16/07/2025
https://www.facebook.com/100072499751661/posts/764610182632300/?mibextid=CDWPTG
💄 WHAT ARE YOUR FAVOURITE TRACKS ON THE ALBUM IT’S MY LIFE? 💄
Dum Dum Girl / Such a Shame / Renee / It’s My Life / Tomorrow Started / The Last Time / Call in the Night Boy / Does Caroline Know? / It’s You
On this date in 1984, TALK TALK released the single DUM DUM GIRL (Jul 16, 1984), a track that demonstrated once again that Mark Hollis was never going to play the pop frontman game by anyone else’s rules. The third single from It’s My Life—the album that shifted the band into wider commercial consciousness—DUM DUM GIRL came wrapped in a polished pop sheen, but beneath the surface it dealt in grittier themes. The title may have sparked knowing nods about ‘dumb blondes’ or bullet metaphors, but as Hollis made clear in interviews at the time, it was about neither. “It’s an anti-prostitution song, that’s what it is,” he told Record Mirror. “I think the songs have got to be sung with feeling, so they’ve got to be written with feeling.”
The arrangement plays with that same duality—neatly structured and radio-friendly, yet simmering with melancholy. Tim Friese-Greene’s production gently guides the track with an unshowy sense of control: clipped beats, chiming synths, and a soft-edged bassline that lets Hollis’ vocal glide and crack in equal measure. When the chorus lands—“Break it down, can’t you see she’s the dum dum girl”—the sadness is direct, but never self-pitying. It’s not a protest song in the traditional sense, but a character sketch imbued with empathy and frustration.
Hollis’ lyrical approach was rooted as much in delivery as content. By the time DUM DUM GIRL was recorded, he was already writing phonetically, tailoring syllables and stresses to suit the emotional tone he wanted. “It’s got to be,” he said. “You look at Otis Redding’s Try a Little Tenderness… it’s all love, innit? It’s sad because that’s what soul music is.” The soul Hollis spoke of wasn’t the Motown sort, but the deeper emotional reach that comes from expressing something plainly and without flourish. He was never interested in clever wordplay for its own sake.
Despite being on EMI’s books for three years by this point, Talk Talk often found themselves misunderstood—not just by critics but by the label itself. Hollis put it bluntly: “I don’t even know if it matters any more if people misunderstand us. We don’t really care.” But allies were emerging. One was Tim Pope, the director behind the band’s DUM DUM GIRL video, filmed on a Bedfordshire farm in June 1984. Pope had earned the band’s trust by understanding the understated aesthetic they favoured. The video featured Hollis singing live over the pre-recorded track—a move that was almost unheard of in promo clips at the time, especially for a band still expected to mime and look pretty.
It works precisely because nothing about it tries too hard. Hollis—usually camera-shy—looks relaxed. Paul Webb joins in on the harmony vocals live. The shoot captured something rare: a band doing things entirely on their own terms and enjoying it. Hollis’ oft-misread personality—serious, intense, sometimes labelled “miserable”—is completely undercut by the footage, which shows a man quietly confident in his voice and content in his surroundings. As the band themselves knew, those who got it, got it.
Years later, Hollis would dismiss the fuss with a line that still rings true: “Who gives a toss, as Shakespeare once said.”
