This entry is by Lisa from Tao-Talk. I’ve known Lisa since 2018 and the biggest George Harrison fan I’ve ever met. She is a wonderful writer with a wide knowledge of music. Lisa is a mother, grandmother, gardener, retired government worker, observer, reader, writer, cinema lover, learner, bicyclist, woman who runs with the wolves, and last but not least, a lover of music! Go visit Lisa when you can!
Stop Your Sobbing, written by Ray Davies
Released 10/2/64 on The Kinks’ debut album, “Kinks”
The first time I heard, “Stop Your Sobbing” was on a Pretenders album. As Chrissie writes her own songs for the most part, it never occurred to me that she didn’t write this one. It was only when a blogmate mentioned that Ray and Chrissie had been a couple and had a child together that I began to wonder and looked a little deeper. It has been an enjoyable journey of discovery on how the song came about, how Ray met Chrissie, and how Chrissie came to record a Kinks song.
The Kinks line-up was Ray Davies, Dave Davies, Pete Quaife, and Mick Avory.
“Stop Your Sobbing” was the next to the last song on The Kinks’ debut album, “Kinks,” released on 10/2/64. The American release of the album was missing 3 tracks: “I Took My Baby Home”, “I’m a Lover Not a Fighter” and “Revenge.” The only single released from the album was, “You Really Got Me.” Looking at the playlist, I was kind of surprised that 8 of the 14 songs were not written by Ray and one was co-written with him. The 3 omitted tracks were written by, respectively, Ray, Jay Miller, and co-written by Ray and Larry Page.
I’ve seen this pattern before, with The Beatles and The Rolling Stones (and probably many others?) in their first recordings being written often by others and then transitioning over to mostly written by the groups. Hoping to get some feedback from readers on this.
Secondhand songs shows 11 covers of the song, including 3 in 1965, 1 in 1979, 3 from 2000-2003, 1 in 2011, 1 in 2015; and the most recent is reggae-styled from May of 2023, by Rhoda Dakar.
I know how some readers like chart stats. Peak positions for the album charts in 1964-65 were:
UK Melody Maker top 10 LP = 4
UK New Musical Express best selling LP = 5
UK Record Retailer LPs chart = 3
US Billboard Top LPs = 29
US Cash Box top 100 albums = 25
US Record World 100 top LPs = 20
West German Musicmarkt LP hit parade = 7
For those who want even more deets on The Kinks, including the statistics part, Kinda Kinks has a meticulous breakdown of everywhere the song was released – AND SO MUCH MORE.
Fate Intervenes Where Human Effort Fails
Now to get to the juicy part of what hooked me on the song and motivated me to look deeper, which is what inspired Ray to write it, how Chrissie became aware of it, and how Ray and Chrissie got together and had a baby.
In Ray’s autobiography, “X-Ray,” he said the song was inspired by a tearful girlfriend:
“Her sobbing was making me feel guilty and I told her to stop…”
Most of the songs on that debut album besides the single faded into obscurity, including, “Stop Your Sobbing.” Years passed. Chrissie Hynde, born in Ohio, USA, moved to London in 1973 and began working for NME, a major music publication. She also began forming a band. In 1978, when The Pretenders decided to put a demo tape of 6 songs together, she thought of, “Stop Your Sobbing.” Nick Lowe produced the single and it was released in 1979. The single reached the lower end of the UK top 40. More importantly, it caught the attention of Ray himself. Dave Everley from LouderSound, says that Chrissie had reviewed another single of theirs, Mirror of Love, for NME (I tried to find the review and failed.) and had tried multiple times to get an interview set up with Ray, but he declined. I love this quote about his refusal, taken from Johnny Rogan’s book, _The Complete Guide to the Music of The Kinks_:
“I avoided it. “I’d heard she’d said nice things about me. I thought: ‘Oh God, when she meets the real person and sees what a conner I am.’”
Ray and Chrissie finally met in a New York club in 1980.
I found an excellent DailyMail article about Ray, his relationships with women, and a good photo and quote by him in regards to meeting Chrissie:
She couldn’t take the sudden fame that had come to her and I think she saw me as someone who had done all that rock ’n’ roll stuff and understood it,
Their relationship is reported to have lasted until 1983. Natalie, their daughter, was born in early 1983. Chrissie went on to marry Jim Kerr from the band, Simple Minds, in 1984. Reports say that Ray never met Natalie until she was an adult.
LYRICS
It is time for you to stop all of your sobbing
Yes, it’s time for you to stop all of your sobbing
There’s one thing that you gotta do
To make me still want you
Gotta stop sobbing now
Yeah, stop it, stop it
Gotta stop sobbing now
It is time for you to laugh instead of crying
Yes, it’s time for you to laugh so keep on trying
There’s one thing that you gotta do
To make me still want you
Gotta stop sobbing now
Yeah, stop it, stop it
Gotta stop sobbing now
Each little tear that falls from your eye
Makes, makes a me want
To take you in my arms
And tell you to stop all your sobbing
Yes, it’s time for you to stop all of your sobbing
Yes, it’s time for you to stop all of your sobbing
There’s one thing that you gotta do
To make me still want you
Gotta stop sobbing now
Yeah, stop it, stop it
Gotta stop sobbing now
Stop it, stop it
Gotta stop sobbing now
Stop it, stop it, stop it
Sources:
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