"They Don't Know" - Tracey Ullman

Wikipedia adds their own dig about Kirsty MacColl's added vocals because "Ullman had a limited high-end range."

Love it. A great pop tune.

Loved it but not an 80s song. a deliberate early 1960s tribute. So talented

She was great fun while she was ours. And then she went away.

Tracey is the bomb. So clever and imaginative, full of expression. Great cameo by Paul McCartney at the end of the video.

I am surprised that it's her only Top 40 hit song. I thought Breakaway was a much bigger hit? Or was it a just a smash success in England?

Like Lily Tomlin, I find myself studying her rather than laughing at her act.

So she doesn't get any Simpsons money?

Great fun, but I prefer Kirsty's version. Kirsty was a goddess.

God, I love this song so much. I think it's better than Kirsty's and that says a lot because Kirsty was brilliant. "You Caught Me Out" is another Kirsty confection and it's equally brilliant.

In fact, her whole "You Broke My Heart in 17 Places" album is pure pop perfection.

It's a shame Tracey didn't continue with her pop career. She was a great pop star.

Her song breakaway was superior.

"So she doesn't get any Simpsons money?"

No, but Jennifer Tilly does.

Didn't she receive some sort of small, tiny settlement for The Simpsons when she sued to get a share from the profits?

I loved this song in the 80s. Still a great tune but the video is sadder than I had realized.

[quote]Tracey Ullman's only Top 40 song, "They Don't Know," was blocked by Culture Club's "Karma Chameleon" from hitting number one in October 1983.

You mean in the British charts. In America, where it counts, it only got to #8.

Even being #1 in the UK, is like coming in #1 in the fourth grade sack race at the yearly school picnic.

I have always hated the "You Broke My Heart in 17 Places" album. It is so obvious that the tracks have been sped up to make Ullman sound like Minnie Mouse.

I loved Tracey and the whole '60s aesthetic of You Broke My Heart in 17 Places. That era seemed so distant in 1983 that it's stunning to realize they were only looking back 15-20 years. I can't imagine any artist now coming out with an album paying homage to 2005, can you?

It kind of is a typical 80s song, in that punk and the pre-pop post-punk of the early 80s were all about nostalgia for the early 60s.

Why didn't the video director do more with that gong guy at the opening?

Her only other single that charted in the US was Breakaway, which peaked at No. 70 in June 1984.

He should have replaced Paul McCartney in the final getaway scene.

Funny you would post this today, OP. It was 35 years ago (!) this week that "They Don't Know" debuted in the Top Ten of the Billboard Hot 100.

1 2 AGAINST ALL ODDS (Take A Look At Me Now) –•– Phil Collins

2 1 FOOTLOOSE –•– Kenny Loggins

3 4 HELLO –•– Lionel Richie

4 8 HOLD ME NOW –•– Thompson Twins

5 6 MISS ME BLIND –•– Culture Club

6 5 AUTOMATIC –•– The Pointer Sisters

7 3 SOMEBODY’S WATCHING ME –•– Rockwell

8 13 LOVE SOMEBODY –•– Rick Springfield

9 7 HERE COMES THE RAIN AGAIN –•– Eurythmics

10 14 THEY DON’T KNOW –•– Tracey Ullman

That's a great Top Ten r21.

That is crazy r17 isn't it? And yet, back in '83, the era Ullman was paying homage to did seem so far away... strange.

I love Kirsty and am a big fan of her work, but I do love Tracey's version of this song.

I think it was Tracey's best work in terms of the quasi-Dusty Springfield thing she was trying to do. It was just perfect.

I just watched the video and.....

I cried a little. So much sweetness and memories.

I def prefer Kirsty's original but it wasn't a hit, so hopefully Tracey's version got her some nice royalties.

Also - the sleeve of the original 45 is fantastic

Apparently Kirsty's version had a lot of airplay but the distributors had a month long strike and it ended up killing that record in terms of sales.

Kirsty was always having record company trouble.

Tracy's beauty mark is very distracting in that video. It seems to come and go.

How on Earth can anyone not love Tracey or find her hilarious??! She's a fucking legend, for good reason.

lmao.

R30 try that link again

LOVE her and those songs

I still say that's Tracey in the Lisa Stansfield video for the song "All Around The World."

Parts of the video (the disco dance line with the girls in platform shoes) is straight up 1973 or so. Just a decade earlier, and yet so different than 1984. Imagine a look back at 2009 today - clothing has barely changed.

Tracey Ullman is a genius on par with the other comedic genius, Lily Tomlin.

The Woke Support Group

I really do miss Linda Granger. I really love her new BBC show, but I'd give anything for her to do a special for HBO with some of the Tracey Takes On characters again (Linda, Fern, Ruby, Trevor).

Tracey is awesome and is/was Kirsty

I love that song.

R22 I remember as a kid back in 1999 , 1979 seemed like a really long time ago. Now looking back at 1999 it seems like just yesterday.

[quote]I loved this song in the 80s. Still a great tune but the video is sadder than I had realized.

Your comment reminded me of this song:

R14, how do you mean? I thought they were implying she ended up with Paul McCartney instead of the guy that took her for granted.

Or what were they saying?

Ugh, Joni Mitchell.

Explain the video plot line to me please. She ends up a hausfrau in a loveless marriage? Or it was all a fantasy anyway?

How many people have said I look just like Tracey Ullman... Countless. Oy vey. I know she's funny and oh-so-talented but really, looking like her is not the greatest compliment one gets in life.

Tracey's cover of They Don't Know was wonderful, and I am glad this it brought some money and attention to Kirsty. They are/were two wonderfully talented women, and it is nice that they shared success in that way. It still breaks my heart that Kirsty is gone. She went out on a fantastic album, and she died heroically, but I still miss her.

Love Tracey's cover and McCartney at his sexiest.

Catherine Tate is funnier for that kind of sketch comedy. I like Tracey but, as someone implied above, her show (in the US at least) was more about character studies than comedy.

Katrina Leskanich did a really pretty slow cover.

Tracey said she did a poor job singing the song. She said she sounded like 'Mickey Mouse on helium.'

"Breakaway" was a cover of a song by New Orleans R&B legend Irma Thomas.

Speaking of Dusty, r23

Old Irma really had the bullet tits going on.

My interpretation of the video is that you're led to believe Tracey is singing "they don't know" about how great her life with her boyfriend Paul is (the guy bowling with her). But at the end, the reveal is that she's a miserable housewife singing "they don't know" about her secret crush on Paul McCartney.

Such a great song. Good story, great lyrics, really catchy and a fun video.

Thanks OP!

Oh, and the harmonies are surprisingly good.

R46

MARY!

MARY!

MARY!

(it's OK, I am MARY!ing with you.)

I loved this song as a pre-teen gayling!

This was and still is one of my favorite 80s songs.

[quote]Catherine Tate is funnier for that kind of sketch comedy.

OMG, Catherine Tate???! Good Christ. Ricky Gervais did an entire comedy about how crap her brand of humor was, along with Little Britain. One catchphrase repeated ten billion times. No one will beat Tracey.

Tracey was doing the Melania Trump robot before anyone else starting mentioning it. lol

[quote]Tracey said she did a poor job singing the song. She said she sounded like 'Mickey Mouse on helium.'

Because the owner of her label, Stiff believed that BBC Radio slowed down their records. All of the releases were sped up.

Catherine Tate said that Tracey was her inspiration for getting into comedy. Tate's gay character is a rip-off of Tracey's gay airline steward Trevor. I don't hate Tate, but her show seriously dumbed down British comedy and became a punch line. As stated previously, Ricky Gervais helped kill her career and Little Britain. Both shows were dreadful. Little Britain ripped off The League of Gentlemen which didn't rely on a catchphrase. The Catherine Tate Show and Little Britain were produced for simpletons. "How very dare you?" "I'm not bovvered!" "I'm the only gay of this village." "I am a lady!" zzzzzzz

Miranda Hart is even worse.

The guy that isn’t Paul McCartney is cute.

[quote]Miranda Hart is even worse.

*shudders*

Back to Kirsty.

This is one of my favorites. Odd video but lovely song.

"Kite" is really a timeless album.

