Nick Lowe “Cruel to Be Kind” charted

Cruel to Be Kind Nick Lowe

Writer(s): Nick Lowe, Ian Gomm (see lyrics here) Released: August 17, 1979 First Charted: July 21, 1979 Peak: 12 US, 12 CB, 10 GR, 15 HR, 6 RR, 36 AC, 5 CL, 2 CO, 12 UK, 12 CN, 12 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 11.41 video, 23.18 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Singer/songwriter, musician, and producer Nick Lowe was born in 1949 in England. He started his career in 1967 with the band Kippington Lodge, which later became Brinsley Schwarz. He left that group in 1975 and started playing bass in Rockpile with Dave Edmunds. He released his first solo single, “So It Goes,” in 1976. The next year, he had his first UK chart entry with the top-10 song “I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass.” In 1977, Edmunds had a top-30 UK hit with a cover of Lowe’s “I Knew the Bride When She Used to Rock and Roll.” Two years later, Elvis Costello recorded “What’s So Funny ‘Bout Peace, Love, and Understanding,” a song Lowe wrote in 1974 while in Brinsley Schwarz. In 1979, Lowe finally had an international hit of his own with “Cruel to Be Kind.” It was his only top-40 hit in the United States. It reached #12 there – the same peak it achieved in the UK, Canada, and Australia. Lowe wrote the song with Ian Gomm while the two were in Brinsley Schwarz and recorded it as a demo. It was intented for the final Brinsley Schwarz album, It’s All Over Now, but it was never released. WK Once Lowe was a solo artist at Columbia Records, A&R man Gregg Geller convinced Lowe to re-record the song, whose title comes from a line in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. SF Lowe said, “I didn’t think it would do anything, but he kind of bullied me into it.” WK He recorded it with Rockpile and it appeared on Lowe’s second solo album, Labour of Lust. Musically, it was inspired by “The Love I Lost” by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes. Lowe said, “We loved that Philly disco stuff from the ‘70s, the O’Jays, all that stuff.” WK He originally said “Cruel to Be Kind” was a pop sell-out song and “wimpy,” SF but later said, “It’s a pretty good little song…I really love it. It cheers people up.” WK A video for the song featured actual footage of Lowe’s marriage to singer Carlene Carter, the daughter of June Carter Cash. Dave Edmunds appears in the video as their limo driver. It was one of the videos aired on MTV on their first broadcast day on August 1, 1981. WK Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Nick Lowe SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia First posted 1/15/2023.