I Only Want to Be with You

According to Jean Ryder, the ex-wife of songwriter Mike Hawker, "I Only Want to Be With You" was written soon after she and Hawker married on 1 December 1961, being inspired by Hawker's intense romantic feelings for his new bride. Ryder, who would later be a member of the Breakaways, had been a member of a vocal chorale, the Vernons Girls. Reportedly, she and Hawker had intended that she herself would record "I Only Want to Be With You". However, no formal arrangement for this eventuality had apparently been made by the autumn of 1963, when Hawker received a phone call from Philips A&R director Johnny Franz. Ryder paraphrases Franz as saying "Look we need something which is going to put this girl into the charts, because everybody is knocking her, everybody is saying she'll never make it [solo] - have you got a song that's a guaranteed hit?" Springfield had already recorded nine solo tracks, none of which was deemed the right vehicle to launch her solo career. With Ryder's permission, Hawker submitted "I Only Want to Be With You" to Franz, having made a demo featuring Ryder singing while keeping the beat by tapping on a biscuit tin lid. Franz, and then Springfield, approved the song, which Springfield recorded in a 25 October 1963 session at Olympic Studios, arranged and conducted by Ivor Raymonde, and recorded by engineer Keith Grant. Jean Ryder was included in the vocal chorale on the session. For unknown reasons, a version with Springfield's unadulterated vocals was rejected.[2][3][4]

Released in November 1963, three weeks after the Springfields' final concert, "I Only Want to Be With You" was a global success, reaching number 4 UK, number 12 US, number 6 Australia, and number 21 Canada. In the US, Dusty Springfield was the second artist of the British Invasion, after the Beatles, to have a hit, entering the Billboard chart at number 77 in the last week of January 1964 (the Beatles having "She Loves You" at number 69 and "I Want to Hold Your Hand" at number 3).

Raymonde's arrangement is unmistakable, with its relentless "ticker-ticker" beat and cascading drum rolls, full-on choirs and "Tower of Power" horn section pitched against soaring rock strings. It set the production standard for Springfield's later hits, such as "Stay Awhile" and "Little by Little". Springfield also recorded the song with an almost identical arrangement in German, with the title "Auf dich nur wart' ich immerzu".

The song was performed by Springfield on the first-ever edition of the BBC's Top of the Pops, on 1 January 1964.

Springfield's version was re-released in 1988, coinciding with its use in a soft-drink commercial, as a 7" & 12" single (see cover in infobox), peaking at number 83 in the UK.

Springfield's "I Only Want to Be with You" served as theme song for the HBO sitcom Arliss, from 1997 to 2002 (replacing "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)" by the Four Tops which was the series' theme in its inaugural 1996 season).

The Bay City Rollers recorded "I Only Want to Be with You" for their 1976 album Dedication in June and July 1976 at Soundstage Studio in Toronto with producer Jimmy Ienner. Dedication was the first Bay City Rollers recorded under the auspices of Arista Records, and it was Arista president Clive Davis who suggested that the group remake "I Only Want to Be with You." Jimmy Ienner was chosen by Davis to produce the Bay City Rollers on the basis of Ienner's work with the Raspberries.

In the US "I Only Want to Be with You" was issued as advance single from Dedication in August 1976: that October the track reached a Billboard Hot 100 peak of number 12, besting the number 28 peak of the precedent Bay City Rollers' single "Rock and Roll Love Letter" while failing to match the Top Ten success the group had enjoyed in 1975–1976 with "Saturday Night" and in 1976 with "Money Honey". "I Only Want to Be with You" appeared to wrap up the group's burst of North American stardom as their next three US single releases were Top 40 shortfalls: however the group's fourth US single release subsequent to "I Only Want to Be With You": "You Made Me Believe in Magic", did afford the group a final Top Ten hit.

Issued in the UK as a non-album single on 3 September 1976, "I Only Wanna Be with You" – so entitled – reached number 4 UK, affording the Bay City Rollers' a tenth and final Top Ten hit.

