Speaker 1: Welcome to five hundred Greatest Songs, a podcast based on
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones hugely popular, influential, and sometimes controversial list.
Speaker 2: I'm Britney Spanas and I'm Rob Sheffield.
Speaker 3: We're here to shed light on the greatest songs ever
Speaker 3: made and discover what makes them so great. This week,
Speaker 3: we're diving into an all time favorite for both of us,
Speaker 3: Be My Baby by the ron Nets.
Speaker 1: A song that actually maintained its ranking on the two
Speaker 1: thousand and four list into the twenty twenty one list.
Speaker 2: It stayed at number twenty.
Speaker 1: Two on both lists, which is like pretty remarkable that
Speaker 1: I was able to maintain that between the two votes.
Speaker 2: But this song is such an all time classic.
Speaker 1: It's such a foundation for a lot of artists, a
Speaker 1: lot of.
Speaker 2: Great pop music.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that the references alone are endless,
Speaker 1: Like that's an entire separate episode of us talking about
Speaker 1: every single song and artists that has referenced the drum
Speaker 1: beat or you know, the Woo's or the Ronnie's or anything.
Speaker 1: But it's such an excellent, perfect, perfect girl group song.
Speaker 3: It's absolutely phenomenal, a song that, like you said, the
Speaker 3: drumbeat alone, you hear that in every genre of music.
Speaker 3: Every band does there be My Baby. How many movies begin,
Speaker 3: you know, with that drum intro? How many albums, how
Speaker 3: many careers begin with that drum intro. It's just part
Speaker 3: of the universal language of pop music. It's as universal
Speaker 3: as a pop song can be, and it never sounds dated.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean also just the vocals of Ronnie
Speaker 1: on the song Rispector. I mean, she is like just
Speaker 1: the ultimate ultimate rock and roll girl, Like she is
Speaker 1: just so cool and her voice is just like so
Speaker 1: edgy and rob but also so pure in that kind
Speaker 1: of perfect girl groupy way. And I mean she just
Speaker 1: really carries so much of the charisma of the song
Speaker 1: and makes it work so well. And again a foundation
Speaker 1: for a lot of artists, a lot of artists, especially
Speaker 1: after her passing last year, I mean, I think a
Speaker 1: lot of artists. The tributes came pouring in about how
Speaker 1: much she had impacted who they were and who they
Speaker 1: wanted to be as performer, and it's very clear.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, she had such an amazing and long
Speaker 3: career as a phenomenal vocalist. But really, even if we
Speaker 3: were just this one song, her vocals in this song
Speaker 3: alone just transformed music. In so many ways, so many
Speaker 3: individual moments in this song spawned entire careers. You know,
Speaker 3: you listen to this line, it's like, oh, everything Brice
Speaker 3: Springsteen ever did, never aspired to do, came out of
Speaker 3: this line.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And you know, everything Brian Wilson wanted to do came
Speaker 3: out of this line. And you know, just the influences
Speaker 3: all over music, from goth to metal to hip hop
Speaker 3: to everything. There's just this deep be my Baby Ronnie
Speaker 3: Spector passion running through it.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the song was written in nineteen sixty three by
Speaker 1: Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich, and Phil Spector. Jeff and Ellie
Speaker 1: Actually they had the most songs written by a non
Speaker 1: performing duo on the two thousand and four list. They
Speaker 1: had six songs. They wrote so many incredible classics. Chapel
Speaker 1: of Love is a number one favorite of from the
Speaker 1: Hurricanon and River Deep, Mountain High and so many others.
Speaker 2: And they wrote this song and.
