“You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me”.  It’s one of those songs that most people over a certain age know.  Dusty Springfield’s aching ballad is considered a classic, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be re-interpreted.

Enter Gus Ring, a Swedish singer-songwriter.  Gus has taken the basic melody and lyric of the track and stripped it right back.  Now, the desperation within the lyric is almost too hard to take.

Likened by critics to Damian Rice and Jeff Buckley, Ring’s music so often conveys a sparse, pained element, so in that respect, this song seems like the perfect choice to be re-imagined in his own style.

He says:  “This is my mom’s favorite song. I had no idea before recording this. Somehow, through a huge period of getting immersed in 60’s love songs I fell in love with this one. Or maybe I had already heard it as a child sitting on the floor in the kitchen listening to my mom singing while making dinner. Anyways, it has this sort of “light-that-seeps-through-the-darkness” feeling, which resonates very deeply with me. I guess most people get to experience that feeling sometime in their lives – when their heart feels more than it should, for someone it shouldn’t feel for.”

Gus’s 2018 recording of ‘You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me’ can be streamed in full below.