Fun fact, before transforming into a pop break-up anthem, No Doubt’s “Don’t Speak” featured an accordion, completely different lyrics, and now former band member Eric Stefani.
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Now 25 years after its debut, despite her claims of being adverse to anniversary celebrations, telling Variety, “I don’t really pay attention to that stuff. I know some people live by it, birthdays and all that, but it’s just not something I care about.” Gwen Stefani finds herself reminiscing about what is no doubt (pun intended) one of No Doubt’s biggest hit, from their third album, Tragic Kingdom.
After it’s release, the reworked version of “Don’t Speak,” spent 16 weeks as the most-played song on U.S. radio, and was nominated for Song Of The Year at the 1998 GRAMMYs. As Stefani explained, the track, at its core was a power ballad that lamented two break ups. Stefani from the band’s bassist and her boyfriend of seven years, Tony Kanal, as well as her brother’s departure from the band he co-founded, due to objections of the rest of their ambitions for commercial success.
While you can hear those struggles loud and clear in Stefani’s voice on her version, “Don’t Speak,” didn’t start as a breakup anthem. As seen in the clip below, still sung by his sis, Eric’s original verses had a much more complicated melody and phrasing. And while “don’t speak” was still the main lyric in the chorus, the song placed love in a happier light. And like we said, the track incorporated an accordion.
Ultimately it was the label’s request to simplify the verses that left the band broken and added the last bit of inspiration Gwen needed, resulting in the song we know today. As Stefani recalls: “My brother, he’s very eccentric and not good at criticism in that sense, he was just so frustrated,” Stefani recalled. “So we sat down and tried to re-write it and he made a joke by singing, ‘You and me,’ like literally taking his melody and turning it into three notes. Meanwhile, I had been dumped by Tony and heartbroken, and I changed the lyrics at the end of the chorus to ‘Don’t tell me ‘cuz it hurts.’ … “The way that I wrote it, you could really just relate to the denial in the song. I’m basically saying, ‘Don’t tell me that because I already know it, but if you say it, it’s going to crush me.’”
Stefani went on to recollect about the song that catapulted their careers, “Once the song came out, it went from a nine-year hobby that was our passion while we went to college, to all of a sudden it’s like we do the ‘Just a Girl’ video, we go from that video set to the airport and go on tour and don’t come home for two and a half years.”
“When I was writing back then, I was so naive, I didn’t know anyone would hear it ever,” she adds. “We had been working on that record for so long before it came out. So I think when there’s something that honest and real and pure — and not done for any other reason than just to say it for your own heart — then people connect to that… It was so different from everything else on our record. So the fact that it was the defining world hit that it was and continues to be, is insane.”
Check out Gwen Stefani’s entire interview with Variety here.
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