the song now without hearing this – a friend of a friend performed this straight up (ie without the comedy voice) on karaoke a few years back. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-mkDSD3TMc

Dreary song from a film that even now makes me wince.

I can’t really separate this song from Keith Whitley’s death, so I’m never not depressed by it. This was a country #1 in Christmas of 1988 and Whitley died in May 1989 of alcohol poisoning. Age 33.

Ronan always was the smuggest man in pop.

Seeing Tom’s initial review of this made me laugh out loud the other day – I’ve been waiting for one like this. I haven’t yet read the actual review of this and the succeeding single. The tune is familiar to me, probably from the Alison Krauss version. I actually don’t mind the song much, but there’s something about Ronan’s voice/delivery that just seems weird. And learning of the Webster switch knocks off an additional point from me, so 3/10.

At the time wasn’t fussed with this but as I’ve gotten older have to say I love it. The lyrics and tone are great in this track.

I’m OK with this one, although I think it is a touch too long. 5/10.

I had no idea until now that this was such a global hit. Boyzone only achieved the same with ‘No Matter What’ the year prior. So maybe timing was perfect to launch solo, with Ronan fresh in the public minds of these new territories.

It does annoy me, though was quite common at the time, that he proclaimed to have written the song. He hadn’t.

I suppose the internet was still getting into gear in 1999, and fibs couldn’t be fact checked as easily.

I still think it is a great song. It is just nice and comforting. That can be taken as either a compliment or an insult.