Released January 1989 Genre Indie pop, dream pop Label Rough Trade | Recorded 1989 Length 3:22 | |
B-side "I Kicked a Boy", "Don't Tell Your Mother" | ||
"Can't Be Sure" was the 1989 debut single by the British indie pop group The Sundays. It was the first (and in the UK, only) single to be released from their album Reading, Writing and Arithmetic, which appeared a year later. The B-side was "I Kicked a Boy", which also appeared on the album. The 12" single contained an additional, non-album track, "Don't Tell Your Mother".
The song's lyrical theme is "desire", treated as a general concept rather than being directed towards anything or anyone in particular.
And did you know desire's a terrible thing? The worst that I can find Did you know desire's a terrible thing? But I rely on mine.By the song's closing refrain, the song's narrator appears to have come to terms with, if not necessarily resolved, the dichotomy:
And it's my love, And it's my life And though I can't be sure if I want any more It will come to me later.The single was voted number one in John Peel's Festive Fifty for 1989 and reached #45 in the UK charts in February of that year.