A soft-spoken vow in a bright room—the wish to know someone truly, carried on blended voices that feel like company more than spectacle.
Essentials up top. Song: “I Really Want to Know You.” Artist: The Partridge Family. Album: The Partridge Family Album (Bell Records, released October 1970). Writers: Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil. Length: 2:57. Recorded: May 16, 1970, at United Western (Hollywood). Not issued as a single. On the debut LP it’s one of two tracks without David Cassidy on lead, sung instead in a blended-harmony style by the Ron Hicklin Singers (John & Tom Bahler, Ron Hicklin, Jackie Ward). The album itself rose to No. 4 on Billboard’s Top LPs and earned RIAA Gold.
A small clarification collectors appreciate: while David Cassidy fronts most of the catalog, “I Really Want to Know You” is a showcase for the studio vocal team that helped define the Partridge sound from day one. On the debut LP, the credits (and later discographies) underline that the Ron Hicklin Singers carry the lead blend here (as they also do on “I’m on the Road”). It’s a distinctive footnote that explains the track’s different timbre—silkier, more choral—inside an album otherwise centered on Cassidy’s youthful ache.
The song itself comes with a proud pedigree. Written by Brill Building greats Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil, it had a life before the TV family: Jack Jones recorded it in 1968, and The Cowsills cut a version around 1970. The Partridge rendition doesn’t try to out-sing either; it simplifies the frame so the lyric’s intimate promise—I really want to know you—lands like conversation, not performance.
If you grew up with a console stereo glowing in the corner, this track sounds like evening light. Producer Wes Farrell and the Los Angeles A-team keep the arrangement unfussy: Hal Blaine’s steady pulse, Joe Osborn/Max Bennett on bass, Larry Knechtel/Mike Melvoin on keys, and guitars from Tommy Tedesco, Louie Shelton, Dennis Budimir—the classic Wrecking Crew roster that could make modest pop feel enduring. The voices sit close to the mic; the instruments leave air around the line; nothing crowds the listener. It’s the Partridge aesthetic at its best: kindness over drama.
Placed early on Side One (Track 4), the song works as a quiet thesis for the whole project. The debut LP wasn’t just TV merchandise; it was a tidy set of radio-ready pop where craft outpaced novelty. The album’s charts tell the tale—Top-5 in the U.S., Gold certification—thanks in part to “I Think I Love You,” of course, but also because the deep cuts (this one especially) gave casual listeners a reason to stay once the single ended.
On television, the song also lived on screen—exactly where Partridge music often mattered most. In Season 1, episode listings note “I Really Want to Know You” among the featured numbers (notably the week of October 30, 1970, “Love at First Slight”), which is how many fans first met it: as a gentle reset in the middle of sitcom bustle, the family band turning a room quiet for two minutes while the lyric did its work.
And what is that work? Mann and Weil write in plain speech: no grand metaphors, just a careful wish to see past the practiced smile—behind the mirror of your eyes, as earlier versions put it—and to share the dreams people don’t usually say out loud. Sung by a TV family, the idea gains an extra glow: the promise of closeness delivered in a format built for living rooms. You can almost feel the old Friday-night rhythm—dinner cleared, the set humming, a chorus tidy enough to hum along by the second pass.
The track’s feel is what older ears tend to keep. There’s no dramatic key change, no elaborate coda—just economy. The rhythm section breathes; the guitars answer in short, companionable phrases; the harmonies lift without turning syrupy. Because Cassidy isn’t on lead, the performance leans even further into ensemble warmth—the sound of people singing beside you rather than at you—which is likely why the song has remained a quiet favorite on reissues and compilations.
For the sleeve-note crowd: the album page lays out the particulars—Track 4, 2:57, recorded May 16, 1970—with personnel and the note about the two tracks not featuring Cassidy on lead. The same source confirms United Western as the studio and Wes Farrell as producer, with the Wrecking Crew core throughout. Meanwhile, episode lists anchor the song inside the show’s first-season fabric. Together, those documents explain why a non-single has stayed vivid in memory: it lived twice, on vinyl and on TV, and it felt at home in both places.
Play “I Really Want to Know You” today and the years compress. The room warms; the chorus arrives like a neighbor at the door; the promise inside the title turns into something you can believe. That’s the Partridge Family at their most durable: big feelings in a small frame, sung with courtesy, leaving just enough space for your own life to walk in and sit down.
Verified highlights: Song “I Really Want to Know You” (Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil), 2:57, recorded May 16, 1970, on The Partridge Family Album (Bell, Oct 1970), Track 4 on Side One; lead vocals by the Ron Hicklin Singers, not Cassidy; album Billboard Top LPs No. 4, RIAA Gold; featured in Season 1 episode listings (e.g., Oct 30, 1970).