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The Pretenders — Stop Your Sobbing
Album: Pretenders
Avg rating:
6.9

Your rating:
Total ratings: 1488









Released: 1980
Length: 2:34
Plays (last 30 days): 0
It is time for you to stop all of your sobbing
Yes it's time for you to stop all of your sobbing oh oh oh
There's one thing you gotta do
To make me still want you
Gotta stop sobbing now
Yeah yeah stop it stop it

It is time for you to laugh instead of crying
Yes it's time for you to laugh so keep on trying oh oh oh
There's one thing you gotta do
To make me still want you
Gotta stop sobbing now
Yeah yeah stop it stop it

Each little tear that falls from your eyes
Makes, makes me want
To take you in my arms and tell you
To stop all your sobbing

There's one thing you gotta do
To make me still want you
And there's one thing you gotta know
To make me want you so
Gotta stop sobbing now
Yeah yeah stop it stop it
Comments (90)add comment
It's impossible to not love Chrissy Hynde.
 sfyi2001 wrote:
I was 19 and going to school in NYC when their debut album was released.
40 years later this stirs me - one of those songs that has a place in time, you know?
Hard to put into words.



"one of those songs that has a place in time, you know?"  I know, you just said it beautifully!




 GingerandMe wrote:

Chrissie is The Gal



Yeah, we hear here every single day on RP!
Chrissie is The Gal
 chuck.b.meyers wrote:

One of the best debut albums ...ever?

Absolutely! 



 alanthecowboy wrote:

Patti?  Who's Patti?  Anyway, she's not singing, so stop sobbing...



It's Patti Hynde, duh.  You know, sister of Chrissie Smith.
 xcranky_yankee wrote:

Tracy B's character needed to listen to Chrissie Hynde



Eh?
When Chrissie tells you to stop sobbing, you damn well better stop sobbing.
Tracy B's character needed to listen to Chrissie Hynde
Until today, I thought the word was "stopping," not "sobbing."  I thought she was singing "Gotta stop stopping now," and it confused me.
I'm a fan of the Pretenders...  but I must have fast forward.ed this one!
What a great album! I have it sitting not five feet from me at the moment...
 cricketneil wrote:

Considering it was written by Ray Davies for The Kinks, and released in 1964, it's holding up pretty well. As a great song always will.
 
Look after the king of R n R  please 
I'm with you on WHFS and WGTB (a little less impt than HFS). WHFS was the soundtrack of my life and was playing constantly in the agronomy grad students' office at Univ of Maryland. Weasel still has a show on WGTB Fri 7-10 pm and Sat 12-3 pm.  Those were the days.

 
chinaski wrote:
Ah yes, the memories of the original WHFS in Bethesda, Md.
WGTB from Georgetown U. as well. Those were the days.
 

 SmackDaddy wrote:

Your problem is that you thing rock music should be timeless. It's not, never has been. It's always been a product of the times and culture when written. It's never meant to be appreciated over millennia. That's said, this song is pretty fucking timeless! 
 
Considering it was written by Ray Davies for The Kinks, and released in 1964, it's holding up pretty well. As a great song always will.
Ah yes, the memories of the original WHFS in Bethesda, Md.
WGTB from Georgetown U. as well. Those were the days.
 Kaw wrote:
Its capslock day @ the lyrics tab.

It might have something to do with being born in 1982, but this song is bad in my opinion. Outdated, boring. 
 
Your problem is that you thing rock music should be timeless. It's not, never has been. It's always been a product of the times and culture when written. It's never meant to be appreciated over millennia. That's said, this song is pretty fucking timeless! 
In all my years of hearing this song sporadically, I never knew it was sung by The Pretenders.

Thanks for the enlightenment, RP!  
 Kaw wrote:
Its capslock day @ the lyrics tab.

It might have something to do with being born in 1982, but this song is bad in my opinion. Outdated, boring. 
 

Don't blame 1982 for your problems. 1982 was a friend of mine.
Ha, back to back music with Hoboken NJ circa late 80's roots - Yo La Tengo + Luka Bloom. Hoboken was a hotbed back then: The Bongos, They Might Be Giants, Freedy Johnston, The Feelies, Ya La Tengo + Luka.
I wish all the people who wrote negative reviews could hear Luka's first wonderful album 'Riverside'. On that disk you can hear what an amazing guitarist he is. This particular dirge doesn't do him justice.
One of the best debut albums ...ever?
I was 19 and going to school in NYC when their debut album was released.
40 years later this stirs me - one of those songs that has a place in time, you know?
Hard to put into words.

boom
 tragic_king wrote:
OK, this was probably the worst song on what is one of the best ever albums, though not having heard it in so long makes it not so bad now.  The album was playing somewhere in my fraternity house 24/7 after it came out.  Please play more from it!

 
tragic_king,

You're right, this album pretty much ruled the first half of 1980 (at least at the U of Minn.).  I'm curious where you went to college. 