Speaker 1: Phil Spector was auditioning this new girl group that was
Speaker 1: of course Ronnie and her sister and her cousin. And
Speaker 1: they were signed to the Phillies label, which is Phil
Speaker 1: Spector's label. And you know, they were not really ready
Speaker 1: yet for a while they kind of withheld their first
Speaker 1: couple of singles and wasn't really sure that they were
Speaker 1: totally radio ready, performance ready, but then gave them Be
Speaker 1: My Baby, and the rest is history. Of course, Ronnie
Speaker 1: really carries this song, and this is a song that
Speaker 1: exemplifies so much of the wall of sound that Phil
Speaker 1: Spector is known for, and you know, just in the
Speaker 1: way that they recorded it. I loved reading an anecdote
Speaker 1: from Ronnie that she said that it's a lot about
Speaker 1: the studio, but she also recorded a lot of the
Speaker 1: vocals in the ladies bathroom at the studio, and she said,
Speaker 1: there's a lot to say about the acoustics in that
Speaker 1: lady's bathroom.
Speaker 3: Total in your memoir, which everybody should run out of,
Speaker 3: it's one of the all time great rock memoirs. But
Speaker 3: she's a great She's like, you know, the lady's room
Speaker 3: sounded better than the studio. She's like, people talk about
Speaker 3: the great echo in the studio, but it was even
Speaker 3: better in the bathroom. A story that I love. I mean,
Speaker 3: as you say, her vocal is so key to the
Speaker 3: whole thing that she was flying out to la to
Speaker 3: do it. It was the first time she'd ever been
Speaker 3: on a plane. She was with her mom, she was terrified,
Speaker 3: she was just a kid, And she went into the
Speaker 3: bathroom at LaGuardia before the plane took off and just
Speaker 3: sang that song over and over again in that bathroom
Speaker 3: to just rehearse her vocals. And it's really funny that
Speaker 3: the ambience of you know, singing that song to yourself
Speaker 3: in the bathroom is such a like she could hear. Yes, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm not sure they've they've remodeled those those bathrooms since then.
Speaker 2: But it's had to keep the same. Yes, you never
Speaker 2: know when the next my baby is going to be exactly.
Speaker 3: It's a sacred part of world cultural history. But it's
Speaker 3: well that every detail of the recording is so perfectly engineered,
Speaker 3: so precisely arranged and everything, but it all comes down
Speaker 3: to that vocal. Yeah, that it's the absolute realness and
Speaker 3: rawness of you know, this teenage girl just absolutely like
Speaker 3: blowing the roof off.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And this is a song by the Ryas that is
Speaker 1: just it's just Ronnie Spector singing on it. But also
Speaker 1: a favorite fun fact of mine is that Sonny and
Speaker 1: Cher saying background vocals because they were in the studio
Speaker 1: and Darling Love wasn't in that day and they were
Speaker 1: recording with Phil Spector and ended up getting doing just
Speaker 1: a little bit of background vocals on the song, which
Speaker 1: I love knowing that that Share is somewhere somewhere deep
Speaker 1: in the in the mix.
Speaker 3: I love that. Yes, it's funny, that's a story that
Speaker 3: there's some some dispute over its veracity. But I really
Speaker 3: feel like I personally always hear Share, you know, just
Speaker 3: somewhere in the background. Yeah, but like just Ronnie as
Speaker 3: someone you know, you can definitely tell this is not
Speaker 3: a trained voice. This is not somebody who's been doing
Speaker 3: the voice lessons, This is not somebody who has a
Speaker 3: lot of live experience. This is just a kid who
Speaker 3: listens to music on the radio, sings along with it,
Speaker 3: and you know, realizes this is her big moment. You
Speaker 3: can hear that she's terrified. In terms of like the
Speaker 3: great vocals, we can hear how scared the singer is.
Speaker 3: There's you know, some of the all time greats are
Speaker 3: like that, and you could definitely hear that in her
Speaker 3: voice that she is really nervous. All her emotions are
Speaker 3: on edge, and that comes across in absolutely every part
Speaker 3: of it. Her vibrato, the way she hits all those
Speaker 3: high notes just incredible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's just kind of the perfect rock
Speaker 1: and roll song.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: It's like the just all of those the levels of
Speaker 1: the harmonies, and just the way that I mean obviously
Speaker 1: the production being that wall sound production, that kind of
Speaker 1: room filling sort of acoustic kind of you know, you
Speaker 1: play it on the stereo and it kind of takes
Speaker 1: over your entire car home when you're listening to it.
