When You Say Nothing at All

Origin

Overstreet and Schlitz came up with "When You Say Nothing at All" at the end of an otherwise unproductive day. Strumming a guitar, trying to write their next song, they were coming up empty. "As we tried to find another way to say nothing, we came up with the song," Overstreet later told author Ace Collins. They thought the song was OK, but nothing special. When Keith Whitley heard it, he loved it, and was not going to let it get away. Earlier, he had recorded another Overstreet-Schlitz composition that became a No. 1 hit for another artist - Randy Travis' "On the Other Hand." Whitley did not plan to let "When You Say Nothing at All" meet the same fate.

Keith Whitley

RCA released "When You Say Nothing at All" as the follow-up single to the title song of Whitley's Don't Close Your Eyes album. The former song already had hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart, his first chart-topper after three prior singles made the top 10. "When You Say Nothing at All" entered the Hot Country Singles chart on September 17, 1988, at No. 61, and gradually rose to the top, where it stayed for two weeks at the end of the year. It was the second of five consecutive chart-topping singles for Whitley, who did not live to see the last two, as he died on May 9, 1989 of alcohol poisoning. "Keith did a great job singin' that song," co-composer Schlitz told author Tom Roland. "He truly sang it from the heart." In 2004, Whitley's original was ranked 12th among CMT's 100 Greatest Love Songs. It was sung by Sara Evans on the show. As of February 2015, the song has sold 599,000 digital copies in the US after it became available for download.

Alison Krauss version

Alison Krauss, already a veteran bluegrass fiddler and vocalist at age 23, recorded "When You Say Nothing at All" with her country group, Union Station, in 1994 for a tribute album to Whitley titled Keith Whitley: A Tribute Album. The single release featured "Charlotte's in North Carolina," one of several previously-unreleased tracks sung by Whitley on the album, as the B-side. After Krauss's cover began to receive unsolicited airplay, BNA Records, the label that had released the album, issued Krauss' version to radio in January 1995. That version, also featured on Krauss' compilation Now That I've Found You: A Collection, peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart, and a commercial single reached No. 2 on the same magazine's Hot Country Singles Sales chart. The single's B-side was a previously unreleased Whitley song titled "Charlotte's in North Carolina", which also appeared on the tribute album.

Its success, as well as that of the album, caught Krauss by surprise. "It's a freak thing," she told a Los Angeles Times reporter in March 1995. "It's kinda ticklin' us all. We haven't had anything really chart before. At all. Isn't it funny though? We don't know what's goin' on....The office said, 'Hey, it's charting,' and we're like, 'Huh?'"

While Krauss' version was on the charts, Mike Cromwell, then the production director at WMIL-FM in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, concocted a duet merging elements of Krauss' version with Whitley's original hit version. The "duet" garnered national attention, and it spread from at least Philadelphia to Albuquerque, and has been heard on radio stations in California as well. It was never officially serviced to radio and has never been available commercially. Krauss' recording won the 1995 CMA award for "Single of the Year". The song has been featured a couple of times in the soap opera The Young and the Restless. Krauss' version was also used in the 1999 motion picture "The Other Sister".

Track listing

1. "When You Say Nothing at All"
2. "Charlotte's In North Carolina"

Ronan Keating version

"When You Say Nothing at All" was released as the debut solo single by Irish singer-songwriter Ronan Keating. The song was recorded in 1999 for the soundtrack to the film Notting Hill and also appeared on Keating's debut solo album, Ronan. The song was released on July 26, 1999, in the United Kingdom. It peaked at number one in the UK, Ireland, and New Zealand. In the UK, the single was certified gold. In 2003, Keating re-recorded the song as a duet with Mexican singer Paulina Rubio, which was released in Mexico and Latin America (excluding Brazil) to promote Keating's second studio album, Destination. In Brazil, Ronan chose the Brazilian singer Deborah Blando to re-record the song for the 10 Years Of Hits album exclusive for that country (an exclusive music video was recorded for this version with Deborah).

Track listing

1. "When You Say Nothing at All" – 4:18
2. "When You Say Nothing at All" (acoustic version) – 3:30
3. "This Is Your Song" – 4:03
4. "When You Say Nothing at All" (music video) – 4:25

1. "When You Say Nothing At All" – 4:18
2. "At The End Of A Perfect Day" – 4:37
3. "I Will Miss You" – 3:05

1. "When You Say Nothing at All" – 4:18
2. "This Is Your Song" – 4:03

Other covers

The Italian-Ukrainian-Brazilian singer Deborah Blando recorded "When You Say Nothing at All" in English and Portuguese for the Brazilian version of the song, which featured on the Brazilian version of Destination. The single reached the top 10 in the Latin charts..Burmese singer Zaw Paing also made a Burmese version cover.