Why do some of you prefer the Kirsty McColl version?

R68, as I posted above, I prefer the Kirsty McColl because the Tracey Ullman version is so obviously sped up. If I heard the unaltered tracks, I might change my mind.

Grew up in the 80's and yep, loved this song. I knew it was a cover but only heard the McColl version within the last few years. I like both and a mark of a great song is that it stands up to various interpretations. For sentimental reasons, I prefer Ullman's cover.

And piling on the "god, we're getting old, time flies" vibe; within the last 10 years, the thought of the 80's being further from now than it was from the 60's has popped into my head endlessly. For some reason, music is always the biggest trigger. Maybe because music is such an important part of adolescence? I remember seeing the iconic B&W footage of the Beatles landing in the USA in 1964 and of course the Ed Suillivan debut. Watching that in the 80's, the 60's, Ed Sullivan and the Beatles seem like a million years away. It felt almost alien to me. Seeing Paul McCartney in the 80's always prompted me to think of him as the old guy who used to be a Beatle. And he was only in his early 40's, younger than I am today!

Now I look back to the 80's and it both feels like a lifetime ago and a finger snap away. I know 1984 was 35 years ago so okay, it was long time ago but many of the performers of that time are still out touring and still the biggest acts around. Including Paul McCartney! Maybe because the 80's was in color so it doesn't feel that different from now? What do kids think when they see acts I used to idolize, like the Cure and Depeche Mode? I still see some of them wearing Joy Division and Ramones t-shirts. Do they think, "God, that's like ancient history."

And if I was back in 1984 and thought of what 35 years earlier was like--that would have been 1949!

If you want to feel really old, R70, go to the link for the video and read the comments. A bunch of people said they were teens or in their early twenties at the time of this video, got married young, and are still married now, thirty years later. They talked about how it was a more innocent time then.

My grandparents said that about the thirties and forties. What’s it going to be like in 2050? Mad Max?

"Maybe because the 80's was in color so it doesn't feel that different from now? "

R70, it's also because you were younger then, and time is relative.

I remember the 20th anniversary of Beatlemania in 84. Seemed like ancient history. There was a lot of 60s nostalgia going on throughout the 80s. This song/video itself was an obvious nod to the girl groups.

I didn't hear Kirsty's version until I picked up her Galore compilation in the 90s. There wasn't a bad cut on that CD. She really was an underappreciated talent.

R70, yes, that's the logical answer but it's hard to accept...So I just keep ruminating, as if doing so will change the answer and the fact father time is kicking my butt.

Kirsty was a goddess. Such a huge loss.

I've always thought this song would be perfect to get married to.

She sings....

Kirsty did a few shots on French & Saunders.....

This was only a top 40 hit because of the video on MTV.

MTV was king back then, and could make a career with a single video, and give a song life for decades.

I think the video’s plot is very simple. It’s that bittersweet twist that long term relationships have. You start out with romance and fun but end up shopping in the grocery store in your slippers...and that’s for successful marriages. Same story from time immemorial. The part with Paul is just a fun coda.

I love the harmonizing in the line “eyes wide open and I see the signs” in the final part of the song. Her voice, only an octave higher, slides in over the vocals and gives it real sparkle.

Tracey always went out of her way to credit Kirsty and even chalks up her music career to being a fluke and a joke, even though she loves singing. There really isn't anything Tracey can't do or hasn't tried her hand at. She's a trained dancer to boot. She's rich and can retire tomorrow. She also gets a piece of The Simpsons every year. I know people who worked for her and her husband. Everyone loved them to death.

R14 here - watching as an adult I think she’s w Paul but fantasizes about Paul McC. In the end she’s no longer her glam pretty self, but instead is mired in everything she thought she’d escape. At least it ends on a warm note w her kid.

I was so horrific the way Kirsty MacColl died!

"In 2000, following her participation in the presentation of a radio programme for the BBC in Cuba, MacColl took a holiday in Cozumel, Mexico, with her sons and her partner, musician James Knight. On 18 December 2000, she and her sons went diving at the Chankanaab reef, part of the National Marine Park of Cozumel, in a designated diving area that watercraft were restricted from entering. With the group was a local veteran divemaster, Iván Díaz.

