You Didn’t Know, the sixth track on the Three Belles new album “In Full Swing” was written by the Bevin Boys’ Will Keel-Stocker.
It begins as a torch song with the lines:
“I didn’t know that you were looking for me last night / I wasn’t home when you called round. / You didn’t know, I saw I saw you leave with her last night / My baby in the arms of another / So it’s true you’ve found a love in somebody new / Just when I was feeling that our own love was true…”
The tremolo in the vibraphone backs up the melancholy message, maintaining a wistfulness throughout.
But as is so true to the Belles, these girls shake off their blues and get on with life, turning the situation round once again, never wallowing, always doing.
In the merry fast world the Belles live in, by the end of the song the situation is fully reversed. Along the way, there’s an irresistibly catchy melody, backed with the Belles’ trademark harmonies and each of the girls get to show off their solo singing voices.
Sally / Gail’s voice has a wonderful crystal clarity to it. Anneka / Betty’s has a richness, while Isabelle / Dorothy’s has smooth deeper tones that remind me sometimes of Judy Garland’s, of warmth and valve radios.
In all a chilled out number that varies the pace beautifully between Say Si Si and the next track on the album, In Full Swing…
