Be My Baby
"Be My Baby" is a song written by Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich, and Phil Spector and recorded by the American girl group the Ronettes. It was released in August 1963 as the Ronettes' debut on Philles Records and became their biggest hit, reaching number 2 in the U.S. and Canada, and number 4 in the UK.
Spector produced the song in his Wall of Sound style at Gold Star Studios in Hollywood with the group of session musicians later known as the Wrecking Crew. It marked the first time that he recorded with a full orchestra. Ronnie Spector is the only Ronette that appears on the track. In 1964, it appeared on their album Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes.
A significant influence on music production, "Be My Baby" is sometimes ranked among the all-time greatest songs in popular music. It influenced many artists, most notably the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson, who wrote the answer song "Don't Worry Baby". Many others have replicated or recreated Hal Blaine's central drum phrase, considered to be one of the most recognizable in pop music.
The song has been played on radio and television over 3 million times and has returned to the U.S. top 40 via cover versions by Andy Kim and Jody Miller. In 2006, the Library of Congress inducted the Ronettes' recording into the National Recording Registry.
Background and lyrics
"Be My Baby" was written by Phil Spector, Jeff Barry, and Ellie Greenwich at Spector's office in Los Angeles. Early in 1963, Spector auditioned a vocal trio – composed of sisters Veronica and Estelle Bennett with their cousin Nedra Talley – who were performing under the names "Ronnie and the Relatives" and "the Ronettes". Impressed by Ronnie's lead on an impromptu performance of the 1956 hit "Why Do Fools Fall in Love", Spector offered an original song for the group to record, "Why Don't They Let Us Fall in Love". They recorded the song at Gold Star Studios, but Spector withheld its release, as he had felt that the group needed more time to refine their stage act.Unlike other pop songs, the lyrics describe a woman vying for the attention of a man who she infantilizes, a dynamic that is usually reversed. Music journalist Marc Spitz interpreted this "bold" subject matter as essentially "as much about power and control as it is about romance."
Spector, then struggling with marital issues, had developed a romantic fixation on Ronnie at this time. Darlene Love stated that "Be My Baby" was a means for Spector to declare his love to Ronnie before he married her in 1968. It was his last record that had "Phil + Annette", referring to his then-wife Annette Merar, inscribed onto the run-out groove.
Composition
"Be My Baby" is in the key of E major and its instrumental palette includes piano, guitars, brass, shakers, castanets, bass, handclaps, strings, and drums. The recording opens with two bars of a drum beat with prominent reverb; the snare drum, striking on the fourth beat of each bar until the chorus, is augmented by woodblock, tambourine, and handclaps. The third bar introduces the full rhythm section, with shakers and a repeated octave E figure on every eighth note contributing to the driving rhythm, in addition to a contrapuntal three-note riff played by the bass and piano section.The lead vocal enters on the fifth measure as the verse chord progression repeats an E–F♯m–B sequence twice. The spatial mixing places the vocal apart from the instruments, creating a sense of closer proximity to the listener through its shorter reverberation. Producer Brian Eno described this effect as rendering Ronnie's voice akin to "a little bee" inside an "enormous, huge sonic picture". According to author and musician Virgil Moorefield, "The words are sung against the backdrop of a sonic landscape suggestive of fantasy and desire as the song builds toward the climactic chorus."
After the two verses repeat, the harmonic progression shifts through G♯7–C♯7–F#–B7. The entry of a horn section, centered on a baritone saxophone, accentuates the V chord through a descending line that resolves to the chorus, which consists of a standard I–vi–IV–V doo-wop progression. Here, a pronounced backbeat emerges as the snare drum strikes on the second beat of each bar and the castanets, reduced in audibility, adopt a more active flamenco pattern. The backing vocals assume the melodic line from the verse from which ornamental flourishes are sung by the lead vocal. Author Rikky Rooksby writes that, in addition to the "dry and upfront vocal... those carefully rehearsed wha-ah-oh-ohs, along with the vast sound, make the record what it is."
The song repeats its verse and chorus – the former with added backing vocals – before segueing to a bridge section that consists of the verse's lead melody substituted with violins and violas. The chorus then recurs for eight bars; an abrupt halt follows, during which the drums play the opening two-bar pattern in isolation before the full chorus resumes. The final fade-out features the drums playing fills on every second bar.
Recording
Spector produced "Be My Baby" on July 29, 1963, at Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles with his de facto house band, later known as "the Wrecking Crew". It was the first time Spector recorded with a full orchestra at Gold Star. According to Brown, Spector was "determined to make his most towering production yet" and summoned "the full complement of his troops in Gold Star — battalions of pianos and guitars, brass, strings, the full regiment of backing singers".File:Hal Blaine in 1995.jpg|thumb|left|Wrecking Crew musician Hal Blaine played drums on "Be My Baby"
The song was arranged by Spector regular Jack Nitzsche and engineered by Larry Levine. Guitars on the session were played by Tommy Tedesco and Bill Pitman, after whom the instrumental "Tedesco and Pitman" on the B-side of the single was named. According to Brown, the opening drum beat, played by Hal Blaine, was suggested by Nitzsche. However, Blaine stated, "That famous drum intro was an accident. I was supposed to play the snare on the second beat as well as the fourth, but I dropped a stick. Being the faker I was in those days, I left the mistake in and it became: 'Bum-ba-bum-BOOM!' And soon everyone wanted that beat."
