#32: Goodbye Baby (I Don’t Want To See You Cry) by Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart

City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: May 1968
Peak Position in Fredericton: #4
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #53
YouTube: “Goodbye Baby (I Don’t Want to See You Cry)”
Lyrics: “Goodbye Baby (I Don’t Want to See You Cry)”

Sidney Thomas “Tommy” Boyce was born in 1939 in Charlottesville, Virgina. He was one half of the pop duo with Bobby Hart. The two wrote numbers of songs for other recording artists including The Monkees, Jay and The Americans and Little Anthony and The Imperials. Boyce was separately pursuing a career as a singer. After being rejected numerous times, Boyce took his father’s suggestion to write a song called “Be My Guest” for rock and roll star Fats Domino. He waited six hours at Domino’s hotel room to present him with the demo, and got Domino to promise to listen to the song. In 1959 the song hit #8 in the US and #11 in the UK, becoming Domino’s biggest hit there in several years, and sold over a million copies.

In 1961 Boyce also wrote “Pretty Little Angel Eyes” for Curtis Lee, which climbed to #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #8 locally. In 1961 Boyce wrote and recorded “Along Came Linda”, a sort of musical fusion of two pop tunes from ’61, Del Shannon’s “Runaway” and Bobby Vee’s “Rubber Ball”.

Robert Luke Harshman was born in 1939 in Phoenix, Arizona. Boyce met Harshman in 1959. The following year Boyce played guitar on Harshman’s single “Girl in the Window”, which flopped. But it marked the first time Harshman used the name Bobby Hart, since his manager shortened and altered his surname to fit the label. Boyce and Hart’s partnership made a breakthrough with a song recorded by Chubby Checker, “Lazy Elsie Molly”, in 1964. They also co-wrote “Come A Little Bit Closer,” a Top Ten hit for Jay and the Americans in 1964.

In 1965, Bobby Hart went on tour as a “Dazzler” with Teddy Randazzo and the Dazzlers. He co-wrote, with Rendazzo, “Hurt So Bad”, which was a Top Ten hit that year for Little Anthony and the Imperials.

In the mid-60’s, with Bobby Hart, Tommy Boyce co-wrote “Last Train to Clarksville”, “I’m Not Your Steppin’ Stone”, “Words” and “Valleri”, all hits for The Monkees. While they were gaining attention for co-writing numerous hit songs for The Monkees, Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart were invited to appear on numbers of TV shows in guest appearances. These included Bewitched, The Flying Nun and I Dream of Jeannie.

Boyce and Hart also wrote the theme song for the daytime soap opera, Days of Our Lives. When Days of Our Lives premiered in 1965, the show revolved around the tragedies and triumphs of the suburban Horton family. Over time, additional families were brought to the show to interact with the Hortons and serve as springboards for more dramatic story lines. In 2017, Days of Our Lives is in its 52nd season.

In 1968 Boyce and Hart campaigned to support Robert F. Kennedy in his run for the Presidency, and they spearheaded the “Let Us Vote”, or “L.U.V.” campaign, which ultimately helped to lower the US voting age to 18 from 21. In December 1967, Boyce and Hart released their only Top Ten hit on the Billboard Hot 100 titled “I Wonder What She’s Doing Tonight”.

Their followup was and “Goodbye Baby (I Don’t Want to See You Cry)”.

The single was cowritten by Boyce and Hart. The lyrics tell about a guy who gets romantically involved with a woman. In time, she lets him know that the relationship they have isn’t enough to “hold her.” She tells him “goodbye baby,” and gets involved with another man she knew before. The guy left in the dust tells himself “I should have known I’d be here,” as if his intuition told him the relationship wouldn’t last. Now he’s “all alone and trying to forget her.” He laments, “wish I hadn’t learned so much about her. Better off that I could live without her.” Anyone who has been dumped by someone in a dating relationship can likely relate to the task of getting over the person they’ve been dating.

“Goodbye Baby (I Don’t Want to See You Cry)” peaked at #1 in Canton (OH), #3 in Madison (WI), #4 in Fredericton (NB), Little Rock (AR), Omaha (NE), and Green Bay (WI), #5 in Vancouver (WA), and Toledo (OH), #6 in Lexington (KY), Marshfield (WI), and New Glasgow (NS), #7 in St. Louis, #8 in Jackson (MI), #9 in Edmonton (AB), and #10 in Beaumont (TX) and Orlando.

Tommy Boyce (left front) and Bobby Hart

Later in 1968, Boyce and Hart released “Alice Long”. It peaked at #27 on the Hot 100. The pair also had guest appearances on the TV shows I Dream of Jeannie, The Flying Nun, and Bewitched. They also had songs they wrote appear in the 1966 comedy-spy movie Murderer’s Row, and the 1967 comedy The Ambushers, each starring Dean Martin.

The duo also were featured in a psychedelic Coca-Cola commercial in 1969 called “Wake Up Girl”, and earlier a “Things Go Better With Coke” commercial.

In 1973, Hart cowrote “Something’s Wrong With Me”, a #12 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 for Austin Roberts. He also cowrote a Top 50 hit for Helen Reddy titled “Keep On Singing”. In 1975 Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart collaborated with former Monkees bandmates, Mickey Dolenz and Davy Jones. The foursome made two albums and the following year 1976 went on a world tour to mark the 10 Year Anniversary of the Monkees as Dolenz, Jones, Boyce & Hart.

Tommy Boyce released an album in 1973 fronting a band called Christopher Cloud. In the mid-70s, Boyce produced several hit records for the UK band The Darts. He also toured as the frontman for The Tommy Band across the UK.

After a number of years living in the UK, Boyce returned to Nashville, Tennessee, in the 1980’s and fell into a depression. A brain aneurysm added to his health troubles in 1993, and Boyce died by suicide on November 23, 1994.

Meanwhile, Bobby Hart released a single in 1980 titled “Lovers For the Night”, which stalled at #110 below the Billboard Hot 100. In 1983, he collaborated with Austin Roberts to pen “Over You”, which was featured in the Robert Duvall film Tender Mercies. He continued to perform in concert with Peter Tork of The Monkees into the mid-2010s before Tork died in 2019.

August 30, 2025
Ray McGinnis

References:
Caroline Boyce, Boyce And Hart’s Passion For Change Made A Difference, February 16, 2013.
Kent Kotal, “The Music of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart,” Forgotten Hits.com
Chris Welch, “Obituaries: Tommy Boyce,” Independent, UK, December 23, 1994
Wake Up Girl, Coca-Cola commercial, 1969.
Tommy Boyce and Tommy Hart, “Days Of Our Lives Theme tune,” 1966.
Bobby Hart and Austin Roberts ‘Best Original Song’ nomination, “56th Academy Awards,” Academy Awards, April 9, 1984.
The Monkees, “Last Train to Clarksville“, Colgems Records, 1966.
The Monkees, “Valleri“, Colgems Records, 1968.
Bobby Hart and Austin Roberts, “Over You“, Tender Mercies, Universal Pictures, 1983.
Jay & the Americans, “Come A Little Bit Closer“, United Artists, 1964.

CFNB 550-AM Fredericton (NB) Top Twenty | May 25, 1968