Songoftheday 7/9/10 - You've been around for such a long time now Oh, maybe I could leave you but I don't know how...

Tracey Ullman - "They Don't Know"
from the album You Broke My Heart In 17 Places (1983)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #8 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 11

Today's Song of the Day is by British comedienne extraordinaire Tracey Ullman, who first was noticed on the stage before landing a television gig with the BBC. At the same time, she was signed to punk label Stiff Records, and recorded a debut album deriving more from Lesley Gore than Johnny Rotten. Her first single, a cover of the 60s soul song "Breakaway" (originally done by Irma Thomas), and reached #4 on the British chart in 1983.  For its follow-up, Tracey recorded a song by (the late) Kirsty MacColl that was released in 1979 but due to a label strike had failed to make the charts, "They Don't Know"...

Tracey redid the song with producer Peter Collins and Kirsty providing backup vocals, speeding up the tempo and changing the key. And she even got Paul McCartney, who she was filming Give My Regards To Broad Street with, to show for a cameo...

"They Don't Know" crossed over the Atlantic riding the new-wave "2nd Brit Invasion" and scored her a top-10 single on the pop chart, and just miss at #11 on the adult-contemporary (easy-listening) chart. In Britain, the single went to #2, her biggest hit to date. The thing is, this is one of the best sort-of "novelty" type records around (no doubt because MacColl was such a songwriting genius).

Tracey would place one more single in the British top-10, "Move Over, Darling", and a few more moderate and lesser hits, but after 1985, her career shifted more back to television, where she moved to America to produce her own "variety" style show, The Tracey Ullman Show, which won four Emmys and introduced both the Simpsons and Paula Abdul to the world. She spent a chunk of the 90s on HBO with shows like her fab Tracey Takes On... series, and now does both film and TV work.

(Click below to see the rest of the post)


In 2010, Katrina Leskanich, of Katrina & The Waves, recorded a delicate cover of the song that's kind of sweet...

The same year, another 80s rocker, Kim Wilde, offered up a different take on the song...

...and finally, here's Tracey again from a German TV show...

Up tomorrow: The King of Parody does the King of Pop.