Speaker 1: Just the fact that she's able to kind of really
Speaker 1: transcend so much of already like a really great kind
Speaker 1: of wrecking crew kind of performance beneath it and just
Speaker 1: like make it so much more powerful and make it
Speaker 1: kind of the voice as her as this like beautiful
Speaker 1: centerpiece to it, and just kind of like cuts.
Speaker 2: Through all of that.
Speaker 1: Like the minute that she starts singing, like that drum
Speaker 1: beat at the beginning, you're like immediately forget about it,
Speaker 1: and then it comes back You're like, oh, yeah, that
Speaker 1: was also amazing. Yeah, when the trump beat returns at
Speaker 1: the end, you're like, oh, yes, I almost forgot that.
Speaker 1: We just started off with that excellent intro and we're
Speaker 1: so distracted by Ronnie's like perfect performance of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's great because the drum is pure confidence.
Speaker 3: You know, of course it's one of the ultraime great drummers,
Speaker 3: hal Blaine, the rhythm of the Wrecking Crew, and this
Speaker 3: is you know, a pro who absolutely knows what he's doing.
Speaker 3: This beat is, you know, the center of the hal
Speaker 3: Blaine legend. This is when people talk about how greaty is.
Speaker 3: This is the song, but it's well that that is
Speaker 3: such a contrast with Ronnie, who is really sounds like
Speaker 3: she's winging it and like while she's singing it, she's
Speaker 3: not sure how it's coming across to people, but she's
Speaker 3: absolutely putting her heart into it, and you can really
Speaker 3: hear that she's putting herself on the line.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think especially in the context of like so
Speaker 1: much much of the kind of like fifties and sixties
Speaker 1: sort of girl group kind of song energies that were
Speaker 1: happy at that time, Like there is so much of
Speaker 1: that lyrically, the sort of confidence that's happening from the
Speaker 1: way that the perspective that Ronnie's singing from, like this
Speaker 1: character who is like you know, be mine, Like it's
Speaker 1: like very much like very forward in terms of kind
Speaker 1: of the more kind of submissiveness of a lot of
Speaker 1: the characters that we see in a lot of the
Speaker 1: songs from this time, especially sung by women, Like it's
Speaker 1: very I know, she's able to kind of carry that
Speaker 1: in such a perfect way where it is that kind
Speaker 1: of rock and rollness of her voice and that kind
Speaker 1: of brashness of the way that she sings, and that
Speaker 1: you know, she doesn't need to like be the sort
Speaker 1: of like super perfect kind of image of what we
Speaker 1: thought a pop star could be, and she kind of
Speaker 1: carries it so well in terms of even just the
Speaker 1: messaging of the song being so unique and different to
Speaker 1: what we were used to hearing at the time.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, it's so true, Like, I mean, you're so one
Speaker 3: hundred percent right about how it really contrasts with how
Speaker 3: a lot of the singers from that era were, i
Speaker 3: mean cross especially the young female ones. And there's no
Speaker 3: hesitation in what she's singing, and there's no real calculation
Speaker 3: in it either. You can hear her confidence build line
Speaker 3: by line the moment in the first verse where she's
Speaker 3: just kind of warming and then she says, we'll make
Speaker 3: them turn their heads every place we go and I
Speaker 3: feel like that's the moment where she really snaps into
Speaker 3: being Ronnie Specter and yeah, it's like, wow, no, this
Speaker 3: is where she's absolutely the confidence is surging at this point,
Speaker 3: and it's really amazing to hear how that spirit has
Speaker 3: really defined the song through the years, through the decades,
Speaker 3: through the generations, in every culture. It's really amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And what are some of your favorite I mean,
Speaker 1: I can think of like a million different references I
Speaker 1: really love that have been made to the song directly,
Speaker 1: whether it's to Ronnie or to the beat or anything.
Speaker 1: But what are some of your favorite kind of uses
Speaker 1: of the song or influences of the song that have
Speaker 1: existed in pop music?
