"I Don't Want Our Loving to Die" is a single by the English rock band the Herd, released in March 1968. Written by

Ken Howard Kenneth Joseph Howard Jr. (March 28, 1944 – March 23, 2016) was an American actor. He was known for his roles as Thomas Jefferson in ''1776'' (1972) and as high school basketball coach and former Chicago Bulls player Ken Reeves in the televisi ...

and

Alan Blaikley Alan Tudor Blaikley (23 March 1940 – 4 July 2022) was an English songwriter and composer, best known for writing a series of international hits in the 1960s and 1970s in collaboration with Ken Howard, including the UK number one hits " Have ...

, it was the last of the band's three hits on the UK Singles Chart and their most successful, reaching number five in May 1968. The song was generally well received by the music press, with several critics noting its contrast against the Herd's previous hit singles.

Background and composition

"I Don't Want Our Loving to Die" marked a change in style for the Herd, dispensing with the orchestral arrangements and classical allusions that had marked their two previous singles " From the Underworld" and "Paradise Lost". The band wished to replicate the sound they achieved in live performances and referred to the song's syncopated rhythm as "

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wale ...

ska Ska (; , ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. It combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. Ska is characterized by a w ...

". Speaking after the song's release, frontman

Peter Frampton Peter Kenneth Frampton (born 22 April 1950) is an English-American guitarist, singer, and songwriter who rose to prominence as a member of the rock bands the Herd and Humble Pie. Later in his career, Frampton found significant success as a s ...

commented "a lot of people said the big sound was our style but we knew it wasn't, so we decided to do ''our'' sound on the next single". The song features a semi-spoken word introduction and a prominent

Hammond organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert, first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding #Drawbars, drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, sound was created ...

part by

Andy Bown Andrew Steven Bown (born 27 March 1946) is an English musician, who has specialised in keyboards and bass guitar. He is a member of the rock band Status Quo. Career Bown's first major band was The Herd, along with Peter Frampton. After The H ...

. Peter Jones summarised its lyric as "a boy-girl storyline; he plays the field but really goes for one special chick."

Release

"I Don't Want Our Loving to Die", backed with Bown and Frampton's own composition "Our Fairy Tale", was released by Fontana on 29 March 1968. The group promoted the single on television and radio with appearances on

BBC1 BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and Flagship (broadcasting), flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includ ...

's '' All Systems Freeman'' (22 March),

BBC Radio 1 BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and Contemporary hit radio, current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including ...

's '' Saturday Club'' (23 March) and the

Light Programme The BBC Light Programme was a national radio station which broadcast chiefly mainstream light entertainment and light music from 1945 until 1967, when it was replaced by BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 2. It opened on 29 July 1945, taking over the lo ...

's '' Joe Loss Pop Show'' (5 April). It peaked at number five on the UK Singles Chart and ultimately spent 13 weeks on the chart, matching "From the Underworld". It was the group's final hit single and their last collaboration with managers and songwriters Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley, with whom they subsequently entered a contractual dispute. Frampton later described the chart peak of "I Don't Want Our Loving to Die" as "when things started to deteriorate with the Herd".

Reception

Writing in the ''

New Musical Express ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming and culture website, bimonthly magazine, and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a " rock inkie", the ''NME'' would become a maga ...

'', Derek Johnson deemed "I Don't Want Our Loving to Die" "more in the

Dave Dee David John Harman, known professionally as Dave Dee (17 December 1941 – 9 January 2009), was an English singer-songwriter, musician, A&R manager, fundraiser and businessman. He was the frontman for the 1960s pop band Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, ...

mould" than the Herd's previous hits and praised the band's vocal blend and "bouncy beat". Peter Jones for ''

Record Mirror ''Record Mirror'' was a British weekly music newspaper published between 1954 and 1991, aimed at pop fans and record collectors. Launched two years after ''New Musical Express'', it never attained the circulation of its rival. The first UK Album ...

'' considered the song "much more like it for the Herd" with "a sort of rock-

blue beat Blue Beat Records is an English record label that released Jamaican rhythm and blues (R&B) and ska music in the 1960s and later decades. Its reputation led to the use of the word ''bluebeat'' as a generic term to describe all styles of early Jamai ...

sound to round it all off".

Chris Welch Chris Welch (born ) is an English music journalist, critic, and author who is best known for his work from the late 1960s as a reporter for ''Melody Maker'', ''Musicians Only'', and ''Kerrang!''. He is the author of over 40 music books. Earl ...

of ''

Melody Maker ''Melody Maker'' was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. In January 2001, it was merged into "long-standing rival" (and IPC Media sister publicatio ...

'' praised what he called a "shouting, joyful rave-up" and considered it more representative of the Herd's "own distinctive sound" than their "heavily orchestrated" previous single "Paradise Lost". Conversely, Penny Valentine of ''

Disc and Music Echo ''Disc'' was a weekly British popular music magazine, published between 1958 and 1975, when it was incorporated into ''Record Mirror''. It was also known for periods as ''Disc Weekly '' (1964–1966) and ''Disc and Music Echo '' (1966–1972). ...

'' felt that the Herd had no real style of their own and consequently "on this record it could quite honestly it could be anyone singing – I hasten to add that it's good and very commercial". Valentine considered the song musically similar to

the Easybeats The Easybeats were an Australian Rock music, rock band which formed in Sydney in late 1964. They are best known for their 1966 hit single "Friday on My Mind", which is regarded as the first Australian rock song to achieve international success ...

' " The Music Goes 'Round My Head".

Charts

References

{{reflist 1968 singles Songs written by Ken Howard (composer) Songs written by Alan Blaikley 1968 songs Fontana Records singles Song recordings produced by Steve Rowland