"You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" is the English-language version of the 1965 Italian song "Io che non vivo (senza te)", written by Pino Donaggio and Vito Pallavicini.

The Italian song was introduced at the 15th edition of the Sanremo Festival by Donaggio and his team partner Jody Miller.

On 9 March 1966, Springfield had an instrumental track of Donaggio's composition recorded at Philips Studio Marble Arch.

The session personnel included guitarist Big Jim Sullivan and drummer Bobby Graham.

Springfield still lacked an English lyric to record, but Springfield's friend Vicki Wickham, the producer of Ready Steady Go!, wrote the required English lyric with her own friend Simon Napier-Bell, manager of the Yardbirds.

Cash Box described the song as a "hauntingly plaintive slow-shufflin’ ode about an understanding gal who has no intention of tying her boyfriend down to her.

"You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" was recorded by Elvis Presley for his 1970 album release That's the Way It Is, from which it was issued as the second single 6 October 1970.

[4] The single went on to become the best-selling record of 1971 in Japan, with Oricon reporting sales of 225,000 copies, making Presley the first foreign artist in history to do so, until Michael Jackson released Thriller in 1984.