When I heard this old (and excellent) Dusty Springfield song the other day, the Fleetwood Mac equivalent immediately came to mind, though they’re 24 years apart (Dusty released hers in 1963 and Fleetwood Mac in 1987). Both songs are about a woman who so smitten with a guy that she can’t bear to be apart from him.
Here’s Dusty supposedly singing “live’, though she may be lip-synching. (As a pedant, I have to note that the title really should be “I want to be with only you,” though that wouldn’t fit the tune.) Dusty is now almost forgotten, but was regarded as perhaps the best white “soul singer” of her time, and I’m a big fan. (And of course there’s also this great song.)
This is my second favorite Fleetwood Mac song written by Christine McVie (“Say You Love Me” is my fave). Both women died too young, and both of cancer. These songs, however, live on.
Dusty lives!
All the debutantes in Houston couldn’t hold a candle to them…
Good music! I must be strange for a performer to have to lip sync a performance, but I suppose that is necessary to give the needed effect.
Her cover of “can I get a witness” is superb.
It brings back such memories. I was under training as a cadet in the RAF in 1963 and the Dusty Springfield song brings it all back, plus of course we were all madly in love with her!! A lifetime ago.
Wonderful, and so right for today. Thank you for bringing them to my attention.
The song title, “I only want to be with you”, expresses a different, and more expansive, sentiment, than “I want to be with you only”. The latter expresses a preference for a person, but the former expresses an existential preference. It reminds me of the Hollies’ “The Air That I Breathe”– nothing else is to be desired besides being with the beloved, except for breathing.
GCM
Almost forgotten? My arse. Ask any gay if she’s forgotten, never mind any other music lovers. Did a bangin’ cover of You Don’t Own Me, too.
Almost certainly lip-syncing because those the the UK’s Musicians Union rules at the time (you could perform live only if you had all of the original artists, including any session players. The reason Marc Bolan was king of the ‘amplifier in the back pocket’ technique.)
‘Almost forgotten? My arse’ indeed. And you don’t have to have to be gay to remember her with huge enthusiasm.
She sang many songs wonderfully, my favourite being her bleak rendition of the much covered, but never sung better, Going Back.
Goldie (of Goldie & the Gingerbreads) was the first artist to record the song, her version was withdrawn following disagreements with Goffin and King over the song’s lyrics. Carole King then decided to record “Goin’ Back” herself, but ultimately she offered it to Dusty Springfield instead. It was played at the end of Dusty’s funeral service as her casket was rolled out of the church in Henley-on-Thames in ‘99.
Dusty Springfield was by all accounts a hard taskmaster repeatedly doing takes and instructing the session musicians. Springfield and Bacharach tunes, nothing finer… Christine Perfect when she was with Chicken Shack back then doing “I’d Rather go Blind” was to me the start of long fandom love of women singing the blues. We were limited in our exposure by conservative radio stations’ playlists or could even buy. Imports were expensive for schoolboys doing a paper round.
I loved both singers.
I first fell for Dusty’s voice when I heard her sing with the Springfields (Silver Thread and Golden Needles) in 1962 not knowing who she was. A year later, I Only Want To Be With You was released and I connected the dots. She has remained my ATF singer. Saw her live at the Grande Finale in NYC 1980. Check out her cover of Horace Silver’s Doodlin’ on her 1965’s Everything Is Coming Up Dusty.