Melissa Manchester - Don't Cry Out Loud

"Don't Cry Out Loud" is a song written in 1976 by Peter Allen with lyricist Carole Bayer Sager that is best known as a hit single for Melissa Manchester in the US and for Elkie Brooks in the UK. Ann-Margret, who was a friend of Peter Allen, has stated that the song's lyrics - though written by Carole Bayer Sager - reflect Allen's own frame of mind: "He just kept everything inside...his personal philosophy was 'Don't show anyone you're crying'." Bernadette Peters, who toured with Allen in 1989, has stated that Allen told her that "his mother taught him to always put your best face on" in response to Allen's father dying by suicide when Allen was 14 years old. The references to "baby" in the song refer to Allen's younger sister. The first evident recording of the song is by The Moments as "We Don't Cry Out Loud", track-produced by Sylvia Robinson, and given a December 1976 release simultaneous with its parent album Moments With You. "We Don't Cry Out Loud" was the second of three consecutive single releases by the Moments, which were co-written by Carole Bayer Sager. The first and third of these singles: "With You" and "I Don't Wanna Go" were both Top 20 R&B hits but "We Don't Cry Out Loud" would rise no higher than number 79 on the chart. Recorded at Allen Zentz Studios Hollywood, "Don't Cry Out Loud" was released 11 October 1978 and did indeed reach the Top 40 at the end of 1978 rising to a number 10 peak on the Billboard Hot 100 twenty weeks later in March 1979. The single also reached number 9 on the Adult Contemporary chart, and thanks to its long chart life on the Hot 100, was ranked as Billboard′s 26th biggest hit of 1979, ranking ahead of a number of songs that reached higher peaks on the weekly surveys (including Sister Sledge's "We Are Family" and the Bee Gees' number-one hit "Love You Inside Out").