As the group were surfacing from a dive, a powerboat moving at high speed entered the restricted area. MacColl saw the boat coming before her sons did; Louis (then 13) was not in its path, but Jamie (then 15) was. She was able to push him out of the way (he sustained minor head and rib injuries), but she was struck by the boat which ran over her. MacColl suffered severe chest injuries and died instantly. MacColl's body was repatriated to the United Kingdom, and was cremated after a humanist funeral at Mortlake Crematorium in Kew.

Aftermath: The powerboat involved in the accident was owned by Guillermo González Nova, multimillionaire president of the Comercial Mexicana supermarket chain, who was on board with members of his family. One of his employees, boathand José Cen Yam, stated that he was in control of the boat at the time of the incident. Eyewitnesses said that Cen Yam was not at the controls and that the boat was travelling much faster than the speed of one knot that González Nova said.

Cen Yam was found guilty of culpable homicide and was sentenced to 2 years 10 months in prison. He was allowed under Mexican law to pay a punitive fine of 1,034 pesos (about €63, £61 or US$90) in lieu of the prison sentence. He was also ordered to pay approximately US$2,150 in restitution to MacColl's family, an amount based on his wages. People who said they spoke to Cen Yam after the accident said he received money for taking the blame."

Yes, Kirsty's death was horrible and so tragic. I hate reading about it (no offence to you, r83, just my personal feelings). It's really sad. And senseless.

"They Don't Know" covered by Sid & Susie (Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs).

Kirsty's contribution to Red Hot & Blue was one of the best

I loved Kirsty's version of Billy Bragg's "A New England".

Tracey's second album You Caught Me Out never got a U.S. release but it also has a lot of fun stuff on it. The title track is another originally recorded by Kirsty MacColl and you can hear her vocals featured in the background.

I think the US released a compilation album which contained a mixture of both of Tracey's albums. A Complete Stiff Records release of Tracey Ullman came out in 2010. It had b-sides and rarities as well. It's two discs. 36 tracks. I think someone said there may be one missing song, maybe a different version of one, but it's pretty much complete, everything she ever recorded at Stiff.

About Kirsty - her death was beyond tragic. Tracey performed at her memorial.

I agree with the poster who would love to see Tracey re-visit her characters from her old HBO show. I loved Linda Granger, and Fern Rosenthal was EVERY New York Jewish woman "of a certain age" I have ever known.

My favorite was Ruby Romaine, the elderly Hollywood makeup artist. That character was pure genius.

[quote]My favorite was Ruby Romaine, the elderly Hollywood makeup artist. That character was pure genius.

She just said that Ruby is her favorite character on The Daily Show, besides Kay. She always talks about Ruby and what she would be up to. Ruby was also makeup artist Kevyn Aucoin favorite character. I saw that Tracey contributed to a book about him and how he loved how Ruby called her son's father his "uncle daddy."

The stories they came up for that character were ingenious. I loved the one she told about Van Johnson who was hosting a party for the Vienna Boy's Choir. lmao. Then they one of her kids fathered by Joe McCarthy.

Ruby on watching Jayne Mansfield head rolling along the side of the highway. lmao

We've all known a Kay Clark.

[quote] I love the harmonizing in the line “eyes wide open and I see the signs” in the final part of the song. Her voice, only an octave higher, slides in over the vocals and gives it real sparkle.

I believe most of the base level vocals in Tracey's version were either borrowed from Kirsty's or done by Kirsty.

That was one of the genius things about Kirsty's singing - she could harmonize with herself in a recording. The "choir" in A New England (at around 1:55) is all her, sounding like the damn Beach Boys! Then she kicks it up an octave. Goosebumps.

[quote]That was one of the genius things about Kirsty's singing - she could harmonize with herself in a recording.

Who would've ever thunk it.

She did it all with her own arrangements, Richard. And without being a creepy weirdo like you!

She also sang on tons of great songs by Billy Bragg, The Smiths, Pogues, Talking Heads, etc. Loved seeing her in this Heads video

Tracey Ullman's Dame Judy Dench is a thing of genius.

