Nils Lofgren is a great talent who has had a spectacular career, often as a band member in the shadows of other stars like Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen. One piece of information I recently discovered is that he contributed to the classic ballad “I Don’t Want to Talk About It,” even though he is not in the song’s credits.
The song is by Danny Whitten and was originally recorded by Crazy Horse. Whitten struggled with finishing the song and Lofgren liked the song and encouraged him to finish it. Eventually Lofgren took the initiative to write a few more lines to finish the song. Crazy Horse released the song in 1971, and then in 1975 Rod Stewart had a hit in both the U.S. and the U.K. with the song, which appeared on his album Atlantic Crossing.
The song has a typical broken-heart theme, with the singer lamenting lost love. But “I Don’t Want to Talk About It” is one of the great heartbreak ballads of the twentieth century. The melody and the contradictions of the lyrics raise the song to another level, with the singer asking a lover to listen while at the same time saying he does not want to talk about it.
I don’t want to talk about it, how you broke my heart.
If I stay here just a little bit longer,
If I stay here, won’t you listen to my heart, whoa, heart?
I don’t want to talk about it, how you broke this old heart.
Stewart rerecorded the song in 1989, and later he performed the song with Amy Belle. Other artists have covered the song too. The Indigo Girls did a nice cover for the soundtrack to the film Philadelphia (1993), and Everything But the Girl had a hit with the song in 1985 when they released it as a single in the UK.
YouTube used to have a video of Lofgren talking about the song, but it has disappeared. But here is the audio of a live version of Lofgren playing the song with a short introduction.
What do you think of “I Don’t Want to Talk About It”? Ballad classic? Leave your two cents in the comments.
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