Owing to Spector's perfectionism, the band rehearsed the song for four hours in the studio before the tape recorders were turned on. One of the four keyboard players, Michael Spencer, recalled, "That session took three and a half hours. There's this pause towards the end of the song where the drums go boom-ba-boom-boom before the song picks up again. I remember that by the fortieth or forty-first take I was so punchy, I played right through it, and we had to do it again. And that subsequent take was the one Phil used."
Ronnie – the only Ronette who appears on the record – overdubbed her lead vocal within a day after the backing track had been completed. She spent the previous three days preparing for the session. Ronnie remembered, "I was so shy that I'd do all my vocal rehearsals in the studio's ladies' room, because I loved the sound I got in there. People talk about how great the echo chamber was at Gold Star, but they never heard the sound in that ladies' room... That's where all the little 'whoa-ohs' and 'oh-oh-oh-ohs' you hear on my records were born." She said that when she sang the song at the session, "the band went nuts. I was 18 years old, 3,000 miles from home, and had all these guys saying I was the next Billie Holiday."
Nitzsche praised Ronnie's vibrato, saying, "That was her strong point. When that tune was finished, the speakers were turned up so high in the booth that people had to leave the room." Levine said, "We didn't have to work hard to get Ronnie's performance, but we had to work hard to satisfy Phil. He'd spend an inordinate amount of time working on each section and playing it back before moving on to the next one, and that was very hard for the singers."
Sonny Bono and Cher were among the backing vocalists. Cher stated in a television interview, "I was just hanging out with Son , and one night Darlene didn't show up, and Philip looked at me and he was getting really cranky, y'know. Philip was not one to be kept waiting. And he said, 'Sonny said you can sing?' And so, as I was trying to qualify what I felt my... 'expertise' was, he said, 'Look I just need noise – get out there!' I started as noise, and that was 'Be My Baby'."
Release and commercial performance
"Be My Baby" was released by Philles Records in August 1963 and reached number 2 on the Billboard Pop Singles Chart by the end of the summer. It also topped the Canadian CHUM Chart during a four-week stay. In the UK, it was issued by London Recordings in October and peaked at number 4 on Record Retailer. By the end of the year, the single had sold more than two million copies.In her autobiography, Ronnie relates that she was on tour with Joey Dee and the Starlighters when "Be My Baby" was introduced by Dick Clark on American Bandstand as the "Record of the Century." The Ronettes' first royalty cheque for the song totaled $14,000. It remains the Ronettes' most successful song; although the group enjoyed several more top 40 hits, they sold at underwhelming volumes compared to "Be My Baby". In later interviews, Ronnie cited "Be My Baby" as one of her top five favorite songs in her catalog: "I loved it so much, the sweat and the tears and the sex appeal, everything."
A live rendition of "Be My Baby" was performed by the Ronettes on the 1966 rock concert film The Big TNT Show, for which Spector was the musical director and associate producer.
Musical impact and legacy
Popular music and record production
Sometimes ranked among the finest recordings in the history of popular music, "Be My Baby" became widely regarded as Spector's most significant achievement. Biographer and music journalist Richard Williams wrote it "nailed the idea of the Wall of Sound to the consciousness of every teenage pop fan", while musicologist John Covach reported that although brief and simple in form, the record created “an aural impression of grandness of scale” that distinguished it from other radio hits and “made an enormous impression” within the industry. Moorefield deemed the production to be "the Wall of Sound at its finest."The song was a major influence on artists such as the Beatles and the Beach Boys, who went on to innovate with their own studio productions. AllMusic's Jason Ankeny noted in his review of the song that "No less an authority than Brian Wilson has declared 'Be My Baby' the greatest pop record ever made—no arguments here." Producer Steve Levine compared the track's impact on sound design to that of the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations", 10cc's "I'm Not in Love", and Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody".
Many subsequent popular songs have replicated or recreated the drum phrase, considered to be one of the most recognizable in popular music. Producer Rick Nowels, who lifted the drum beat for a Lana Del Rey song, said, "'Be My Baby,' for me, is Ground Zero for the modern pop era. it was a line in the sand that left everything that came before in the rear view mirror. It was the beginning of pop music being a serious American art form."
"Be My Baby" has been included on numerous critics' rankings. In 2006, it was ranked number 6 on Pitchforks list "The 200 Best Songs of the 1960s". NME ranked it number 2 on its 2012 list of the "100 Best Songs of the 1960s" and number 9 on its 2014 list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". In 2016, Paste ranked the song at number 11 on its list "The 100 Best Songs of the 1960s". In 2024, Rolling Stone ranked the song at number 22 on its list "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".
In 2006, the Library of Congress inducted the Ronettes' recording into the National Recording Registry. In 2016, Barbara Cane, vice president and general manager of writer-publisher relations for the songwriters' agency BMI, estimated that the song had been played in 3.9 million feature presentations on radio and television since 1963, "the equivalent of 17 years back to back."