Speaker 3: I love it because it's everywhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So, you know one of the all time great albums
Speaker 3: of the eighties Psycho Candy by The Jesus and Mary Chain,
Speaker 3: and the way that it begins with that beat and
Speaker 3: that you know, the Jesus and Mary Chan are saying like, yes,
Speaker 3: we're really depressive Scottish boys. We haven't seen the sunlight
Speaker 3: in years because we can't see through our hair, and
Speaker 3: this is how we're going to present ourselves to the
Speaker 3: world in this feedback drenched version of the Be My
Speaker 3: Baby beat, and it's such a beautiful statement about all
Speaker 3: their goals and all their aspirations. I love how the
Speaker 3: Jesus and Mary Chain song comes in at the end
Speaker 3: of Lost in Translation, when Scarlet's in the back of
Speaker 3: the taxi having her moment, and you could really tell that,
Speaker 3: you know, it's not just the Jesus and Mary Chain
Speaker 3: that she's hearing in her head in that scene, she's
Speaker 3: really like listening to Ronnie Spector in that scene. That's
Speaker 3: how it feels. And I really think so if your
Speaker 3: couple used it self consciously that way, and now I
Speaker 3: know you love to all time kings of eighties hair
Speaker 3: metal Poison with their debut album Look What the Cat
Speaker 3: Drag In. And I love how that album begins with
Speaker 3: cry Tough, which is just, you know, the be My
Speaker 3: Baby Be beat and a very be my Baby type
Speaker 3: of pop love song. And it's funny because you know,
Speaker 3: for me as a team who like, I really loved
Speaker 3: the Jesus and Mary Chain album and I love the
Speaker 3: Poison album and the Camera out around the same time.
Speaker 3: They did not have overlapping audiences, but I love that
Speaker 3: these two bands that were opposite in so many ways
Speaker 3: and from thousands of miles apart and totally different record collections,
Speaker 3: but this is where they met. They all wanted to
Speaker 3: be Ronnie Spector.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I really love the drum beat sample on Lana
Speaker 1: Delray's Love is a favorite of mine.
Speaker 2: I think that one. I think she's also.
Speaker 1: Like Lana is obviously so heavily influenced by Ronnie and
Speaker 1: the Ronettes, and I mean just kind of like all that,
Speaker 1: and obviously that song in particular is like her most
Speaker 1: direct homage to Ronnie Spector, and have you seen Lana
Speaker 1: live before? And kind of just the presentation that she
Speaker 1: does with like sixties girl group energy and like the
Speaker 1: dancers and everything.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I love that sample on there.
Speaker 1: And even just like the songs that kind of offhanded
Speaker 1: reference it, Like there's an Arctic Monkey song that sort
Speaker 1: of references the Mean Streets opening scene with be My
Speaker 1: Baby on it that I really love, and also the
Speaker 1: theory that Night Moves is supposed to reference Be My Baby,
Speaker 1: even though he gets the year wrong in it, like
Speaker 1: starts singing a song from nineteen sixty two. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that I love just kind of like how
Speaker 1: ingrained into our pop culture, into our own consciousness.
Speaker 2: Of like pop music.
Speaker 1: This song is that just like it's kind of just
Speaker 1: an offhanded reference now just for so many musicians to
Speaker 1: make on there to signify a certain point or a
Speaker 1: certain type of like love song that they're referencing, or
Speaker 1: nostalgia or anything like that.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I mean so many careers come out of this song,
Speaker 3: legendary careers. You think about Bruce Springsteen, who I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 3: but his whole sensibility you can hear Be my Baby.
Speaker 3: You would absolutely be able to convince somebody that just
Speaker 3: based on the first three Springsteen albums, that Be my
Speaker 3: Baby could very well be the only song he'd ever heard.
Speaker 3: Obviously there's a lot of music going into those albums,
Speaker 3: but his commitment to that kind of style of an
Speaker 3: ordinary kid with an ordinary voice, just like absolutely putting
Speaker 3: all their heart into it and coming up with something extraordinary.