[quote]We've all known a Kay Clark.

Poor Kaaaaaaay. I loved when she got high with Mother on Tracey Takes On with Cheech Marin. lmao

[quote]Tracey Ullman's Dame Judy Dench is a thing of genius.

I agree. I loved when she was arrested and Maggie Smith left her jail to rot and took over as the nation's "national treasure".

R97 She always had shit luck with record companies. She basically was locked out of recording between around 1986 and 1989, when Kite came out, and she guested on a lot of other records as a result.

I agree that A New England is brilliant. I bought a compilation just so I could get the 12".

Just realized that this year is 40 years since the original single was released

and Kirsty would have been 60 this year.

Kim Wilde covered it a few times, in 2010:

From Kim's 80s covers album, Snapshots:

I never knew Tracey had it in her.

I remember hearing it on the radio, but not as much as other hit 80's singles. But MTV probably played the video at least once an hour, if not more.

I never picked up on the plot of the video.

It still holds up well.

I interpreted it differently. I thought people dismissed her and saw her as the woman in the supermarket, just ordinary. Her former boyfriend took her for granted (the mustachioed guy). But “they don’t know” what else she’s capable of, and don’t see her the way Paul does, which is glamorous and fun. When she’s with Paul, she’s transformed by love, which we can all relate to!

It was 35 years ago this week (April 28, 1984) that "They Don't Know" peaked at No. 8 in the US, where it would remain for two weeks.

Other happenings on the chart:

No. 1 - "Against All Odds" by Phil Collins spends its 2nd of 3 weeks at the top

Cracked the Top Ten - "You Might Think" by The Cars, and "To All the Girls I've Loved Before" by Willie Nelson and Julio Igleseas

Biggest Rise in Top 40 - "Let's Hear It For the Boy" by Deniece Williams, up 11 from No. 23 to No. 12

Biggest Drop in Top 40 - "Eat It" by Weird Al Yankovic, down 17 from No. 15 to No. 32

Highest Top 40 Debut - "The Reflex" by Duran Duran (No. 36)

Highest Top 100 Debut - "Love Will Show Us How" by Christine McVie (No. 54)

[quote]Highest Top 100 Debut - "Love Will Show Us How" by Christine McVie (No. 54)

Another song with a video I really enjoyed.

Rancid cunt

Tracey is M-approved.

Weird, I never heard that song before, r111. And I was a Fleetwood Mac fan and really liked Christine's other hit "Got A Hold On Me."

Love Will Show Us How was a minor hit, knocking around the Top 40 for six weeks, peaking at No. 30 before dropping out.

I know I had heard it on the radio because I listened to Casey Kasem's show religiously at least a couple times a week on the weekend as a kid. I probably heard it some on the local stations. I can tell you I never heard Ullman's follow-up (Breakaway) on the radio, because I wasn't even aware it was released as a song in the US. I knew the song because I had Tracey's album, but it got no higher then No. 7, so it was never on Casey's show, and I guess the local stations never played it.

It's always strange how stations determine what songs to play. The Pop stations wouldn't want to play a song unless it was Top 40, but how do you get a song into the Top 40 if stations aren't playing it? Was payola still going on in the 80s?

[quote]then No. 7,

That should say "than No. 70".

Everybody and their mother listened to Casey Kasem's Top 40 Countdown on weekends in the 80s. That was one of those communal cultural experiences that are now extinct.

Was she trained at the MI5 master disguise center?

R70 but even in the late 90’s you could feel Nostalgic about the 80’s . For instance can anyone see a Romy and Michelle like movie being made about a ten year reunion from people from the class of 2009???

Go Home!

It still sounds good today.

I'm confused. Did Tracy begin her career as a singer and then switch to comedy?

No she started in comedy and then released an album.

In the US the recording career and that video became a hit before anyone knew her for comedy.

Very funny gypsy woman.

"They Don't Know" was Tracey's introduction to the US. Nobody had heard of her before that song. A few years later, she got her first American series on the then-new Fox network.

By Tracey's own admission, there wasn't anything she wouldn't try. In the very early 1980s, everything she did was successful in the UK.

