Having written 1961’s transatlantic smash ‘Runaway’ alongside Musitron pioneer Max Crook, Del Shannon spent much of the decade trying to recreate its elusive magic. More popular in Britain than his native US, Shannon scored self-written hits with ‘Hats Off To Larry’, ‘So Long Baby’ and ‘Cry Myself To Sleep’, songs whose fatalistic lyrics showed he was far from happy, even if his performances hid it well. If the A-side here was an exception to that rule, with its promises to make a jilted lover’s dreams come true (over yet another tune that didn’t waver that far from ‘Runaway’), its B-side tapped into the melancholy air that distinguished the dashing yet troubled Shannon from the throng. Written by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman and driven by a stop-start guitar riff, punchy brass and sprinkled strings, ‘You Never Talked About Me’ came on like a more jaunty Shannon original, bolstered by the force of his great falsetto. The first US artist to cover the Beatles (‘From Me To You’), while they were still in the charts with the original, after the hits dried up Shannon met psychedelia head-on on 1968’s The Further Adventures Of Charles Westover, a cinematic suite that featured his most haunted creations but failed to revive his fortunes. He descended into alcoholism in the 70s, a downward spiral that tragically ended in suicide.