It Was 50 Years Ago Today: “I Got You Babe” by Sonny & Cher
August 18, 1965
“I Got You Babe” by Sonny & Cher
#1 on the Billboard Hot 100, August 14 – September 3, 1965
In the early ‘60s, folk music and rock ‘n’ roll were mortal enemies: the former, the “authentic” genre for mature, thoughtful college students/pretentious hipsters; the latter, for superficial teenyboppers and juvenile delinquents. Nevertheless, the two styles of music crossed over more than partisans might have liked to acknowledge. During the British Invasion, the Animals scored a hit with a traditional American song (“House of the Rising Sun”), while the Searchers developed a jingle-jangle guitar sound more intricate than the clanging power chords of many of their contemporaries.
By the mid-’60s, the two seemingly divergent genres merged to create one of the most influential musical movements of the decade: folk rock. The nascent genre made its big break in 1965: Dylan went electric, the Byrds scored two #1 pop hits (“Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Turn! Turn! Turn!”), and even the Beatles delved into the style on Help! and Rubber Soul. The British Invasion was still going strong, but now America had its own homegrown competition, based on traditional song structures, thoughtful lyrics, and crisp, melodic guitars.
The true sign of the success of a new trend, however, is when it trickles down from the innovators and early adopters into the wider realm of pop culture. Married couple/pop duo Sonny & Cher looked the part of West Coast folk rockers, with their long hair, bell bottoms, and copious amounts of suede fringe. They borrowed liberally from Dylan — Sonny Bono channeled his nasal squawk, while Cher scored a solo hit earlier in the summer of 1965 with a cover of “All I Really Want to Do,” elbowing out a version released by the Byrds themselves. And for the duo’s first and biggest hit, they turned “It Ain’t Me, Babe,” inside out, inverting it from a kiss-off to a declaration of eternal love.
But while “I Got You Babe” is flavored with the spirit of ’65, its core is the sort of lush teen pop balladry that had ruled the airwaves earlier in the decade. No surprise, then, that the duo had studied under producer Phil Spector: Sonny as a production assistant (who also co-wrote “Needles and Pins” with fellow Spector alum Jack Nitzsche), and Cher as a back-up singer, appearing on such tracks as the Ronettes’ immortal “Be My Baby.”
When Sonny stepped into the producer’s chair on his own, he brought along his former mentor’s bag of tricks. With its low-rent Wall of Sound arrangement and grownups-don’t-understand sentiment, “I Got You Babe” sounds an awful lot like a Righteous Brothers record if they crooned Crystals lyrics to each other. The instrumentation is heavier on woodwinds and bells than on folk rock’s signature jangly guitars, while the orchestral build and false ending confirm that Sonny picked up on his mentor’s grasp of dynamics. That the arrangement is more stripped down than Spector’s usual aural onslaught is less a failure of ambition than a concession to the new era of rock.
The success of “I Got You Babe” owes a lot to Sonny & Cher’s keen ability to straddle both sides of the newly forming generation gap. The duo adopted elements of dress and slang from the nascent hippie movement but were also a devoted married couple who publically abstained from drug use. “I Got You Babe” boasts mildly rebellious lines like “Don’t let them say your hair’s too long,” but a musical arrangement that’s pure lush pop. Folk rock’s own Steve and Eydie may have come across as lightweights to their more serious brethren, but their pop-friendly accessibility helped bring a highminded, artistic musical movement to the masses and cement it as part of the popular culture.
It Was 50 Years Ago Today examines a song, album, movie, or book that was #1 on the charts exactly half a century ago.
