Do You Believe in Shame?
1989 single by Duran Duran
"Do You Believe in Shame?" is a song by the English pop rock band Duran Duran, released on 10 April 1989 as the third and final single from their fifth studio album, Big Thing (1988).
Background
The song was dedicated to three of the band's deceased friends: record producer Alex Sadkin, artist Andy Warhol and Simon Le Bon's childhood friend David Miles. Le Bon has since said that "Shame" is the first part of a trilogy of songs written as a tribute to Miles, the other songs being "Ordinary World" and "Out of My Mind".
Cash Box said that the song "is a shameless ripoff of 'Suzie Q'. Same feel, same melody. And not surprisingly, it's the best thing we've heard out of D.D."
There was a successful legal challenge over the close resemblance of the melody of "Do You Believe in Shame?" to that of the Dale Hawkins classic "Suzie Q" (more famously covered by Creedence Clearwater Revival and the Rolling Stones). The writing credits were changed accordingly.
Release
"Do You Believe in Shame?" was released to coincide with the band's Electric Theatre Tour which began in Newcastle on 15 April 1989. As such, the 7" triple pack issued by EMI in the UK included tour dates on the artwork.
The song's first week of release was complicated because the original CD single was discovered to have an overlong playing time that disqualified it from some of the sales charts.
“Do You Believe in Shame?” enters the record as 1989 single by Duran Duran. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Believe, Shame and single can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Do You Believe in Shame?” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Believe, Shame and single provides the most credible route into that argument.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5286318. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1989 and 1988.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Do You Believe in Shame?”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Do You Believe in Shame? primary sources, Do You Believe in Shame? archive and Believe research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Do You Believe in Shame?”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Do You Believe in Shame?” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.