I Won't Forget You (Bow Wow Now)
Written by Steve Hillier
Date Written January 1996
Place Written Jesmond, Newcastle Upon Tyne
Originally Sung By Sarah Blackwood
Features Roland S-760
YOUTUBE LINK
“I can’t bear the thought You’d Have to Die Before Me“B-sides, songs that perform the function of having something (anything?) on the flip side of a vinyl single gave writers an opportunity to say something they felt needed to be said without the pressure of writing a ‘hit’. There were no expectations, you could write whatever you wanted.
They hold a unique role in the development of a 20th Century act and for a fan’s relationship with their heroes too. Growing up, I’d enjoyed the B-Sides of my favourite acts (Billy Bragg, The Smiths, Cocteau Twins) much more than the A-Sides. I wanted Dubstar to have the same connections for fans who hungered for more. Luckily that was easy in the 1990s, a decade defined by a million formats, all of which counted towards the singles chart, and all of which needed new material to fill them up. There was scope for an act to release three B-Sides with every single AND have a remix CD too. So we did.
The pressure was off when it came to writing B-Sides, I had the luxury of knowing that whatever I wrote was almost certainly going to be released. Bow Wow Now, as this song was originally known, is an example of this luxury and is one of a handful of Dubstar recordings that really deserved a better version than the released attempt. That melody, those words, the heart break…all of which could have done without the rather clumpy programming. Also, this is the only Dubstar song where the vocals were copied and pasted from one chorus to the next in a sampler. I can’t remember why, but It may have been something to do with there being no heating in our studio ‘Stink Central’ at the Arts Centre. You can hear Sarah shivering as she’s singing. It was January 1996. We were in the top twenty at the time.
Chris and Sarah were vegetarians when we recorded this song, I’ve been vegetarian now for many years too and am heading the vegan way. Consequently I’m rather pleased that we managed to have a song about the loss of an animal in the Dubstar canon. It’s not Meat is Murder, I Won’t Forget You expresses something different. It’s the closeness people achieve with their childhood pets and the grief on their passing.
So why change the name of the song? ‘Bow Wow Now’ as a title was always an ‘in-joke’. It was an attempt to hide the sentiment of the song, a cross between 90s irony and self-conscious deflection. But last night when I was playing this song for the first time in decades, it felt ridiculous to hide the meaning of the lyric. And I never liked that title. So from here on this song will be known to me as ‘I Won’t Forget You’, which is the title it should always have had.
INSIDE OUTLINES, the first collection of solo piano pieces by Stephen Hillier is out now: