CULTURE CLUB: Do You really want to Hurt me 7″ England UK VS 518. Check video 1982

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Description

“Do You Really Want to Hurt Me”

Released 1 September 1982
Genre New wave, pop, reggae, blue-eyed soul, R&B
Label Virgin
Writer(s) Culture Club
Producer Steve Levine

“Do You Really Want to Hurt Me” was the third single released by the Culture Club and the first single released in the USA and Canada. The song was picked up by BBC Radio 2 and became a UK number one single for three weeks in October 1982. The song reached number two on the American Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in March 1983 (kept from the number one spot by Michael Jackson’s smash hit “Billie Jean”) and number one in the Canadian RPM listing on the 5th of the same month.[1] It was also number one in Australia.
This was Culture Clubs first success, after their first two releases, “White Boy” and “I’m Afraid Of Me” charted in the UK at #114 and #100 respectively. According to George, it was their last chance to get an album deal. Helen Terry mentioned that her backing vocals were recorded on May 24, 1982.
The B-side was a dub version

The video for the song featured lead singer Boy George on trial in a courtroom, with flashbacks to a 1936 nightclub and a 1957 health club. The jury was in blackface. One band member, Mikey Craig was not in the video, and was replaced by his brother Greg.

7″
A. “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me”
B. “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me” (Dub Version)
Charts and certifications

Chart (1982/83) Peak position
Australian ARIA Singles Chart 1
Austrian Singles Chart 1
Canadian Singles Chart 1
Dutch Singles Chart 2
Eurochart Hot 100 1
German Singles Chart 1
Irish Singles Chart 1
Italian Singles Chart 2
Norwegian Singles Chart 2
Swedish Singles Chart 1
Swiss Singles Chart 1
UK Singles Chart 1
U.S. Billboard Black Singles 39
U.S. Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks 8
U.S. Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks 21
U.S. Billboard Pop Singles 2

Lyrics
Give me time to realize my crime
Let me love and steal
I have danced inside your eyes
How can I be real
Do you really want to hurt me
Do you really want to make me cry
Precious kisses words that burn me
Lovers never ask you why
In my heart the fire is burning
Choose my color find a star
Precious people always tell me
That’s a step a step too far
Do you really want to hurt me
Do you really want to make me cry
Do you really want to hurt me
Do you really want to make me cry
Words are few
I have spoken
I could waste a thousand years
Wrapped in sorrow, words are token
Come inside and catch my tears
You’ve been talking but believe me
If it’s true you do not know
This boy loves without a reason
I’m prepared to let you go
If it’s love you want from me
Then take it away
Everything’s not what you see it’s over again
Do you really want to hurt me
Do you really want to make me cry
Do you really want to hurt me
Do you really want to make me cry
Do you really want to hurt me
Do you really want to make me cry
Do you really want to hurt me
Do you really want to make me cry
Do you really want to hurt me
Do you really want to make me cry

 

Songfacts®:

  • The four members of Culture Club wrote the songs for their first album Kissing To Be Clever together, with singer Boy George coming up with the lyrics. On this song, he later admitted that he wrote the lyrics about his relationship with their drummer Jon Moss. They had an affair for about six years that was kept hidden from the public, and George often felt hurt and emotional.
  • At first, Boy George didn’t want this released as a single because it was such a personal song for him. When it was released, it hit #1 in 23 countries.

    Boy George told Q magazine September 2008: “Our first two singles failed. That single was our last chance. But I threatened to leave if (the label) released it. I didn’t think it was us; it wasn’t club music. It wouldn’t stand up to Spandau Ballet. But I was wrong. It was so personal in a way that our other songs weren’t. It was about Jon. All the songs were about him, but they were more ambiguous.”

  • This was Culture Club’s first single released in the United States. It was a huge and unlikely hit for the British band, who embarked on an American tour in 1983 to gain traction in that country. The song crossed over to Adult Contemporary radio, where most listeners had no idea the lead singer dressed like a girl. MTV, whose library was mostly British bands when they launched, had acclimated their US audience to guys in makeup, so Culture Club wasn’t so shocking on the channel and the group developed a huge audience of young people who liked the sound and the look.

    The “look” was authentic: Boy George had been wearing makeup and women’s clothes since his school days, and while he exaggerated it for publicity, it was his preferred style. In a 1983 Trouser Press interview, the singer explained: “I wear my hair this way ’cause it makes my face look longer, my hat because it makes me look taller, black clothes because they make me look thinner, and makeup because it makes me look prettier.”

