No Doubt - Don't Speak
Number one for 8 weeks in 1997
Gwen Stefani never set out to be a feminist icon.
It’s quite ironic really, given that I’d consider Just A Girl to be an early contributor to my own feminist awakening.
This song really spoke to 7 year-old me in 1996, beginning a decade-long love affair with No Doubt and their particular brand of Californian ska.
Tonight is the first night of No Doubt’s residency at The Sphere in Las Vegas.
I wish I could be there. They’re one of the last acts on my live music bucket list (where all members are still alive, at least) - and that 2024 Coachella set was incredible. But alas, life gets in the way sometimes. And the US isn’t necessarily the best place to visit as a journalist right now.
So, I’m at home in Tasmania instead, trying to make myself feel better with a reminder that Gwen Stefani perhaps isn’t the exact hero I once thought her to be.
This article from Buzzfeed sums it up pretty well:
Somehow, though, we’re still surprised every time Stefani tells us who she is. When Shelton was named People’s Sexiest Man Alive last year, it was treated as a moment to reflect: How did someone like Stefani end up with someone like him? Some might see the shift in Stefani’s public image as an inevitable ideological trajectory: the social liberal who, with age and distance from school, mellows into a more conservative version of their once radical self. But Stefani was never radical. She remains a white girl who grew up in the hotbed of the conservative movement in Orange County; she has always seemed annoyed by accusations of appropriation, reticent to claim feminism or the advocacy that stems from it, and has always spoken openly about her wish for a traditional family life.
Back in the ’90s, Stefani was the antidote to the caricature of the angry feminist. And if then she insisted on having it both ways — being just like the other girls, but not like the other rock girls — it follows that over the last two decades, she’s become an original brand ambassador for “having it all.” She’s evolved into an avatar of the cool, hot, successful working mom, even as she rejects the sorts of feminist conversations that have drawn that ideal into question. And she’s still less interested in being the kind of woman or the star you want her to be than the one she’s always been.
It’s not to say Gwen hasn’t been a groundbreaking force in the music industry. She’s revolutionary because she never fit the mould of what a frontwoman was supposed to be: she wasn’t Courtney Love or Kathleen Hanna or Shirley Manson. And she wasn’t a cookie-cutter pop star either. Gwen’s always been unashamedly herself, whether you like it or not; that, in itself, is admirable. Sure, she’s full of contradiction - and I may not align with all of her beliefs - but I can’t dismiss a woman for refusing to conform to societal expectations. Intentional or not, that’s a feminist move.
And while Just A Girl may not have been intended to radicalise, there is still something inherently radical about it. Ska, as a genre, is as political as they come - its history steeped in muticulturalist, anti-racist, and anti-fascist agendas. And I can’t forget how I felt, listening to that song in the mid-90s and agreeing that it wasn’t fair that I was sometimes treated differently from the boys my age.
I can’t remember exactly when I got my hands on Tragic Kingdom, but it was another early addition to my CD collection. Every single track on that album holds meaning to me; there are no skips. I love Return to Saturn and Rock Steady, too - but Tragic Kingdom will forever be one of my favourite records.
Which brings us to Don’t Speak, one of the top heartbreak songs of all-time. Lyrically, the song details the end of Gwen’s seven-year relationship with bandmate Tony Kanal.
We had so many different versions of that song prior to the one we had recorded for Tragic Kingdom. We had been playing different versions of that song at shows during those years. What you hear is probably like the third or fourth version of it. We just kept working on it. I think when Gwen and I were breaking up, the lyrics then became just about our break up. Because it was so real, and we were living it, all that stuff came up in that song. That’s the real deal. That’s our lives, and that’s what was happening to us at that time. It was a very, very intense period of our lives, and it was all put out there to share with everybody.
It was definitely a challenge for both of us. The hardest part about that was having a massive record that sells 15 million copies worldwide, and then you’re traveling around the world and you’re doing press in all these different countries, and every single question that you have to answer is about the break up. You do that for a couple years, and it could drive anyone crazy. That was just as crazy as what we were really living. The fact that we got through all that stuff and we persevered through all that is a real testament to our friendship. I think it’s also a testament to how much the band means to us. We didn’t let it break us up as a band, and we just kept going and it made us stronger.
While the video clip, directed by the incredible Sophie Muller, depicts other struggles within the band, such as the public and media focus on Gwen over her bandmates.
Don’t Speak was never released as a single in the US, and therefore didn’t ever chart in the Billboard Hot 100. But it was a massive radio hit - so the label chose to put it out pretty much everywhere else; reaching number one in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Hungary, Ireland, Lithuania, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Romania, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK.
And I’ll probably never get to see No Doubt perform it live. Don’t tell me, ’cause it hurts.