1985 · Behind the Songs
“A London recording that America got as a single — and Europe never did.”
By the spring of 1985, Private Dancer had already given Tina Turner a string of singles, and Capitol kept going back to the album. “Show Some Respect,” released in America that April, was the sixth. Europe never got it as a single at all — a transatlantic split that makes this one of the quieter chapters of the album’s story.
It was cut in 1983 at Mayfair Studios in London and produced by Terry Britten, who also played guitar and sang backing vocals. The session crew included Nick Glennie-Smith and Billy Livsey on keyboards, Graham Jarvis on drums, and Tessa Niles among the backing vocalists — a compact lineup for a record that runs a tight 3:18.
The writers were Britten and Sue Shifrin, and Britten’s name carries a footnote worth knowing: with Graham Lyle, he co-wrote “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” the biggest hit of the same album and a song already covered in this series. “Show Some Respect” is its lesser-known sibling from the same writing room.
The single’s B-side was a live cover of Prince’s “Let’s Pretend We’re Married,” and the twelve-inch remix stretched the song to 5:47 — a reminder that even the album’s deeper cuts were built to move a dance floor.
On the charts it did modest business: number 37 on the Hot 100, number 38 on Cash Box, number 50 on the R&B chart, number 42 in Canada, and number 41 in New Zealand. Not a triumph, but a solid single — and a small window into how deep the Private Dancer bench really was.