She started out as a dancer in the 1970s. The BBC scouted her and gave her her own show. She was the first woman to get her own sketch show in Britain, even before Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. She was the darling of the British public. At the same time she was doing the comedy thing, she began a music career.

It's true that the American public were first introduced to her via the music, but she also was doing films, most notably "Plenty" with Meryl Streep. She promoted that film in America. She became a frequent guest on Carson and Letterman, the same way Amy Sedaris did. Tracey wasn't always on to promote something. They just had her on to talk. Her Wikipedia page pretty much breaks down the entire thing, but basically her husband Allan wanted to move to the US - he was a very successful independent television producer and she went over with him and ended up getting pregnant. Instead of returning to England she opted to stay in Los Angeles. She got a few major deals but opted instead of work with James L Brooks at the not yet launched Fox network. Less money but total creative freedom.

I know people in the industry who've worked for both Tracey and her now late husband, and they say without a doubt that both of them are the nicest and funniest people they ever worked with. Tracey is funny without trying to be. Both came from nothing (Allan's father was a brick layer, which he tried his hand at and then became a big Vidal Sassoon hairstylist) and never forgot it. Tracey deserves all the success and money she's accumulated. She's good people.

It's a "lol" from me.

I still miss Ruby Romaine and Linda Granger like you wouldn't believe.

No one would ever see the video if it was released today.

Always loved this song. Bittersweet knowing how Kirsty died. Loved Tracey’s book with her impression of the Queen meeting Mother Theresa. (Too funny!)

Love the cameo of Paul McCartney.

Funny and sad video.

Breakaway was written by Jackie DeShannon. Tracey was in a UK sitcom called Girls on Top. She also starred in an indie film by Nancy Savoca called Household Saints. She and Julie Kavner were a brilliant team on the Fox series particularly in the two working class NYC girls who worked in the post office - for some reason the Fox series was never released on video. I recorded some of the sps on VHS.

Jackie DeShannon is someone else who's massively underrated.

I always thought that "Baby" part sounded weird in the Tracey Ullman version.

[quote]Tracey was in a UK sitcom called Girls on Top. She also starred in an indie film by Nancy Savoca called Household Saints. She and Julie Kavner were a brilliant team on the Fox series particularly in the two working class NYC girls who worked in the post office - for some reason the Fox series was never released on video. I recorded some of the sps on VHS.

Tracey and Julie were amazing playing lesbian lovers and two old Jewish revivals living in a condo in Boca Raton. The Fox show has licencing issues because of all the damn songs they used in the sketches. I wish they'd put it back into syndication or streaming. The Fox show and the 90s HBO show were beyond brilliant. Her new show on the BBC is also excellent. I remember "Girls on Top". Tracey's late husband produced it.

[quote]I always thought that "Baby" part sounded weird in the Tracey Ullman version.

It was Kirsty MacColl doing it.

R18, I was going to mention the sexy, skimpily clad gong guy in the beginning of the video too. Brief (ha) nod to the films of The Archers where they had a guy at the gong also.

Tracey and Julie were always wonderful together. I loved the two old Jewish women in Boca Raton.

I heard it today at the gym in Pasadena.

[Quote] Why do some of you prefer the Kirsty McColl version?

The lyric "Maybe I could leave you but I don't know how" registers in Kirsty's version. Tracey's is a turbo charged pop confection with no ambivalence. The latter is enjoyable but the original resonates with me more.

[quote] She did it all with her own arrangements

There's a great BBC docu on Kirsty where someone she sang backup for talked about how she sang her bit, then stood in a different part of the studio and sang in another key, repeating the process - she just knew what to do with her voice AND with the technical bits - and within like 30 minutes had this amazing harmony-with-herself part recorded and done.

They'd expected her to take all day to do it and Kirsty was finished and utterly fabulous, out the door and home before the guitarists had time to finish sound check!

Demo Kirsty.

I love that this has become a stealth Kirsty thread.

I mean, I love Tracey but Kirsty deserved so much more recognition. It sucks that she died so young....she would have been 60 this month......

Still singin'.

My favorite Kirsty MacColl song, but what’s with the horrible lip syncing?