May 8, 2024 • 28 mins
On this week’s episode of Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs, hosts Brittany Spanos and Rob Sheffield discuss the story of “Be My Baby,” breaking down the song’s massive impact on pop history. The song comes in at #22 on Rolling Stone’s list and is as universal as a pop song can be. It’s the song that made Ronnie Spector a timeless rock & roll legend, a teenage girl from Spanish Harlem who packed a lifetime of raw power into three minutes.
Ever since Ronnie belted “Be My Baby” in 1963, it’s been the classic that sums up the whole Sixties girl-group era, with Phil Spector’s lavish Wall of Sound production – but it’s never left the airwaves. It’s been the foundation for artists from Brian Wilson to Bruce Springsteen to Lana Del Rey. You hear it everywhere, from Scorsese movies to goth clubs to hair metal, from the Ramones to Beyoncé.
This week Rob and Brittany are joined by a true legend: Jeff Barry, who co-wrote “Be My Baby.” The Barry/Greenwich team cranked out a host of Sixties girl-group smashes for stars like the Crystals (“Then He Kissed Me”), the Dixie Cups (“Chapel of Love”), the Chiffons (“I Have a Boyfriend”), and the Shangri-Las (“Leader of the Pack”). Barry discusses the making of “Be My Baby,” the early Brill Building songwriting days, and his long career from pop to soul to country.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to five hundred Greatest Songs, a podcast based on
Rolling Stones hugely popular, influential, and sometimes controversial list.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I'm Britney Spanas and I'm Rob Sheffield.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
We're here to shed light on the greatest songs ever
made and discover what makes them so great. This week,
we're diving into an all time favorite for both of us,
Be My Baby by the ron Nets.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
A song that actually maintained its ranking on the two
thousand and four list into the twenty twenty one list.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
It stayed at number twenty.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Two on both lists, which is like pretty remarkable that
I was able to maintain that between the two votes.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
But this song is such an all time classic.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
It's such a foundation for a lot of artists, a
lot of.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Great pop music.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
I mean, I think that the references alone are endless,
Like that's an entire separate episode of us talking about
every single song and artists that has referenced the drum
beat or you know, the Woo's or the Ronnie's or anything.
But it's such an excellent, perfect, perfect girl group song.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
It's absolutely phenomenal, a song that, like you said, the
drumbeat alone, you hear that in every genre of music.
Every band does there be My Baby. How many movies begin,
you know, with that drum intro? How many albums, how
many careers begin with that drum intro. It's just part
of the universal language of pop music. It's as universal
(01:26):
as a pop song can be, and it never sounds dated.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yeah, And I mean also just the vocals of Ronnie
on the song Rispector. I mean, she is like just
the ultimate ultimate rock and roll girl, Like she is
just so cool and her voice is just like so
edgy and rob but also so pure in that kind
of perfect girl groupy way. And I mean she just
really carries so much of the charisma of the song
and makes it work so well. And again a foundation
(01:51):
for a lot of artists, a lot of artists, especially
after her passing last year, I mean, I think a
lot of artists. The tributes came pouring in about how
much she had impacted who they were and who they
wanted to be as performer, and it's very clear.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Yeah, I mean, she had such an amazing and long
career as a phenomenal vocalist. But really, even if we
were just this one song, her vocals in this song
alone just transformed music. In so many ways, so many
individual moments in this song spawned entire careers. You know,
you listen to this line, it's like, oh, everything Brice
Springsteen ever did, never aspired to do, came out of
(02:25):
this line.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
And you know, everything Brian Wilson wanted to do came
out of this line. And you know, just the influences
all over music, from goth to metal to hip hop
to everything. There's just this deep be my Baby Ronnie
Spector passion running through it.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
And the song was written in nineteen sixty three by
Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich, and Phil Spector. Jeff and Ellie
Actually they had the most songs written by a non
performing duo on the two thousand and four list. They
had six songs. They wrote so many incredible classics. Chapel
of Love is a number one favorite of from the
Hurricanon and River Deep, Mountain High and so many others.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
And they wrote this song and.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Phil Spector was auditioning this new girl group that was
of course Ronnie and her sister and her cousin. And
they were signed to the Phillies label, which is Phil
