“Girl Don’t Come” (Sandie Shaw)

Today’s classic song of the day is “Girl Don’t Come” by Sandie Shaw. This one sounds a little like a Burt Bacharach tune, but it isn’t.

“Girl Don’t Come” was written not by Burt Bacharach but rather by a chap named Chris Andrews. Like Ms. Shaw, Mr. Andrews was a Brit; he wrote a bunch of songs for a bunch of English girl singers that were hits in the UK but seldom crossed over to the American charts. “Girl Don’t Come” was an exception; released in the U.S. in February of 1965, it hit #42 on the Billboard Hot 100 and and #35 on the Cash Box Top 100. The song did much better in England, peaking at #3 on the UK Singles chart.

The song sounds like a Burt Bacharach tune on purpose. Ms. Shaw had had a previous hit with the Bacharach/David tune “(There’s) Always Something There to Remind Me,” which hit #1 on the UK Singles chart (but just #52 in the U.S.). Mr. Andrews brought “Girl Don’t Come” to Ms. Shaw, originally envisioning it as a ballad, but based on her previous hit he rejiggered it to mirror the tempo and arrangement of the Bacharach tune. The result was a Bacharach-sounding tune that did almost as well for Ms. Shaw (at least in England) as the previous Bacharach original.

Many of the hit British girl singers of the ’60s recorded for Pye Records in the UK. Sandie Shaw was no exception, recording this one in Pye’s famed Marble Arch recording studios. Other Pye girls of the time included Petula Clark, Helen Shapiro, Val McKenna, The Breakaways, and Tawny Reed. The label was also home to Lonnie Donegan, Mr. Acker Bilk, Brotherhood of Man, the Kinks, and the Searchers.

Sandie Shaw had a number of big UK hits in the ’60s, including “I’ll Stop at Nothing,” “Long Live Love,” “Message Understood,” “Tomorrow,” and “Puppet on a String.” None of these, unfortunately, made it big on the U.S. charts. She was famous for performing barefooted; it’s difficult to find a picture of her on stage wearing shoes. Sandie Shaw is still singing today, with or without shoes, at age 76.