I saw them in March of that year for THREE BUCKS at First Ave. in Mpls.—-wish I still had my ticket stub to prove it.  That original lineup was awesome!

I see you've been a RP member for a decade, and have made only a dozen song comments in that span, including a near 10-year gap where you commented only on one T. Heads' song in 2008...YOU SHOW GREAT RESTRAINT!
OK, this was probably the worst song on what is one of the best ever albums, though not having heard it in so long makes it not so bad now.  The album was playing somewhere in my fraternity house 24/7 after it came out.  Please play more from it!
 nate917 wrote:

Her "My City Was Gone" should have clued you in, with its reference to Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio (a suburb of Akron).
 
Cuyahoga Falls is more a suburb of Cleveland, though Chrissie is from Akron.  I know, however, people who live in Akron don't like it being referred to as "a suburb of Cleveland."
Blue Eyes Cryin in the Rain -> Stop Your Sobbing
{#Mrgreen} 
Its capslock day @ the lyrics tab.

It might have something to do with being born in 1982, but this song is bad in my opinion. Outdated, boring. 
Ah....college.
And next, her ex - the author of this.
Thank goodness they are not playing Talk of the Town again. This is ok stuff.
 richlister wrote:
OK Patti, I'll stop sobbing, if you stop singing gotta stop sobbing, OK? Good.

 
Chrissie won't stop singing.
May I give you the little advice to crank volume down?
 richlister wrote:
OK Patti, I'll stop sobbing, if you stop singing gotta stop sobbing, OK? Good.
 
Patti?  Who's Patti?  Anyway, she's not singing, so stop sobbing...
OK Patti, I'll stop sobbing, if you stop singing gotta stop sobbing, OK? Good.
 ecyfoto wrote:
Sounds like Ray and Phil had a baby.
 
No, but Ray and Chrissie had a baby.
Wow, just gotta say that after Shawn Colvin this is sooooooo refreshing ...
 treatment_bound wrote:
 
yep... Bill's playing them next.  Love this place !

 nigelr wrote:

And a little Dusty Springfield..........

 is it Dusty?  I'm old, but just barely not old enuf to know... but there is a riff that is definitely a 60's girls group.  I remeber hearing it on the radio as a kid.
 
 mbelge wrote:
Exellent song! I believe it was penned by Ray Davies of the Kinks.
Really nice seque to this song from Smithereens Wall of Sleep.
Bill, you are too good! 
 
I'm just perusing the board after seeing The Smithereens earlier tonight.  They played Wall of Sleep and totally rocked!
Chrissie's sound is sublime...

went to wikipedia for some background:

Hynde, originally from Akron, Ohio, attended Kent State University at the time of the Kent State shootings in 1970. She moved to London in 1973, working at the weekly music paper NME<1> and at Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood's clothes store. She was involved with early versions of The Clash and The Damned and played in short-lived bands such as Masters of the Backside and The Moors Murderers.<2> The Pretenders formed in 1978 after Dave Hill at Anchor Records heard some demos of Hynde's music.
 tom-kenna wrote:
Splendid production. I hear Phil Spector, Brian Wilson and George Martin.
 
This particular track was produced by Nick Lowe in some demo sessions. The rest of the album was produced by Chris Thomas. FWIW.
Love the Pretenders, but this chorus has never worked for me. Its just crammed into the space the song gives it, though it clearly doesnt fit. Every time Ive heard it over the years it just stopped the song dead in its tracks for me.
Suddenly I'm back in Harvard Square in the early 80s listening to WFNX
 Cynaera wrote:

Me, too... Their early work is so amazing.  Dammit, why do the good ones have to self-destruct?! Maybe Ol' Neil was right - it's better to burn out than to fade away...

 

No.  It is much better to fade away.  Dying young is a tragedy.
 vandal wrote:

Man, I miss James Honeyman-Scott and Pete Farndon. . .

 
Me, too... Their early work is so amazing.  Dammit, why do the good ones have to self-destruct?! Maybe Ol' Neil was right - it's better to burn out than to fade away...

Stop this horrible song!
okay, so the last two sounded like my playlist circa '87 (pre-playlists)... {#Lol}
This may not be their best but it still beats so much of the current pop fluff.
Exellent song! I believe it was penned by Ray Davies of the Kinks.
Really nice seque to this song from Smithereens Wall of Sleep.
Bill, you are too good! 
Not a bad song, but probably better listened to *without* headphones on. I'm finding the panning echo effect on the drums to be utterly distracting.

