Be My Baby
| "Be My Baby" | |
|---|---|
| Song |
"Be My Baby" was a 1963 single written by Phil Spector, Jeff Barry, and Ellie Greenwich, performed by The Ronettes and produced by Spector. The drums were played by Hal Blaine.
It is one of the best-known and most enduring songs of its era, and arguably one of the great pop songs of all time: According to Rolling Stone magazine, "Be My Baby" is the 22nd greatest song of all time. Critic Jason Ankeny writes, "No less an authority than Brian Wilson has declared 'Be My Baby' the greatest pop record ever made — no arguments here."[1]
Further, to say that the song is a major influence on Brian Wilson is not an overstatement. In the late 70's, Wilson would spend days and nights holed up in his room ingesting multiple substances and listening obsessively to Spector's greatest moment. "He'd eat steaks for every meal," writes music journalist Peter Ames Carlin in Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall & Redemption of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson, "then polish off entire cakes and sacks of cookies or vats of ice cream for dessert. After that he'd sprint out to the pool, then walk around it as fast as possible for as long as possible. . . . Physically drained, he'd limp back into the house to play 'Be My Baby' for a few hours." From "The unusual life and times of Brian Wilson" By Gregory McNamee, Reuters/Hollywood Reporter, 23 August 2006
In her autobiography, Ronnie Spector 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 song has been covered many times by artists including Andy Kim (a 1969 chart hit produced by Jeff Barry), John Lennon, the Bay City Rollers, and the Glitzzi Girls. In 1986, Eddie Money's "Take Me Home Tonight" included the lyrics "Just like Ronnie sang" and Ronnie Spector herself singing part of the chorus to "Be My Baby". The song's famous drum intro is replicated on the Camera Obscura song "Eighties Fan."
Pop culture references
The song is featured on the Dirty Dancing soundtrack and in a memorable scene from the television series "Moonlighting". In Bret Easton Ellis' novel, American Psycho, Timothy Price offers to pay the cab driver five dollars if he will turn up the volume of the radio playing "Be My Baby". The Martin Scorsese epic "Mean Streets" also features a montage of street scenes and group photographs set against the Ronettes soundtrack. "Be My Baby" featured on the multi-million selling soundtrack album to the 1987 film Dirty Dancing.