"Don't Speak" is a song by American rock band

No Doubt No Doubt is an American rock band formed in Anaheim, California in 1986. For most of its career, the band has consisted of vocalist and founding member Gwen Stefani, guitarist Tom Dumont, bassist Tony Kanal and drummer Adrian Young. Keyboar ...

, featured on their third studio album, '' Tragic Kingdom'' (1995). Released as an album track in 1996 by

Interscope Records Interscope Records is an American record label based in Santa Monica, California, owned by Universal Music Group through its Interscope Geffen A&M imprint. Founded in late 1990 by Jimmy Iovine and Ted Field as a $20 million joint venture ...

, the song was initially written as a love song by lead singer

Gwen Stefani Gwen Renée Stefani Shelton ( ; born October 3, 1969) is an American singer-songwriter and fashion designer. Stefani rose to fame as a member and lead vocalist of the band No Doubt, whose hit singles include " Just a Girl", " Spiderwebs", an ...

and her brother, former band member Eric Stefani. However, after several revisions, Gwen reworked the lyrics into a breakup song, reflecting the end of her seven-year relationship with bandmate Tony Kanal. Despite the song's substantial airplay in the United States, "Don't Speak" was not allowed to appear on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 since a physical single was not issued for the song in the US, which was a rule at the time. Instead, "Don't Speak" topped the ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertis ...

'' Hot 100 Airplay chart for 16 weeks. Outside the United States, it topped the charts in Australia, Canada, Iceland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom, becoming No Doubt's most successful international single. "Don't Speak" was nominated for Song of the Year and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals at the 40th Grammy Awards. "Don't Speak" was ranked at number 495 on '' Blender'' magazine's "The 500 Greatest Songs Since You Were Born". The song is a playable track in the 2009 video game ''

Band Hero ''Band Hero'' is a 2009 rhythm game developed by Neversoft and published by Activision. It is the second Spin-off (media), spin-off of the ''Guitar Hero'' series, following ''DJ Hero'' (2009). The game was released on November 3, 2009, for the P ...

'', and was also released as a downloadable song for 2008's ''

Rock Band 2 ''Rock Band 2'' is a 2008 rhythm game developed by Harmonix, published by MTV Games, and distributed by Electronic Arts. It is the sequel to ''Rock Band (video game), Rock Band'' (2007) and the second installment in the Rock Band, ''Rock Band ' ...

'', as well as part of the No Doubt Track Pack for '' Guitar Hero III''. The song has been sampled by multiple

hip hop Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hip- ...

artists, including in

Rakim William Michael Griffin Jr. (born January 28, 1968), better known by his stage name Rakim (), is an American rapper. He is one half of Golden age hip-hop, golden age hip hop duo Eric B. & Rakim, with whom he released four albums: ''Paid in Full ...

's song "Dedicated" and

Ice Cube O'Shea Jackson Sr. (born June 15, 1969), known professionally as Ice Cube, is an American rapper, songwriter, actor, and film producer. His lyrics on N.W.A's 1989 album '' Straight Outta Compton'' contributed to gangsta rap's widespread popu ...

's "War & Peace".

Background and composition

"Don't Speak" is an

alternative rock Alternative rock (also known as alternative music, alt-rock or simply alternative) is a category of rock music that evolved from the independent music underground of the 1970s. Alternative rock acts achieved mainstream success in the 1990s w ...

power ballad A sentimental ballad is an emotional style of music that often deals with romantic and intimate relationships, and to a lesser extent, loneliness, death, war, drug abuse, politics and religion, usually in a poignant but solemn manner. Balla ...

written by lead singer Gwen Stefani and her brother Eric Stefani, and produced by Matthew Wilder. It was originally a love song, but Stefani rewrote the lyrics almost completely after her breakup with the band's bass player Tony Kanal. According to her, "It used to be more upbeat, more of a Seventies rock-type thing. henTony and I broke up... it turned into a sad song." The opening chords are reminiscent of the intro to the 1979 pop hit "

Breakfast in America ''Breakfast in America'' is the sixth studio album by the English rock band Supertramp, released on 16 March 1979, by A&M Records. It was recorded from May to December 1978 at The Village Recorder in Los Angeles. It spawned three US ''Billbo ...

