The 1980s File Feature
Do You Want Crying
Do You Want Crying: Katrina And The Waves' Follow-Up on the Hot 100After the Sunshine, Something More ComplexBy the summer of 1985, Katrina And The Waves had…
01 The Story
Do You Want Crying: Katrina And The Waves' Follow-Up on the Hot 100
After the Sunshine, Something More Complex
By the summer of 1985, Katrina And The Waves had already achieved the kind of pop moment that most bands spend entire careers chasing. Walking on Sunshine had erupted onto the charts earlier that year with a joy so concentrated and immediate that it seemed less like a song than a weather event, a burst of pure musical serotonin that attached itself permanently to collective images of summer optimism and the feeling of everything going right at once. Songs of that quality and that instantaneous impact arrive perhaps once in a career, and the question facing the band in its immediate wake was both obvious and unanswerable until they answered it: what comes next? The answer they chose was Do You Want Crying, a follow-up that traded some of the predecessor's uncomplicated euphoria for something with considerably more emotional texture, and it charted for 10 weeks on the Hot 100 through the remainder of that same landmark summer.
Katrina Leskanich and the Band's Transatlantic Identity
The Waves were an outfit with an interesting and somewhat unusual provenance: American vocalist Katrina Leskanich fronting a group that had taken shape in Cambridge, England. This dual identity gave them a stylistic flexibility that purely British or purely American acts often lacked; they could reference American roots-rock sensibilities through British post-punk filters and emerge sounding like a distinctive hybrid of both traditions rather than a diluted version of either. By the time Do You Want Crying arrived on the Hot 100 at number 83 on July 27, 1985, the group had genuine international credibility earned through songwriting craft and live performance rather than image construction.
The Chart Trajectory
The single climbed steadily through August with impressive velocity: from 83 to 52 in a single week, then 47, 43, 42, continuing its ascent toward its peak of number 37 on the week of September 7, 1985. That peak placed it in solid mid-chart territory, a respectable showing for a follow-up single navigating the inevitable comparisons to a predecessor that had become genuinely iconic within the space of a few months. The fact that it charted in the top 40 rather than being swallowed by the shadow of Walking on Sunshine speaks to the group's genuine songwriting depth and to the loyalty of an audience that had been converted into real fans rather than casual listeners by the earlier hit.
The Sound of Power Pop at Mid-Decade
The track exemplifies what the best power pop of the mid-1980s could achieve: melodic confidence, guitar-forward arrangements that retained some of the energy of earlier new wave while integrating the cleaner production values of the era, and a vocalist capable of projecting emotional intensity without losing control of the melody's demands. Leskanich's voice had a roughness at its edges that prevented the group's sunnier material from curdling into saccharine and that gave even this more conflicted song a backbone. She brought the same vocal quality to this more emotionally complicated territory that she had brought to the euphoria of the previous single, and the continuity of voice across two very different emotional registers was itself a demonstration of artistic range.
A Summer That Belonged to Them
The summer of 1985 was, by any reasonable measure, a remarkable season for Katrina And The Waves. Two different singles on the Hot 100 simultaneously, one an all-time pop classic and the other a solidly performing follow-up that would have defined most careers on its own terms. This kind of double chart presence confirmed genuine commercial momentum rather than one-hit-wonder circumstances. The peak of 37 for Do You Want Crying looks modest only in the extraordinary shadow of its predecessor. On its own terms, it is a real hit record from a real band at the peak of their powers. Put it on and hear them choosing complexity when the easy path would have been simple repetition.
“Do You Want Crying” — Katrina And The Waves' singular moment on the 1980s charts.
02 Song Meaning
Do You Want Crying: Conflict and Clarity in Katrina And The Waves' Follow-Up
The Question at the Center
The title of this song is itself a kind of confrontation: it puts the emotional stakes on the table immediately, framing the lyric's central situation as a direct challenge rather than a lament. Where Walking on Sunshine had answered every implicit question with radiant certainty, Do You Want Crying begins from a position of frustrated clarity: the narrator knows what is happening, can see it plainly, knows what it costs, and is essentially forcing the other person to acknowledge the damage being done through their behavior. This shift from celebration to confrontation is the song's defining characteristic and the source of its emotional power.
Anger and Hurt as Interdependent Emotions
The emotional landscape the song charts is more complex than simple sadness or simple anger. The lyrical energy carries both hurt and something harder: the particular indignation of someone who can see clearly how they are being treated and refuses to pretend otherwise. This combination of hurt and refusal is one of the more difficult emotional registers for pop music to handle without tipping into either sentimentality on one side or aggression on the other. The song walks that line with care, maintaining the integrity of both emotions rather than resolving the tension between them prematurely. Complexity is honored rather than smoothed away.
After the Euphoria: The Reality of Summer Pop
There is a deliberate artistic logic to following Walking on Sunshine with a song that acknowledges emotional complication and relational conflict. The earlier hit's unbroken joy was beautiful precisely because it was unsustainable; no one actually lives at that altitude for any extended period, and the art that pretends otherwise is ultimately dishonest to human experience. Do You Want Crying acknowledges the inevitable drop from the peak, the moment when summer ends psychologically and the relationship reality asserts itself over the initial optimism. Together the two songs describe an emotional arc that is more complete and more honest than either could be alone.
Power Pop and Female Anger
The tradition of power pop in the 1980s was largely male-dominated, and songs of female romantic anger within the genre were relatively uncommon and rarely supported as lead singles by major labels. Leskanich's vocal delivery on this track carries an assertiveness that distinguished the group from the softer-edged female-fronted acts that adult contemporary radio tended to favor and promote. The willingness to express anger directly, to frame the central question of the song as a challenge rather than a plea, was a form of emotional directness that pop radio still found somewhat uncomfortable in 1985, which makes its chart success all the more meaningful.
The Resonance of Direct Questions
Songs that ask direct questions of a specific person have an immediacy that declarative songs sometimes lack. The listener is placed in the position of overhearing something real, a confrontation rather than a polished monologue for public consumption, and that position generates a specific kind of engaged attention. Do You Want Crying works throughout in this mode: Leskanich seems to be addressing someone specific, someone present in the moment of the song, and that specificity gives the lyric an urgency that continues to resonate clearly long after its 10 weeks on the Hot 100 in the summer of 1985 came to their end.
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