You Don't Have to Say You Love Me

The English song is a version of Io che non vivo (senza te), written by Pino Donaggio and Vito Pallavicini and introduced at the 1965 Sanremo Festival by Donaggio and Jody Miller. Springfield was in the audience. She did not know what the words meant, but she was moved to tears, and she got an acetate and let a year pass before pursuing an English version. On 9 March 1966 she recorded an instrumental track at Philips Studio near Marble Arch, with Big Jim Sullivan on guitar and Bobby Graham on drums. Her friend Vicki Wickham, who produced Ready Steady Go!, wrote the English lyric with Simon Napier-Bell, manager of the Yardbirds, in about an hour. Neither understood the Italian.

She recorded the vocal the next day. Unhappy with the sound in the booth, she moved into a stairwell and was satisfied only after 47 takes. She called the result good old schmaltz. The single came out on 25 March 1966, went to number one in Britain and to number four on the Billboard Hot 100 in July. Cash Box described it as a hauntingly plaintive slow-shufflin' ode. It was nominated for a Grammy but lost to Paul McCartney's Eleanor Rigby, and Rolling Stone placed it at 491 in its 2004 list of the 500 greatest songs. Its US success led to Ev'rything's Coming Up Dusty being released there under the song's name. It was also played as her coffin was carried into the church at her funeral in 1999.