Dawn Penn’s ‘You Don’t Love Me (No, No, No)’ Certified Gold In The UK
Jamaican Rocksteady singer Dawn Penn’s iconic single You Don’t Love Me (No, No, No) was today certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) after it sold more than 400,000 copies in the UK.
The song, which Penn said she wrote when she was experiencing “the painful aftermath of love” and “a broken heart”, was first recorded by her for Studio One in 1967, but had been re-recorded after in 1968, after producer Clement ‘Sir Coxsone’ Dodd pointed out that the original recording had an error.
Penn’s song used elements of American R&B singer Willie Cobbs’s song You Don’t Love Me (1960), which itself is based on R&B singer Bo Diddley’s She’s Fine, She’s Mine (1955). Both Cobbs and Diddley are credited as songwriters on Penn’s No, No, No.
She recorded the song again for King Jammys in 1990, then in 1992 for Trojan, and 1993 for Steelie and Clevie, when Dodd asked the production duo “to do an album project for Heartbeat, celebrating Studio One’s 35 years in the music industry”.
The Steelie and Clevie version peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart at No. 58 in April 1994, and also entered the UK Charts at No. 9 before rising to No. 3.
A few weeks ago Penn, now 70 years old, noted that the BBC had been instrumental in giving the song the push it needed with her inclusion on its Top of The Pops show.
“Thank you to the BBC for including me on their 1994 TOTP programme on Saturday. It was great to do the interview and share the story of my signature song ‘You Don’t Love Me’ (No No No) and the support given by the BBC which helped make the song an international hit,” she noted.
The Kingston native has in the past pointed out that there is a significant difference in the song’s structure between the Studio One original, on which she sings every eight bars of the music, and the Steelie and Clevie version where her voice appears at every four bars, with the refrain of deejay U-Roy’s Wake The Town, included.
You Don’t Love Me (No No No) also has a dubplate version, which Penn had said she created and which has been used by many sound systems to win clashes.
The song has been sampled in 23 songs and covered in eight, according to WhoSampled.com, including tracks by Rihanna, Eve, Ghostface Killah, Usher, and Alicia Keys.
In December last year, it was sampled by Queen of Hip Hop/Soul, and nine-time Grammy award winner Mary J. Blige, for her 15th studio album titled Good Morning Gorgeous.
Blige had sampled the intro to Dawn Penn’s version of the song, using it in the intro for her own newly-recorded song, Amazing which featured DJ Khaled.