Shapiro was born at Bethnal Green Hospital in the East End district of Bethnal Green, London. Her early childhood was spent in a Clapton council house in the London borough of Hackney, where she attended Northwold Primary School and Clapton Park Comprehensive School until Christmas 1961. She is the granddaughter of Russian Jewish immigrants; her parents, who were piece-workers in the garment industry, attended Lea Bridge Road Synagogue. The family moved from Clapton to the Victoria Park area of Hackney, on the Parkside Estate, when she was nine. "It was, and remains, a beautiful place," she said in a 2006 interview.
Although too poor to own a record player, Shapiro's parents encouraged music in their home (she had to borrow a neighbour's player to hear her first single). Shapiro played banjolele as a child and sang with her brother Ron occasionally in his youth club skiffle group. She had a deep timbre to her voice, unusual in a girl not yet in her teens: school friends gave her the nickname "Foghorn".
Aged ten, Shapiro was a singer with "Susie and the Hula Hoops," (with her cousin, 60s singer, Susan Singer) a school band which included Marc Bolan (then using his real name of Mark Feld) as guitarist. At 13 she started singing lessons at The Maurice Burman School of Modern Pop Singing, based in London's Baker Street, after the school produced singing star Alma Cogan. "I had always wanted to be a singer. I had no desire to slavishly follow Alma's style, but chose the school merely because of Alma's success", she said in a 1962 interview. Burman's connections eventually led her to a young Columbia Records A&R man named John Schroeder, who recorded a demo of Shapiro singing "Birth of the Blues".
In 1961, aged fourteen, she had a UK No. 3 hit with her first single, "Don't Treat Me Like a Child" and two number one hits in the UK, "You Don't Know" and "Walkin' Back to Happiness". The latter did not top the UK chart until 19 October 1961, by which time Shapiro had reached 15, on 26 September. She had a No. 2 in 1962 with "Tell Me What He Said", achieving her first four single releases in the top three of the UK Singles Chart. Most of her recording sessions were at EMI's studios at Abbey Road in north west London. Her mature voice made her an overnight sensation, as well as the youngest female chart topper in the UK.
Shapiro's final UK Top Ten hit single was with the ballad "Little Miss Lonely", which peaked at No. 8 for two weeks in 1962. Shapiro's recording manager at the time was Norrie Paramor.
Before she was sixteen years old, Shapiro had been voted Britain's "Top Female Singer". The Beatles first national tour of Britain, in the late winter/early spring of 1963, was as one of her supporting acts. During the course of the tour, the Beatles had their first hit single and John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote the song "Misery" for her, but Shapiro did not record the composition. In 1995, during a This is Your Life highlighting her life and career, Shapiro revealed, "It was actually turned down on my behalf before I ever heard it, actually. I never got to hear it or give an opinion. It's a shame, really." Shapiro lip-synched her then-current single, "Look Who It Is", on the British television programme Ready Steady Go! with three of the Beatles (John Lennon, Ringo Starr and George Harrison).
In 1962, Shapiro appeared as herself in the Billy Fury film Play It Cool, and played the lead female role in Richard Lester's movie, It's Trad, Dad!, which co-starred another early 60s hitmaker, Craig Douglas. On 31 December 1969, Shapiro appeared on the BBC/ZDF co-production Pop Go The Sixties, singing "Walkin' Back to Happiness".
By the time she was in her late teens, her career as a pop singer was on the wane. With the new wave of beat music and newer female singers such as Dusty Springfield, Cilla Black, Sandie Shaw and Lulu, Shapiro appeared old-fashioned and emblematic of the pre-Beatles, 50s era. As her pop career declined, Shapiro turned to cabaret appearances, touring the workingmen's clubs of the North East of England. Her final cabaret show took place at Peterlee's Senate Club on 6 May 1972, where she announced she was giving up touring as she was "travel-weary" and had had enough of "living out of a suitcase". Later, after a change of mind, she branched out as a performer in stage musicals, and jazz (being her first love musically).
She played the role of Nancy in Lionel Bart's musical, Oliver! in London's West End and appeared in a British television soap opera, Albion Market, where she played one of the main characters until it was taken off air in August 1986.
Between 1984 and 2001, she toured extensively with legendary British jazz trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton and his band, whilst still performing her own jazz and pop concerts. Her one-woman show "Simply Shapiro" ran from 1999 to the end of 2002, when she finally bade farewell to show business.
Her autobiography, published in 1993, was entitled Walking Back to Happiness. She appeared as a guest on BBC Radio 4's 'The Reunion' in August 2012. In March 2013 she appeared on BBC Radio 3's 'Good Morning Sunday'
Helen Shapiro has been married since 31 August 1988 to John Judd (real name, John Williams), an actor with numerous roles in British television and cinema.
Woe Is Me
Helen Shapiro Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
How can it be
I never thought that you will ever leave
And now that you are gone
And you walked out the door
I'll never see you no more
No never no more
I told you lies
that brought tears to your eyes
I thought you will forgive me
I never realised I got you so bad
That it made you so mad
Left here without you
Oh woe is me
In the song "Woe is Me", Helen Shapiro sings about the heartache of losing someone she never thought would leave. The first verse starts with her in disbelief that it's actually happening to her. The use of "How can it be" signifies her denial that the person she loved and thought would always be there for her has left. The chorus "And now that you are gone, and you walked out the door, I'll never see you no more" highlights the finality of the situation. Shapiro's repetition of "No never no more" emphasizes the permanence of the loss.
However, in the second verse, she acknowledges her own fault in the relationship. She had lied to her partner, causing them pain and tears. She thought they would be able to forgive her, as she had never realized how badly she had hurt them. Shapiro's use of the phrase "I never realized I got you so bad" shows that perhaps she was oblivious to the impact her actions were having on her partner. She ends the verse by stating that they had left her because of it, which brings her to the chorus, "Left here without you, oh woe is me."
The song expresses the sorrow and regret one feels after losing someone they loved. It shows that sometimes it takes losing someone to recognize and fully understand the impact of one's actions. Despite this song being released more than 50 years ago, it still resonates with people today who have experienced similar heartaches and painful breakups.
Line by Line Meaning
Its me
I am the one responsible for our breakup
How can it be
I never expected that our relationship would come to an end
I never thought that you will ever leave
I believed that our love was strong enough to withstand any obstacle
And now that you are gone
After the breakup, you are no longer with me
And you walked out the door
You left me, and there is nothing I can do about it
I'll never see you no more
I will never be able to see you again, no matter how much I want to
No never no more
I will never have the chance to see you again
I told you lies
I deceived you by saying things that were not true
that brought tears to your eyes
My lies hurt you deeply, causing you to cry
I thought you will forgive me
I hoped that you would be able to forgive me, even though I had hurt you
I never realised I got you so bad
I didn't realize how deeply I had hurt you
That it made you so mad
My actions caused you to become angry with me
Left here without you
After the breakup, I am alone and without you
Oh woe is me
I am experiencing great sadness and suffering because of our breakup
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
Written by: CHARLES L. STEWART, THOMAS CLAUSEN, LUCAS CHRISTIAN MACFADDEN, DANTE LAMAR GIVENS, COURTENAY HENDERSON, MARC F. STUART, MARK ALI POTSIC
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind