Stop Your Sobbing

Album: The Pretenders (1979)
Charted: 34 65
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Songfacts®:

  • Written by Ray Davies and recorded for The Kinks' 1964 self-titled debut album, this was later covered by The Pretenders as their first single. The Pretenders' recording of the song led to the relationship between Davies and the band's frontwoman Chrissie Hynde, which eventually resulted in the birth of a child.
  • In order to convince guitarist James Honeyman-Scott to join the Pretenders, Chrissie Hynde hired one of his favorite recording artists, Nick Lowe, to produce this song.
  • In his autobiography, Ray Davies writes of a girlfriend who may have been the subject of this song: "Her sobbing was making me feel guilty and I told her to stop... there was something so desperately lonely about her."
  • The Pretenders covered another Ray Davies penned track a couple of years later, "I Go To Sleep," for another single release.

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