I Don't Want to Talk About It

Crazy Horse is best known as Neil Young's backing band, but in 1971 they released their self-titled, debut album that proved they could stand on their own. A creative force in the group was Danny Whitten, their rhythm guitarist and lead vocalist. Whitten wrote this song, which is a touching ballad about a man so heartbroken that he doesn't want to talk about his pain, asking his lover to simply listen to his heart. Whitten was battling a heroin addiction at the time and died a year later when on November 18, 1972 he overdosed on Valium and alcohol. Nils Lofgren, who was also in Crazy Horse, recalls in the book 1000 UK #1 Hits by Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh: "Danny was a very soulful man and a good man and he was the one who got me in Crazy Horse. I loved his song, 'I Don't Want To Talk About It,' and I think it is one of the greatest ballads ever. It has a very haunting lyric and put two lines into the song because Danny was so ill when he recorded it. He could still sing and play but he wasn't bothered with much else. We said, 'Danny, we've got to do this song, it's a great song' and he said, 'It needs a second verse' and this went on for months. He never could get it together and then we were in the studio and got in an argument, and he said, 'Okay, well, one of you write it.' I left the studio and wrote a couple of lines quickly and I said,'What about these'' and he said, 'Fine, let's do it'. Danny and I sat opposite each other with acoustic guitars and Ry Cooder was playing slide on his lap and it came out beautifully."

The Crazy Horse album was an assemblage of top-tier musicians and producers. Along with Danny Whitten and Nils Lofgren, Jack Nitzsche, Ry Cooder, Billy Talbot and Ralph Molina played on it, and it was produced by Nitzsche and Bruce Botnick. It enjoyed just modest sales, but was adored by critics, including John Mendelsohn, who called this song an "unexaggerably lovely ballad" in his Rolling Stone review. Whitten never got to perform the song with Crazy Horse, as his addiction pushed him out of the group. He was replaced by George Whitsell, who played on the group's next album, Loose, released in 1972. Whitten picked up again with Neil Young's band, but again his addiction led to his dismissal.

Rod Stewart recorded this song for his 1975 album Atlantic Crossing, which was produced by Tom Dowd. "Sailing" and "This Old Heart Of Mine" were issued as singles from the album, and Stewart's next album, Night On The Town, was released in the summer of 1976. However, at the Christmas concerts Stewart gave in London that year, he was taken aback when his fans started singing the chorus to "I Don't Want To Talk About It" along with him - continuing even when he dropped out to watch them. Because of their obvious enthusiasm for this song, Stewart's label decided to issue it as his next single. Since so many of Rod's followers already had Atlantic Crossing, a track from Night On The Town, "The First Cut Is The Deepest," was included on the flip side and issues as a double-A side disc. The single went to #1 for four weeks in the UK.