Speaker 3: The song itself born to Run. It's just a very
Speaker 3: obvious answer song to Be My Baby. It doesn't echo
Speaker 3: the drum beat, but that passion is absolutely coming straight
Speaker 3: from Being My Baby. But so many other bands, especially
Speaker 3: the punk rock groups that pretty much emerged entirely from
Speaker 3: this song, thinking especially of the New York Dolls and
Speaker 3: the Ramones, who were both obsessed with this song. They're
Speaker 3: obsessed with girl group rock in general. Gold group pat
Speaker 3: from the early sixties so formative for punk rock bands
Speaker 3: from everywhere. But it's all how the New York Boys,
Speaker 3: they really the New York Dolls just wanted to be
Speaker 3: Ronnie Spector. They wanted to dress like her, they wanted
Speaker 3: to sing like her, they wanted to feel as deep
Speaker 3: as she did. And you know, you listen to those
Speaker 3: Dolls albums and it's like, yeah, they are absolutely going
Speaker 3: for a true Veronica Bennett realness. And the Ramones, of course,
Speaker 3: Or She became very close with Joey Ramon and they
Speaker 3: had just a wonderful musical partnership in what turned out
Speaker 3: to be the later years for both of them. But
Speaker 3: it's just really beautiful that the way that they collaborated,
Speaker 3: since you know, everything the Ramones did comes from somewhere
Speaker 3: and be.
Speaker 1: My Baby, Yeah, yeah, I mean, I love how much
Speaker 1: of that like punk rock connection to all of those
Speaker 1: like sixties girl groups, especially obviously Ronnie being sort of
Speaker 1: the leader of that pack, you know, that sort of
Speaker 1: like star of sort of the ideal kind of like
Speaker 1: punk aesthetic of that. I always kind of like love
Speaker 1: that connection because I feel like it's sort of almost
Speaker 1: kind of i know, underrated, and when we talk about
Speaker 1: the general sense of punk in the seventies and the
Speaker 1: late seventies, and I think that's such a special connection
Speaker 1: that all those bands had to that genre of music,
Speaker 1: but especially to her and to her performance, because she
Speaker 1: was so punk rock and just everything about her her
Speaker 1: presence was so punk rock.
Speaker 3: I mean, the Beatles and the Stones were both they
Speaker 3: were both very close to the run, but they both
Speaker 3: were groups of English boys who really wanted to be
Speaker 3: Ronnie Spector. Famously, when the Beatles were in New York
Speaker 3: for the first time sixty years ago, John Lennon spent
Speaker 3: his first night in New York listening to the radio
Speaker 3: stations because we're back in England they only had two
Speaker 3: stations and calling them up and asking them to play
Speaker 3: the Ronettes, And you know, that was the person they
Speaker 3: were really excited to meet when they came to New York. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and they did a lot of hanging out with the
Speaker 3: Ronettes over the years. Ronnie says in her book, She's
Speaker 3: a great story about taking them up to Spanish Harlem
Speaker 3: where they could just you know, go to get food,
Speaker 3: because she said nobody in the neighborhood would recognize them,
Speaker 3: like they just think that they were just a bunch
Speaker 3: of like ordinary long haired dudes, like guys were their
Speaker 3: hair long in that neighborhood, and she's like, none of
Speaker 3: them cared about English rock and rollers. So yeah, but
Speaker 3: it's wild to think. You know, David Bowie, someone who
Speaker 3: very self consciously, you know, aspired to be my baby
Speaker 3: miss in everything he did, constantly talked about Ronnie Spector
Speaker 3: as a fascination and inspiration for him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and of course Brian Wilson was, oh, so it
Speaker 1: is so in love with the song.
Speaker 2: He loves it so much, and I love the story.
Speaker 2: The first time he heard it, he had to.
Speaker 1: Pull off the road just to like listen to it
Speaker 1: and analyze it and think about it and just every
Speaker 1: story about you know, him sort of imitating that drum
Speaker 1: beat and playing in and talking about, you know, just
Speaker 1: the fact that this is the greatest song of all
Speaker 1: time to him and such a major impact on his
Speaker 1: own music, kind of shifting the way he thought about
Speaker 1: what music could be or kind of the way to
Speaker 1: write pop music and writing his own response songs.
