Rolling Stone (Dec. 7th 2000)

No Doubt: “Don’t Speak”

Album: Tragic Kingdom
Release date: October 1995
Peak chart position: Not released as single
Songwriters: Gwen Stefani, Eric Stefani
Producer: Matthew Wilder

All it took was a couple of hard knocks for No Doubt vocalist Gwen Stefani to create the tearjerker anthem. "My boyfriend of eight years had left me," she says, referring to her breakup with the band's bassist, Tony Kanal. "And my brother left the band. Suddenly I had a story to tell, and the creative part was plopped in my lap."

"Don't Speak," which was originally written with Stefani's brother Eric before he quit No Doubt, became the third single from the group's breakthrough album, Tragic Kingdom. It was a straight-up ballad that dropped any edginess of the group's previous ska-tinged efforts. Stefani moaned the song's lovelorn vocal like an injured diva, recounting the end of the two most important relationships in her life.

"Just a Girl" had already been a hit, but "Don't Speak" blasted the group into the stratosphere, helping to sell some 10 million records and making Stefani's exaggerated persona into one of the year's most memorable musical figures. "I knew the song was good," Stefani says. "I was just starting to blossom and figure out that I knew how to write. The weirdest part is how the song transcended cultural barriers. It had the same impact no matter where in the world we played it. If you can accomplish something like that once in your life, I wouldn't really ask for anything else."