Song · The Sundays
“Can't Be Sure” by The Sundays
From the album Reading, Writing and Arithmetic (1990)
“Can't Be Sure” by The Sundays appears on 5 radio countdowns from 4 stations between 1989 and 2000. It was first released in 1990 on the album Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. Its best result is #1 on the John Peel's Festive Fifty of 1989. In the combined RockLists rankings it is the #78 alternative song of 1990, #5,231 alternative song of all time and #442 of the '80s.
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"Can't Be Sure" was the Sundays' debut single on Rough Trade, and it got a full year's head start on the album it ended up anchoring, Reading, Writing and Arithmetic, where it stayed the only British single. It's indie pop at its most quietly spellbinding: David Gavurin's guitar chiming, Paul Brindley and Patch Hannan keeping things light on their feet, and Harriet Wheeler singing like she's thinking out loud.
Wheeler and Gavurin wrote it about desire, not for anyone in particular but as a thing in itself, and by the end the narrator has made a sort of peace with wanting without solving anything. "I Kicked a Boy" sat on the flip, the 12-inch threw in "Don't Tell Your Mother", and John Peel's listeners voted it to the top of his Festive Fifty for 1989.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Alternative & Modern Rock
All Rock Formats
Year-end countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1989 | 1 | John Peel (BBC Radio 1) | John Peel's Festive Fifty of 1989 | 50 |
| 1990 | 55 | KROQ Los Angeles, CA | KROQ Top 106.7 Songs of 1990 | 107 |
| 1990 | 18 | Studio Brussel Flanders, Belgium | Studio Brussel De Eindafrekening 1990 | 30 |
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | 56 | Triple J | Triple J Hottest 100 of All-Time (1990) | 100 |
| 2000 | 47 | John Peel (BBC Radio 1) | John Peel's All-Time Festive Fifty (2000) | 50 |
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