It's noteworthy that the US and UK chart peaks of the Bay City Rollers' 1976 remake of "I Only Want to Be with You" exactly match the US and UK chart peaks achieved in 1964 by the Dusty Springfield original. However the Springfield original version had had a significantly stronger UK chart run holding at number 4 for 4 weeks – as opposed to the Bay City Rollers remake's one week chart peak – with the original's Top 50 tenure of 18 weeks being twice as long as the remake's. Conversely in the US the Bay City Rollers' remake had a Billboard Hot 100 tenure of 15 weeks while the Springfield original had maintained a Hot 100 presence for 10 weeks in total.[8] (Comparisons between the chart impact of singles issued in distinct time periods should be considered imprecise, the methodology behind both the UK and US chart rankings having been frequently revised.)

In 1979, the song was also covered by The Tourists, a band which included Annie Lennox on vocals. This was the band's biggest hit. The song was used on a montage of stars when Thames Television went off the air in 1992.

The song was "put down in twenty minutes at the end of the album sessions", with Lennox recording the vocals in one take.[23]

Lennox later said that "we were taken to the cleaners for doing that bloody song", as "the press absolutely slaughtered us". Dave Stewart said that "It was a bit out of proportion with 'I Only Want To Be With You' – the poppy side of it was really overplayed by everybody".[24]

Reviewing the song for Record Mirror, Daniela Soave included it the singles of the week, writing that the song "definitely grows on you" and that "Lennox has the same deep mellow tones that Dusty Springfield displayed when she sang the same song, but it is saved from being a carbon-cover version by the instrumentation... handclaps, vicious guitar, chugging bass, that sort of thing.[25]

• 7-inch single[40]

A. "I Only Wanna Be with You" – 2:45

B. "Confession" – 4:40

• 12-inch single[41]

A1. "I Only Wanna Be with You" (Extended Mix) – 4:56

A2. "I Only Wanna Be with You" (Acapella Mix) – 3:17

B1. "I Only Wanna Acid with You" (Mix 1) – 6:20

B2. "Confession" – 4:40

• European CD single

1. "I Only Wanna Be with You" – 2:45
2. "Nothing's Gonna Stop Me Now" – 3:42
3. "I Only Wanna Be with You" (Extended Version) – 4:56
4. "Confession" – 4:40

• Japanese mini CD single

1. "I Only Wanna Be with You"
2. "The Best Is Yet to Come"

Mexican singer Luis Miguel recorded a version of the song, titled "Ahora te puedes marchar" ("Now you can leave") which was released as the first single from his Grammy-nominated album Soy como quiero ser (1987), the first album recorded by the singer under the WEA record label. It was produced by Juan Carlos Calderón and adapted by Luis Gómez Escolar.[62] This single became very successful, peaking at number-one in the Billboard Hot Latin Tracks chart for three non-consecutive weeks in 1987, being the first chart topper for the singer on the chart.[63] There is previous version of the song in Spanish in the 1960s by Spanish pop singer Lita Torrelló, which shares the same title that the one made popular by Luis Miguel 20 years after. At the time, Luis Miguel was the youngest to score a number-one hit on the Hot Latin Tracks at the age of 17, ironically replacing the then 44-year-old veteran Julio Iglesias at the summit. In 2005, Luis Miguel included this song on his compilation album Grandes Éxitos.[64] This version ranked at number 28 in the Hot Latin Tracks Year-End Chart of 1988. The song was translated into Portuguese as "Agora Você Pode Ir" for the Brazilian edition of the album.[65]

The lyrics are considerably different from the original song as long as the song relates about a guy rejecting a girl that is wanting to reform a relationship rather than the unconditional love shown in Dusty Springfield version.

Two music videos were shot. The first one was shot with Angélica Rivera, while the second one was shot dancing in a bridge. The second one was included in Grandes Éxitos Videos.