Love her voice and the fact she never sold out...
Sounds like Ray and Phil had a baby.
Love the Pretenders, but gotta give the Kinks the edge on this one. Still nice to hear.
 ScottFromWyoming wrote:
It's songs like this that make my overall RP song ratings worthless. For this album, the scale is different. Compared with most stuff on RP, this is a 10. I don't give out a lot of 10s in general, so I might leave it at a 9. But great as it is it's nothing compared to the rest of the record, so I can't give it more than an 8, and I should probably go with a  6 or 7 to get a truer separation from Space Invaders/The Wait. So you might look at my other 8s and think I like this song about the same as those songs and that's not close to true. Looking at it myself, I think I should go in and downgrade my ratings on most of those to more accurately reflect where they fall on my suddenly-capricious scale. But then people would look at my ratings and say "if you don't like the music any more than that, why listen?" and so you see this song just confounds the whole system. I guess that's why I haven't rated it before now. Hmm.
 
8.
 


I can commiserate completely. This is one of my favorite debut efforts of all time but within that context this is not one of the strongest cuts. Within almost any RP playlist, it is nonetheless, outstanding.

Man, I miss James Honeyman-Scott and Pete Farndon. . .

stop stop stop snobbing
Nice multi-level segue, following the Smithereens... "Now I lie in bed and think of her, sometimes I even weep".

kinks version is a better one as this is more like pop. the original was more rock and roll. Like pretenders though they are quite underrated really.
It's songs like this that make my overall RP song ratings worthless. For this album, the scale is different. Compared with most stuff on RP, this is a 10. I don't give out a lot of 10s in general, so I might leave it at a 9. But great as it is it's nothing compared to the rest of the record, so I can't give it more than an 8, and I should probably go with a  6 or 7 to get a truer separation from Space Invaders/The Wait. So you might look at my other 8s and think I like this song about the same as those songs and that's not close to true. Looking at it myself, I think I should go in and downgrade my ratings on most of those to more accurately reflect where they fall on my suddenly-capricious scale. But then people would look at my ratings and say "if you don't like the music any more than that, why listen?" and so you see this song just confounds the whole system. I guess that's why I haven't rated it before now. Hmm.
 
8.
Nice!
 tom-kenna wrote:
Splendid production. I hear Phil Spector, Brian Wilson and George Martin.
 
And a little Dusty Springfield..........


Splendid production. I hear Phil Spector, Brian Wilson and George Martin.
{#Cheers}

more please!
japanese rock band has stolen this melody
 tclodes wrote:
Gotta stop your sobbing.

Stop.

Dumbass.
 

well aren't you mr. funnyman?{#Lol}
 kazuma wrote:
RP could play every track from this LP and I wouldn't mind a bit.
 
Bill,
Like others here, I too would enjoy hearing an "album hour" format added to RP even if it is late in the evening or early in the a.m.  I'd tune in because you've introduced me to such much GOOD music in the past 9 months.  Keep up the good work!
Cheers {#Good-vibes}


 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote:
I spent 25 years of life convinced CH was English... .. the things you learn at RP.
 
Well, she started the band in England with mostly Brits, so that might have thrown you. She hung out with all the new wave and punk bands of the time, the Pistols, the Jam, etc. Then she and the band came back to the US and conquered it.

Do you remember where you were when this song came out? It was such a throw back into the past, and yet was so ahead of it's time. I remember...
Gotta stop your sobbing. Stop. Dumbass.
NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote:
I spent 25 years of life convinced CH was English... .. the things you learn at RP.
Her "My City Was Gone" should have clued you in, with its reference to Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio (a suburb of Akron).
Love that Chrissie!
Chrissie Hynde and the band did one of the best Kink's covers, ever.
...Leader of the Pack...
I spent 25 years of life convinced CH was English... .. the things you learn at RP.
Wimpy wrote:
I won't stop sobbing until you marry me Chrisse..
Ok for me if she keeps loving me.
treatment_bound wrote:
probably the best Kinks cover out there (if not the most played---sorry Eddie V.H.!)
kazuma wrote:
RP could play every track from this LP and I wouldn't mind a bit.
I agree. Do it, Bill! Freak us out!
probably the best Kinks cover out there (if not the most played---sorry Eddie V.H.!)
I won't stop sobbing until you marry me Chrisse..
they are so great.
BigPete wrote:
Perfect pop.
Good description. Exact.
Forgot how good this was. Had the LP years ago and gave it away with the rest of my collection. Had to go out and by the CD after hearing tracks on RP
Perfect pop.
kazuma wrote:
RP could play every track from this LP and I wouldn't mind a bit.
If this album played 5 times in a row I wouldn't mind. I'd wonder what was up but I wouldn't mind.
Not good..
RP could play every track from this LP and I wouldn't mind a bit.
Loved seeing The Kinks perform this song live back in the day.
LOVE The Pretenders
YAY!!!!!!! 10!