This, That, and The Other

For this week’s Song Lyric Sunday theme, Jim has given us “yes” and/or “no.” Hmm. About a month ago, I used “Hello, Goodbye” by the Beatles for Jim’s SLS prompt, and that song might have been a great song for this week’s prompt. “You say yes, I so no….” But given that I have used that song twice already (including this post I did in January 2018 when Helen Vahdati was still hosting SLS), I figured I’d go in a different direction. I’m reaching way back to 1965 for the song, “Tell Her No” by The Zombies. It seems to be an appropriate fit for this “No” theme, as the word “no” was mentioned a total of 63 times in song’s lyrics.

“Tell Her No” was a hit single written by keyboardist and vocalist Rod Argent of the English rock band, The Zombies. The song was included on the band’s 1965 debut album, The Zombies. “Tell Her No” peaked at number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States in March 1965. It was The Zombie’s second biggest hit in the U.S., behind “She’s Not There.”

The song is very simple. The singer, worried that his girlfriend is likely to cheat on him, pleads with another guy to reject her advances…to emphatically tell her “no.”

Here are the lyrics to this song:

And if she should tell you “come closer”
And if she tempts you with her charms

Tell her no no no no no-no-no-no
No no no no no-no-no-no
No no no no no
Don’t hurt me now for her love belongs to me

And if she should tell you “I love you”
And if she tempts you with her charms

Tell her no no no no no-no-no-no
No no no no no-no-no-no
(Don’t take her love for your arms)
No no no no no
Don’t hurt me now for her love belongs to me

I know she’s the kind of girl
Who’d throw my love away
But I still love her so
Don’t hurt me now, don’t hurt me now

If she tells you “I love you”
Just remember she said that to me

Tell her no no no no no-no-no-no
No no no no no-no-no-no
(Don’t take her love from my arms)
No no no no no
Don’t leave me now for her love belongs to me

As a special bonus this week, I’m going to feature the aforementioned song by The Zombies, “She’s Not There.” This song also mentions the word “no” through the repeated lyric, “Well, no one told me about her,” although the word is not repeated nearly as much as in “Tell Her No.”