  • The band came up with the soft reggae beat and put the song together when they found they had some spare studio time during a recording session for the Peter Powell show on BBC Radio One. Their bass player Mikey Craig brought a Caribbean influence to the band’s sound.
  • Boy George surprised a lot of people who met him in person, as his substantial size and manly speaking voice belied his feminine appearance. At least one line in this song addresses how perceptions can be wrong. He told Musician magazine in October 1983: “There’s a line from ‘Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?’ that says, ‘Everything’s not what you see,’ which is basically what I believe. It’s kind of boring when things are just what they are.”
  • In the book 1000 UK #1 Hits by Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh, Boy George said: “‘Do You Really Want To Hurt Me’ is a really well-constructed song. It’s probably the only proper song we’ve got with proper chord sequences and keyboard changes in it. It’s just very musical. The most powerful songs in the world are love songs. They apply to everyone – especially kids who fall in and out of love more times than anyone else. At the end of the day, everybody wants to be wanted.”
  • This song starts with a slow vocal intro by Boy George (“Give me time to realize my crime…”) that signals solemn lyric to come. The intro was not part of the original demo, which they recorded with their producer, Steve Levine, at Rondor Studios in London.
  • In the 1998 film The Wedding Singer, which is set in the ’80s, a member of the wedding band named George is clearly modeled after Boy George. At one point, he is thrust into the spotlight and sings this – twice.
  • In January 2009, one TV news program reporting the demise of the former Culture Club frontman Boy George said it was a case of life imitating art. The previous month, the openly homosexual George O’Dowd was convicted of the false imprisonment of a male escort. He was said to have handcuffed the man to the wall in his London apartment and beaten him with a metal chain. A Guardian correspondent reported that in an apparently accidental allusion to the 1982 hit, Heather Norton for the prosecution, asked the jury: “Did he really have to hurt him?”

    At least one newspaper used a similar headline; this was O’Dowd’s second conviction in recent years; he had previously been ordered by a US court to sweep the streets of New York for wasting police time after reporting a non-existent crime. Ironically, the video Culture Club made for “Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?” was set in a courtroom. >>

  • The concept of the video was Boy George as an outsider, getting kicked out of different places in various historical settings. It was directed by Julien Temple, who came up with the idea of jurors dressed in blackface. This was a shocking image for American audiences, who long associated blackface with racism, but in England it was far more accepted as part of their music hall tradition.

    Temple explained in the book I Want My MTV: “‘Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?” was about being gay and being victimized for your sexuality, which George was kind of emblematic of. It seemed appropriate to me that in the video he would be judged by jurors in blackface, to send up bigotry and point out the hypocrisy of the many gay judges and politicians in the UK who’d enacted anti-gay legislation.”

  • This was released on September 3, 1982 in the UK to almost universal derision. Smash Hits, for instance, called it, “weak, watered-down fourth division reggae.” It only became a hit after Boy George performed the song on BBC music program Top Of The Pops wearing something resembling a white nightie with dreads wrapped in colourful ribbons and a face caked in make up. George recalled in Q magazine: “Our plugger got called and was told. We can’t promote this record. What is it? Is it a bird, is it a plane, is it a drag queen. The ensuing tabloid frenzy with the ‘Is it a boy, is it a girl’ headlines gave the song all the publicity it needed and it zoomed to the top of the charts.”

Culture Club Artist facts

  • Boy George got to know Malcolm McLaren, who was managing the group Bow Wow Wow. McLaren cooked up a plan to have George join the band, either as a replacement for their lead singer Annabella Lwin or as an additional singer. He was going to perform as Lieutenant Lush. The plan fell through, and George ended up forming his own band, which became Culture Club.
  • The band wrote their songs together and shared the royalties, with Boy George writing the lyrics. Jon Moss handled many of the business affairs, and Boy George did most of the publicity. Since George was so prominent as the face of the group, it sometimes gave the impression that he was the leader, but the band shared equally in decisions and songwriting.
  • Culture Club was one of the first British bands to make a huge impact in America thanks to MTV. The channel launched in 1981, and in 1982 they put “Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?” in heavy rotation, which was their first single in the States and introduced America to the very unusual Boy George. They toured America in 1983 and scored two more hits from the album. Their next album included the #1 “Karma Chameleon,” and they ended up with 10 Top-40 hits in the United States.
  • Boy George was known for his very feminine look and soft singing voice, although his speaking voice is surprisingly gruff. He dressed in women’s clothes and wore makeup in his school days, and accentuated the look to publicize the band. Considering the Glam and Punk looks that were popular just a few years earlier in England, it wasn’t so shocking in his home country, but in America it got a lot of attention, with many viewers wondering about his true gender.
  • They were the first British band since The Beatles to score three Top 10 US hits from their debut album.
  • The band first got together when Boy George joined Jon Moss and Mikey Craig in a group called In Praise of Lemmings. George made them change the name.
  • Boy George said in 1983: “I think people think of me as very feminine, but I’m very masculine. I can throw a good punch. I’m taller and bigger than people expect me to be; I’m sure they expect a little fairy wearing dandelions.”
  • George got kicked out of school when he was 15. He worked as a model and a makeup artist before starting his music career.
  • In 1983, Boy George came in second place in both the male and female “best dressed” categories in New Musical Express reader’s poll.
  • Boy George once had a job as a bagger in his local supermarket. The gig didn’t work out, as the future Culture Club singer was fired – for wearing the bags.
  • Their producer, Steve Levine, had a lot to do with their success. Levine was a studio wizard who introduced them to the latest innovations, including the Linn LM-1 drum machine, which he combined with Jon Moss’ live drums to create distinctive rhythms. Boy George credits this forward-leaning sound for getting them a record deal. “The general consensus was that I was a drag queen, not palatable for the pop market,” he told Music Week. “Steve saw through that, he saw a much bigger picture.”

Additional information

Weight 0.09 kg

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