Speaker 2: To it over the course of his career.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I love every story about his sort of
Speaker 1: just like deep deep obsession with with be My Baby.
Speaker 3: Yes, and it's such a beautiful Colin response. Today happens
Speaker 3: to be the day that the new Beyonce album, Cowboy
Speaker 3: Carter has dropped, so all day I've been obsessed with
Speaker 3: the moment on that album, as I know you're obsessed
Speaker 3: with it too, where Beyonce just starts singing good Vibrations,
Speaker 3: which is such a great like I don't know a reference,
Speaker 3: but you think about where that song comes from. It
Speaker 3: comes very much from Brian Wilson listening to a black
Speaker 3: girl saying on the radio and you know, hearing his
Speaker 3: own story echoed in her voice, and that you know,
Speaker 3: Beyonce's moving that story forward into such a typically brilliant
Speaker 3: and scholarly way in pop girl music. Today, a Taylor
Speaker 3: Swift song that I Know you love, Hey Steven, which
Speaker 3: is a song that we both love and has that
Speaker 3: great moment where it just pauses for the be My
Speaker 3: Baby beat, and it's really great because it's just brilliantly
Speaker 3: poised in the song just to say you know, we're
Speaker 3: just going to have a moment, a moment for Ronnie.
Speaker 3: And it's just such a beautiful affirmation of that continuity
Speaker 3: through the years with Ronnie Specter and her so many
Speaker 3: great inheritors. It's wild just to think in terms of
Speaker 3: one specific song, take Me Home Tonight by any Money,
Speaker 3: And it's so funny that that song in itself has
Speaker 3: such a bizarrely long afterlife. I think if you went
Speaker 3: back in time to the eighties and told people forty
Speaker 3: years from now, you will here take Me Home Tonight constantly,
Speaker 3: just in the course of the day, like you can't
Speaker 3: you know, you can't get into a cab or you know,
Speaker 3: shot for shoes or you know, like by toothpaste at
Speaker 3: the front seat, You're just always going to hear that song,
Speaker 3: which is really kind of mind blowing considering this song
Speaker 3: is very specifically about, you know, listening to be My
Speaker 3: Baby and Eddie Money. Part of the beauty of this
Speaker 3: song is the way Eddie Money himself just you know,
Speaker 3: kind of like ordinary guy, ordinary voice, but a heartful
Speaker 3: of soul like Ronnie Spector, and that he just is
Speaker 3: beat just like Ronnie saying be my little baby, and
Speaker 3: she comes on to sing, and it's really wild that
Speaker 3: that happened at a time when she hadn't had a
Speaker 3: new record or much less a hit in an awful
Speaker 3: long time, and yet that became such a huge part
Speaker 3: of her legend. The fact that the song was inescapable
Speaker 3: so much comes from the fact that, you know, there's
Speaker 3: this other major song that just says just like Ronnie saying,
Speaker 3: be my little baby. And it's so wild how that
Speaker 3: is so biquity seen itself.
Speaker 1: You know, like it's like one of those songs where
Speaker 1: it's like, not only is a song amazing, and like,
Speaker 1: you know, again, like we've talked about so many songs
Speaker 1: on here that sort of had new lives or kind
Speaker 1: of disappeared for a little bit and have researched or
Speaker 1: you know, kind of seeing how legacies play out, especially
Speaker 1: for you know, the older songs that we've talked about.
Speaker 1: But I think with this song, it's like one of
Speaker 1: those things where one is just a perfect song. It's
Speaker 1: hard to not immediately love it the minute hear it,
Speaker 1: no matter what generation you're from or like kind of
Speaker 1: how you come to it. It's also completely unavoidable in
Speaker 1: every capacity. You know, these are artists that are some
Speaker 1: of the most popular right now who are still referencing it. Versus,
Speaker 1: if you are kind of getting into any any artists
Speaker 1: from any decade, you're gonna stumble upon Be My Baby
Speaker 1: in some some form.
Speaker 2: You know, you could turn.
Speaker 1: On any movie or you'll hear it, You'll.
