SONNY AND CHER - “I Got You Babe”
(#201, 28th August 1965)
Devotees of the authentic might expect a love duet between real lovers to be particularly intense, or sincere, or believable. They are no doubt disappointed by “I Got You Babe”, where both singers sound like they’re in a radio play or running an awards show: step to the mic, deep breath, a-ha!. Sonny in particular is ridiculous - his “I guess that’s so” is solid mahogany and his wide-eyed grab at ‘romantic’ on “I got flowers…” a noble but total failure. When he tries gamely to match Cher’s natural dynamics in the coda, I sympathise, wincing.
None of this makes “I Got You Babe” anything other than a fine record. One of the things that makes bubblegum pop so infuriating for its enemies is that almost any flaw is forgiveable, even charming once the hooks have got you. This is also what makes it tough to write in detail about, of course. People complain - justifiably - that “but it’s great pop” is a rhetorical get-out-of-jail card, and sometimes all I can muster is a rueful “yup”. Sonny’s stagey shenanigans might detonate a more considered record, but this one shrugs them off. Maybe it’s the trumpet line, or the music-box keyboards, or Cher’s voice - or maybe it’s just that even Sonny can’t block the surge of goodwill as the song crescendoes to its last chorus, but as the curtain falls I find myself clapping. 7
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Frank Kogan on March 14th, 2005
Also, it’s maybe the first Dylan imitation that simply doesn’t have clue. Let’s copy “It Ain’t Me Babe.” OK, Cher, he says “babe,” you say “babe”; he leans hard on the “you,” you lean hard on the “you”; and abracadabra! Which is part of the song’s charm. (I always admired Ian Hunter for saying his ambition was to be Sonny Bono.)
Anonymous on March 14th, 2005
A deeply felt romantic duet between two lovers is Faith Hill and Tim McGraw’s “It’s Your Love.” I’ll stick with Sonny and Cher.
Alan Connor on March 15th, 2005
TS: Hippies Vs Fake HippiesI’ve always thought that the song is also working in the wake of “All I Really Want To Do”. Can’t remember why.
In a half-effort to write a lyric for a brief period many years ago, I once tried to tease out the ambiguity in “And when I’m sad, you’re a clown / And if I get scared, you’re always around”. I love the idea of a miserable person looking on as their partner gambols about in big shoes with a squirty flower.
Still not sure what my theory about The Recycling Of ’60s #1s is, especially as Groundhog Day was ’90s, not ’80s, and the use was superb.
Marcello on March 15th, 2005
What trumpet line?
Tom on March 15th, 2005
Sorry Marcello, I don’t know my brass from my elbow when it comes to identifying noises.
Anonymous on March 15th, 2005
isn’t it an oboe? in which case woodwind rather than brass.
– cis.
Tom on March 15th, 2005
Oh god.
This is why I’m going to feel much more comfortable when synths come in.
Mark Gamon on March 15th, 2005
Everything that’s been said about this record is true. Bubblegum. Cheese. Cheap imitation of Dylan. Somehow strangely charming. All correct.
For me, you missed one thing, and it has nothing to do with the record. I was 13 in 1965, and deeply impressionable. The reason this record always brings a smile to my face is the Top of the Pops performance that went with it.
It’s laughable now. I admit it. But they looked so COOL.
Anonymous on March 15th, 2005
I think this more the dia -positive of ” It Ain’t Me Babe”…( btw a great version by the Turtles maybe soon to appear )
In Toronto, I remember that this song spawned innumerable couples that used to parade around dressed in the identical mopey, hippie clothes professing, I guess ,that they had it, babe.
I got jealous , I knew that they were getting it , more frequently than I was. But what a price !
Brian C
Brian
Anonymous on March 15th, 2005
Wasn’t there a “Ready Steady Go” featuring the Rolling Stones lip-synching to “I Got You Babe”? As I recall, Keith was holding a sousaphone.
wwolfe on March 15th, 2005
I hereby renounce my anonymity.
Just out of curiosity, and given my near-complete lack of knowledge of English politics below Prime Minister, is this record the first one in this survey which features someone who later held elective office in a national legislative body?
Anonymous on March 15th, 2005
What is often elided in assessments of Sonny and Cher is that they really weren’t something-new-under-the-sun in their pseudo-hippie equipage. Rather, they were the evolutionary product of the girl-group genre that went into decline once the British Invasion hit the US. (Remember, by this time the last grand girl-group epic, “The Leader of the Pack,” is already in past tense.) Both Sonny and Cher were alumni of the Phil Spector studio, Sonny a drummer and Cher a backing vocalist who augmented the recordings of the Crystals/Darlene Love and the Blossoms and the Ronettes. The lyrics here (”They say we’re young,” “Won’t find out until we grow,” “You to wear my ring,” etc., etc., etc.) are all recyclings of the basic concepts common to the vast majority of Spector girl group songs.
The sonic “muddiness” of the Wall of Sound is missing here, but the WoS concept remains, in this case was an incredible array of instrumentation, some rarely heard on pop recordings. (You’re right, Tom–that trumpet line that is not a trumpet is perhaps the most compelling bit of the whole thing.) Perhaps what saves it from abject cheesy-ness is the perversity of such trite and banal lyrics set to the pseudo-grandiosity of the arrangement. The same, though, can often be said of opera, which, in his way, Spector was trying to emulate in the most demotic way possible. Would it be so dreadful for me to say that, all in all, it’s just another brick in the Wall of Sound?
Doctor Mod
Robin on March 16th, 2005
It’s not the first song at least partially *written* by such a person, of course (check “It’s All In The Game”, for that) but unless I’m very much mistaken none of the UK artists to have made number one ever became MPs (the highest level of the establishment reached by any of them is probably a knighthood, as received by one singer, one singer/bass player and one producer of the first 13 years’ number ones).
Marcello on March 16th, 2005
And one singer/songwriter/pianist.
Alan Connor on March 16th, 2005
Straying away from “I Got You Babe” entirely, I once had the pleasure of an exchange with Peter Kilfoyle, who was apparently in a Merseybeat band called the Hungry Is. There’s no mention of them in Sam Leach’s The Rocking City, though.
But let’s not linger here, as the pictures of Our Laughing Leader from the current issue of Word are coming back into my mind.
Dan M. on November 15th, 2007
I bought S&C’s greatest hits album at the age of 8 or 9 — the first non-Beatles album I ever bought, or maybe the first, period. But when I was about 20, and just learning to re-appreciate music that had been embarrassing in my teens — and also about irony — “I Got You Babe” came on the oldies station in the car and a friend said “it sounds like Velvet Underground,” instantly giving vintage bubble-gum the hip validity of, well, Velvet Underground. So now I hear Velvet Underground when I hear “I Got You Babe” (even before I think of “Groundhog Day,” which is saying something!)
Marcello Carlin on November 15th, 2007
I haven’t seen much talk on FT about the Sonny And Cher Show tribute on ITV last Saturday - does anyone else think that Kylie took that brief a little too literally?
FT's Lena on November 15th, 2007
I hope Ian Hunter has a better end than Sonny Bono did.