" by the British rock band Supertramp. A live version that exists from April 1994 shows off a bouncy tune that has the same skeleton as the released version, but not the same urgency. The band performed part of the original song on '' VH1 Storytellers'' on August 10, 2000. The band's lead guitarist Tom Dumont said about the song's composition:

There's a lot of stories about that song, because that one unfolded over a longer period of time. Originally, Gwen's brother wrote most of that song, and then after we got at it as a band, Gwen changed the lyrics around to fit her life. Musically, we brought it to another level, but near the end we reworded it. There's an earlier version of the song where the verses are totally different, which is a really beautiful version and it's awesome but it's way more jazzy and really different. That song had a long incubation process.

Sheet music for "Don't Speak" shows the key of E major. A demo version also appeared on a demo CD, which was presented to Interscope Records prior to the release of ''Tragic Kingdom''.

Critical reception

British magazine ''

Music Week ''Music Week'' is a trade publication for the UK record industry distributed via a website and a monthly print magazine. It is published by Future. History Founded in 1959 as ''Record Retailer'', it relaunched on 18 March 1972 as ''Music We ...

'' rated the song three out of five, writing that "this Californian quartet sound more like Swedish Eurovision hopefuls on this debut UK offering but, if radio bites, it could be a smash."

Chart performance

Upon release, "Don't Speak" immediately began to receive extensive airplay and it eventually became the most widely played song on American radio in 1996. It reached number one on ''Billboard'''s Hot 100 Airplay chart and maintained that position for 16 non-consecutive weeks, a record at the time. Despite its copious airplay, "Don't Speak" was not allowed to chart on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 since no commercial single was released for it in the United States (a requirement for charting purposes at the time). ''Slate'' magazine music critic Chris Molanphy has stated that if the song had been eligible to chart, it almost certainly would have claimed the number one spot. An import CD did sell in the US, but this format was not allowed to chart either. On other ''Billboard'' charts, "Don't Speak" stayed at number two on

Modern Rock Tracks Alternative Airplay (formerly known as Modern Rock Tracks between 1988 and 2009, and Alternative Songs between 2009 and 2020) is a music chart published in the American magazine ''Billboard'' since September 10, 1988. It ranks the 40 most-playe ...

chart for five consecutive weeks. The song also proved to be a crossover hit, reaching number one on the

Adult Top 40 The Adult Pop Airplay (formerly known as Adult Pop Songs and Adult Top 40) chart is published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine and ranks "the most popular adult top 40 as based on radio airplay detections measured by Nielsen Broadcast Data Syste ...

chart for 15 consecutive weeks as well as numbers six and nine on the

Adult Contemporary Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the 1980s to the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul ...

and Rhythmic Top 40 charts, respectively. It was ultimately placed at number one on the Hot 100 Airplay year-end chart of 1997. Internationally, "Don't Speak" was also very successful. In February 1997, it peaked at number one in both the United Kingdom and Ireland for three weeks. Elsewhere in Europe, "Don't Speak" reached the top position in Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. Australia was another major music market where the song received widespread airplay, debuting at number one and maintaining the peak position for eight weeks.

Music video

The video was directed by Sophie Muller and it is the first of the long-time collaboration between the band and the director. Before the music starts, at the beginning of the

music video A music video is a video that integrates a song or an album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device intended to ...

, there is a scene of Kanal picking a rotten orange from a tree (these scenes are usually cut out when VH1 airs this video). The majority of the video for "Don't Speak" takes place on Stage 2 at Mack Sennett Studios in Silver Lake as the band plays. Other scenes tell the story of how the media mainly focused on Stefani while the band was always in the background. The second half of the video features snippets of live footage filmed during the band's performance with Dog Eat Dog and Goldfinger at the Roseland Ballroom in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

on August 21, 1996. The video also features clips of Dumont playing together with

Foo Fighters The Foo Fighters are an American Rock music, rock band formed in Seattle in 1994. Initially founded as a one-man project by former Nirvana (band), Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl, the band comprises vocalist/guitarist Grohl, bassist Nate Mendel, gu ...

guitarist Pat Smear. The video ends with Kanal replacing the orange in the tree, which is actually footage of Kanal in reverse pulling the orange off. Tensions in the band had been running high and they reportedly were on the verge of breaking up the day before they were scheduled to film the video. They decided to go ahead and film it as a form of "therapy". The video won the award for Best Group Video and was nominated for Video of the Year at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards. It has one billion views on

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

as of May 2023, and 700 million of the views come from 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 alone. The video, now remastered in 4K, was uploaded on October 7, 2009. There is an alternate version of the video showing just the live performance part. Both versions of the video are included on the DVD release '' The Videos 1992–2003'' (2004).

Track listings

Australian, Japanese, and UK CD single # "Don't Speak" – 4:23 # "Don't Speak" (alternate version) – 4:23 (*) # "Hey You" (acoustic version) – 3:27 (*) # "Greener Pastures" (from ''The Beacon Street Collection'' album) – 5:05 European CD single; UK 7-inch and cassette single # "Don't Speak" – 4:23 # "Greener Pastures" (from '' The Beacon Street Collection'' album) – 5:05 (*) Recorded at York Street Studios,

Auckland Auckland ( ; ) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. It has an urban population of about It is located in the greater Auckland Region, the area governed by Auckland Council, which includes outlying rural areas and ...

, New Zealand, in September 1996.

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

All-time chart

Certifications

Release history

Cover versions

Niamh Perry Niamh Perry is a Northern Ireland, Northern Irish singer who is best known for playing Fleck in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical ''Love Never Dies (musical), Love Never Dies''. She came to prominence when she competed as one of the finalists in ...

covered the song during her time on '' I'd Do Anything'' in 2008. *In 2012, it was covered by various members of the ''

Glee Glee may refer to: * Glee (music), a type of English choral music * ''Glee'' (TV series), an American musical comedy-drama TV series, and related media created by Ryan Murphy * ''Glee'' (Bran Van 3000 album) * ''Glee'' (Logan Lynn album) * Gle ...

'' cast for the episode " The Break Up" before subsequently being released as a single. * Leela James covered the song on her album '' A Change Is Gonna Come''. *In 2013, Jiordan Tolli performed the song on the fifth season of '' The X Factor Australia'' during week six. Her performance gained positive feedback from the judges. * Carly Rae Jepsen released a cover of the song recorded live at

Electric Lady Studios Electric Lady Studios is a recording studio in Greenwich Village, New York City. It was commissioned by rock musician Jimi Hendrix in 1968 and designed by architect John Storyk and audio engineer Eddie Kramer. It was completed by 1970. Hendrix ...

in New York City as one of her ''Spotify Singles.'' * New Years Day released a cover of the song as a part of their 2018 EP ''Diary of a Creep''. *In October 2020, Stefani performed a "countrified version" of the song as part of a skit on ''

The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon ''The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon'' is an American late-night talk show hosted by actor and comedian Jimmy Fallon that airs on NBC. The show premiered on February 17, 2014, and is produced by Broadway Video and Universal Television. It i ...

'' where Fallon portrayed the character Buck Pinto promoting a fictitious

album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...

''Gwen's Gone Country''. *In September 2021, Scott Bradlee's Postmodern Jukebox released "a ‘60s orchestral pop style remake" of "Don't Speak" featuring Haley Reinhart on vocals. As of July 2024, it has 8 million views on

. *In 2022, Japanese rock band

Coldrain Coldrain (stylized in all lowercase) are a Japanese rock band from Nagoya, Japan, who were formed in 2007. The band combines melodic singing with screams typical of the post-hardcore genre. Although the band is Japanese, all of their songs are w ...

released a cover of "Don't Speak" on their seventh studio album '' Nonnegative''. *Indoor percussion ensemble Rhythm X performed an arrangement of “Don’t Speak” as part of their 2023 bronze medal show The Unspoken.

Notes

References

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

Retrieved October 28, 2010.
Official No Doubt Website
Retrieved October 28, 2010. * .
Swiss Charts
Retrieved October 28, 2010.

External links