Speaker 2: Turn on any TV show.
Speaker 1: It's like there's like a statistic or something that was
Speaker 1: just like it's over. It's been played over three million
Speaker 1: or something times, and like radio and like TV and
Speaker 1: film and all that, Like it's like crazy how many
Speaker 1: times that this song has been used.
Speaker 2: It's so it's impossible to not discover it, you know. Yes,
Speaker 2: and next.
Speaker 1: Up we will be joined by songwriter Jeff Barry. Right
Speaker 1: now we are joined by the incredible songwriter Jeff Barry. Jeff,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 4: My pleasure, my pleasure.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
Speaker 4: Sir.
Speaker 3: There are legends and there's Jeff Barry to thank you
Speaker 3: for being here, but also thank you for all the
Speaker 3: songs that you've given the soundtrack of our lives.
Speaker 1: I'm curious before we start talking about Be My Baby specifically.
Speaker 1: I mean, you have such an incredible canon of songs
Speaker 1: that you have been a part of You're a very
Speaker 1: important part of the fabric of music history. I'm curious
Speaker 1: what got you into songwriting in the first place. What
Speaker 1: made you so interested in writing music.
Speaker 4: I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, in that atmosphere
Speaker 4: when it comes time to think about the future. I'd
Speaker 4: put it this way. Songwriting was not on the list
Speaker 4: of you know, job titles. But it was always something
Speaker 4: I did just because I really loved to sing and
Speaker 4: entertain and you know, I had a little do wop
Speaker 4: group and we would we would actually perform local events
Speaker 4: when I was in high school. But I actually didn't
Speaker 4: know that well. I knew, but I didn't consider songwriting
Speaker 4: as an occupation. But I wanted to be an entertainer.
Speaker 4: And someone in my family knew someone who knew someone,
Speaker 4: and I finally got in front of someone in the
Speaker 4: industry to just listen to me as a singer. And
Speaker 4: that person was Arnold Shaw, and he was a music publisher.
Speaker 4: So he listened to me sing. And the only thing
Speaker 4: I could sing we was songs I wrote because I
Speaker 4: only know two chords and I couldn't sing anybody else's songs.
Speaker 4: And he was more interested in the songs than the singer.
Speaker 4: And I was in college at the time, studying something
Speaker 4: that I wasn't really good at. They offered me a
Speaker 4: songwriting job for seventy five bucks a week, so I
Speaker 4: quit college and that's how I became a songwriter. The
Speaker 4: singing the career was sidelined. But you know what, the
Speaker 4: good part is that over my career I was really
Speaker 4: writing my act because then I got to do for charity,
Speaker 4: major events, many many, many events, singing the hits. And
Speaker 4: there's not many artists who can get up and sing,
Speaker 4: you know, a couple of dozen hits. And besides, I
Speaker 4: wasn't being judged as a singer at that point either,
Speaker 4: So it all worked out.
Speaker 3: You've already done so many hits by the time that
Speaker 3: you did Be My Baby. How could you tell or
Speaker 3: could you tell that the song was something special while
Speaker 3: you were writing it?
Speaker 4: You know, I think it's creative instinct. If you're writing
Speaker 4: something that you want people to hear, that's the criteria
Speaker 4: because it's, you know, to some degree, showing off. You
Speaker 4: play them, play people a song and they like it,
Speaker 4: and that's great, and then you start to just play
Speaker 4: trust your instincts. There's no book on it. You know,
Speaker 4: there's dozens of books on songwriting, but when I address
Speaker 4: songwriting classes, I tell them you can't learn how to
Speaker 4: write songs. You can learn music, and you should. I
Speaker 4: wish I had, you know, been able to go to
Speaker 4: Juilliard and know all the chords. But so I write
Speaker 4: the part the singer sings. I write lyrics first, melody second,
Speaker 4: and I mean I've written kind of hits myself, but
Speaker 4: they'll usually be basic chord progressions. But it's great to
Speaker 4: write with people who know the chords. And I really
Speaker 4: do love the co writing processes. Kind of fun. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you remember how quickly the song came together? Was
Speaker 1: it something that I felt like it was pouring out
Speaker 1: of the three of you when you were writing it,
Speaker 1: or did.
