The Story Behind "They Don't Know" by Tracey Ullman

Tracey Ull­man released “They Don’t Know” in Sep­tem­ber 1983 and peaked at #2 in the U.K. Sin­gles Chart.  The song charted at #8 on the U.S. Bill­board Hot 100 in 1984.  Taken from Ullman’s debut album, You Broke My Heart in 17 Places, the pro­duc­tion on the sin­gle and the album was a retro fusion of 60s/70s pop with an 80s edge.

Ullman’s record­ing is actu­ally a cover of singer/songrwriter Kirsty MacColl’s first sin­gle that was orig­i­nally released in June 1979, how­ever, due to a strike at her distributor’s, the record was pre­vented from ship­ping to shops, even though it reached #2 on Music Week Air­play Chart.  Mac­Coll sang backup vocals on Ullman’s record­ing of “They Don’t Know,” as well as the famous “Baby!” just before the final verse.

Some rumors have sug­gested that Ull­man sim­ply sang “They Don’t Know” over MacColl’s orig­i­nal back­ing track, but this is not true.  Accord­ing to the mix engi­neer, Phil Chap­man, Ullman’s record­ing is a semi-tone up from MacColl’s orig­i­nal, and MacColl’s har­monies on the Ullman’s ver­sion are dif­fer­ent.  Chap­man also stated that since it was habit to use a sin­gle loud­speaker to mix the song for radio, MacColl’s back­ing vocals are as promi­nent as Ullman’s.  When Ull­man recorded a cover of MacColl’s 1983 sin­gle “Terry,” she did, in fact, use MacColl’s orig­i­nal back­ing track for that recording.

Ull­man charted six sin­gles between 1983–1985 in the U.K. Sin­gles Charts and recorded a sec­ond album, You Caught Me Out, before aban­don­ing her music career and launch­ing a suc­cess­ful tele­vi­sion career in the U.S.  Mac­Coll went on to record sev­eral more well-received albums and score a few more hits before she was trag­i­cally killed while div­ing with her sons in Cozumel, Mex­ico.  Mac­Coll and her sons were sur­fac­ing when a speed­boat owned by Mex­i­can super­mar­ket mil­lion­aire Guillermo González Nova entered the restricted div­ing area.  Mac­Coll pushed her son Jaimie out of the way and was killed instantly when the boat struck her.  The boat­hand José Cen Yam stated that he was dri­ving the boat, although wit­nesses dis­puted this.  He was sen­tenced to two years and 10 months in prison and to pay $2,150 in resti­tu­tion to MacColl’s fam­ily.  It is spec­u­lated that Nova paid Yam to take the fall for the inci­dent.  As a result, MacColl’s fam­ily launched the Jus­tice for Kirsty Campaign.

Ver­sions
They Don’t Know 2’59

Music Video
The music video cap­tures Ullman’s per­son­al­ity, with a taste for dress­ing up in funny cos­tumes and mak­ing funny faces.  The first two-thirds of the video shows Ull­man infat­u­ated with a boy named Paul, and the last third of the video shows her grown, mar­ried, and dowdy, as she shops with a lit­tle girl in a gro­cery store.  Paul is seen work­ing there.  He throws some­thing in her shop­ping cat and pinches her behind.  A final fan­tasy sequence shows Ull­man cozied up to Paul McCart­ney in the car fea­tured in the begin­ning of the video.

Mem­o­ries
I have always loved this song.  I like that bell at the begin­ning and through­out the song, and who doesn’t like the “BA-BY!” after the bridge.  It’s a great song to sing along to, and I still get excited when­ever I catch it on the radio or hear it in the gro­cery store.

What are your mem­o­ries of “They Don’t Know” by Tracey Ullman?