SLS: Don’t Let Me Be the Last to Know

Big thanks go out to our tuneful host Jim Adams for bringing us Song Lyric Sunday each week. For today’s prompt, I choose “This Guy’s in Love with You,” which contains one of the keywords.

I’ve heard some talk
They say you think I’m fine
Yes, I’m in love
And what I’d do
To make you mine

Tell me now, is it so?
Don’t let me be the last to know
My hands are shaking
Don’t let my heart keep breaking, ’cause

I need your love
I want your love
Say you’re in love
In love with this guy
If not, I’ll just die

This was a special song for my ex and me. On a weekend away in the Bay Area, I requested it at a piano bar and the waiter misheard it as “Disguise in Love.” The poor piano man was so confused. He came up to us and said sorry he’d never heard of my song. I said I had thought it was pretty popular back in the day! Finally, we figured out what happened and had a good laugh. Then he played it. After that, it became “our” song, but not for any romantic reason.

Burt Bacharach and Hal David wrote the song back in 1968, and it was first recorded by Herb Alpert. Supposedly, TGILWY was intended for a female singer, but Alpert worked the lyrics so they made sense for a male voice. After a positive reception on a TV performance, Alpert released the song as a single and it hit No. 1 on Billboard Hot 100, where it stayed for four weeks. It was Alpert’s first No. 1 song.

Many artists have covered TGILWY, including Nancy Sinatra and Dionne Warwick (both singing it as “This Girl’s in Love with You”) and Sammy Davis Jr. In 1996, Noel Gallagher of Oasis sang a version of TGILWY at the London Festival Hall, accompanied by Bacharach on piano. The Oasis take is great, but Burt’s is my favorite rendition.

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