Speaker 2: It take some time to put together? What was the
Speaker 2: experience like?
Speaker 4: I would say that most of them were done in
Speaker 4: two sittings. For me, the three hours of writing, and
Speaker 4: it's really intense. I mean, I do nothing for three hours.
Speaker 4: I don't even drink or eat or anything, and after
Speaker 4: three hours it's like, Okay, the tank is empty. As
Speaker 4: far as creativity goes. You could push it to longer,
Speaker 4: of course, but two songs. I know how long they took.
Speaker 4: A song I wrote called Ianesty Love You Olivion John
Speaker 4: that took exactly exactly six hours with Peter Allen three
Speaker 4: hours one day, three hours, the next day, Wow song
Speaker 4: of the Year. And then the other was Hanky Panky,
Speaker 4: which Ellie and I wrote in the hall of the
Speaker 4: studio in about ten minutes.
Speaker 3: The experience of writing be My Baby, did you know
Speaker 3: while you were writing it that you were writing a
Speaker 3: song that would make such an impression?
Speaker 4: No, none of the songs did, I really think. You know,
Speaker 4: I believe that they could all be hits. But the
Speaker 4: idea of the hit at the time is different from
Speaker 4: now looking back, because be My Baby was a hit,
Speaker 4: but then it becomes a standard. Nobody was thinking standard. No, seriously,
Speaker 4: you know, like even the most obvious one to me
Speaker 4: is Christmas Baby, Please Come Home. Yeah, we wrote that.
Speaker 4: Was still wanting an original Christmas song in the album,
Speaker 4: and it's becoming, or has become a Christmas standard, and
Speaker 4: that's very cool. Chair just recorded it on her Christmas album.
Speaker 3: Her version is so great.
Speaker 4: You know, most of them are pretty good. I think
Speaker 4: my favorite is You Two.
Speaker 3: It's so great.
Speaker 4: I love what they did with it.
Speaker 1: Do you remember the first time that you heard Ronnie's
Speaker 1: vocals on be My Baby and what was it like
Speaker 1: to hear that song come to life with her voice?
Speaker 4: No, I don't remember the first time. I do remember
Speaker 4: saying to myself that she didn't phrase some of it
Speaker 4: the way I would have. But you know, they were,
Speaker 4: they were they were great records. They just sounded like
Speaker 4: you know, another Phil Spector records.
Speaker 3: You know, you know, you say that they were great records,
Speaker 3: and they certainly were. But it all comes down to
Speaker 3: the songs. And you wrote so many different types of
Speaker 3: classic songs.
Speaker 4: Oh well, that's very much appreciated that you recognize that
Speaker 4: people know about the dua ditties, but they don't know
Speaker 4: about the country hits and the R and B hits
Speaker 4: and the TV theme songs, and they all know the
Speaker 4: other stuff. So I appreciate that recognition because for me,
Speaker 4: it's all about words and notes and the common emotions
Speaker 4: that we all have. So, you know, what genre that
Speaker 4: is created in almost doesn't matter. You're still doing the
Speaker 4: same thing.
Speaker 3: That's absolutely really inspiring to hear you talk about these songs.
Speaker 3: After all the songs you've written. Thank you so much
Speaker 3: for talking with us today.
Speaker 2: We really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Really an honor.
Speaker 4: Oh it's absolutely my pleasure. I really love to talk
Speaker 4: about it and hopefully inspire people who might be listening
Speaker 4: to this.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for listening to Rolling Stone's five
Speaker 3: hundred Greatest Songs. This podcast is brought to you by
Speaker 3: Rolling Stone and iHeartMedia. Hosted and written by me, Rob
Speaker 3: Sheffield and Brittany Spanas, Executive produced by Gus Winner, Jason Fine,
Speaker 3: Alex Dale and Kristin Horde, and produced by Jesse Cannon,
Speaker 3: with music supervision by Xiler. Thanks for watching