Spector's label. And you know, they were not really ready
yet for a while they kind of withheld their first
couple of singles and wasn't really sure that they were
totally radio ready, performance ready, but then gave them Be
(03:27):
My Baby, and the rest is history. Of course, Ronnie
really carries this song, and this is a song that
exemplifies so much of the wall of sound that Phil
Spector is known for, and you know, just in the
way that they recorded it. I loved reading an anecdote
from Ronnie that she said that it's a lot about
the studio, but she also recorded a lot of the
vocals in the ladies bathroom at the studio, and she said,
there's a lot to say about the acoustics in that
(03:48):
lady's bathroom.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Total in your memoir, which everybody should run out of,
it's one of the all time great rock memoirs. But
she's a great She's like, you know, the lady's room
sounded better than the studio. She's like, people talk about
the great echo in the studio, but it was even
better in the bathroom. A story that I love. I mean,
as you say, her vocal is so key to the
whole thing that she was flying out to la to
(04:12):
do it. It was the first time she'd ever been
on a plane. She was with her mom, she was terrified,
she was just a kid, And she went into the
bathroom at LaGuardia before the plane took off and just
sang that song over and over again in that bathroom
to just rehearse her vocals. And it's really funny that
the ambience of you know, singing that song to yourself
(04:33):
in the bathroom is such a like she could hear. Yes, Yeah,
I'm not sure they've they've remodeled those those bathrooms since then.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
But it's had to keep the same. Yes, you never
know when the next my baby is going to be exactly.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
It's a sacred part of world cultural history. But it's
well that every detail of the recording is so perfectly engineered,
so precisely arranged and everything, but it all comes down
to that vocal. Yeah, that it's the absolute realness and
rawness of you know, this teenage girl just absolutely like
(05:09):
blowing the roof off.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
And this is a song by the Ryas that is
just it's just Ronnie Spector singing on it. But also
a favorite fun fact of mine is that Sonny and
Cher saying background vocals because they were in the studio
and Darling Love wasn't in that day and they were
recording with Phil Spector and ended up getting doing just
a little bit of background vocals on the song, which
I love knowing that that Share is somewhere somewhere deep
(05:33):
in the in the mix.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
I love that. Yes, it's funny, that's a story that
there's some some dispute over its veracity. But I really
feel like I personally always hear Share, you know, just
somewhere in the background. Yeah, but like just Ronnie as
someone you know, you can definitely tell this is not
a trained voice. This is not somebody who's been doing
the voice lessons, This is not somebody who has a
(05:56):
lot of live experience. This is just a kid who
listens to music on the radio, sings along with it,
and you know, realizes this is her big moment. You
can hear that she's terrified. In terms of like the
great vocals, we can hear how scared the singer is.
There's you know, some of the all time greats are
like that, and you could definitely hear that in her
voice that she is really nervous. All her emotions are
(06:19):
on edge, and that comes across in absolutely every part
of it. Her vibrato, the way she hits all those
high notes just incredible.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Yeah, I mean it's just kind of the perfect rock
and roll song.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
You know.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
It's like the just all of those the levels of
the harmonies, and just the way that I mean obviously
the production being that wall sound production, that kind of
room filling sort of acoustic kind of you know, you
play it on the stereo and it kind of takes
over your entire car home when you're listening to it.
Just the fact that she's able to kind of really
(06:52):
transcend so much of already like a really great kind
of wrecking crew kind of performance beneath it and just
like make it so much more powerful and make it
kind of the voice as her as this like beautiful
centerpiece to it, and just kind of like cuts.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Through all of that.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Like the minute that she starts singing, like that drum
beat at the beginning, you're like immediately forget about it,
and then it comes back You're like, oh, yeah, that
was also amazing. Yeah, when the trump beat returns at
the end, you're like, oh, yes, I almost forgot that.
We just started off with that excellent intro and we're
so distracted by Ronnie's like perfect performance of it.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Yeah, and it's great because the drum is pure confidence.
You know, of course it's one of the ultraime great drummers,
hal Blaine, the rhythm of the Wrecking Crew, and this
is you know, a pro who absolutely knows what he's doing.
This beat is, you know, the center of the hal
Blaine legend. This is when people talk about how greaty is.
This is the song, but it's well that that is
(07:43):
such a contrast with Ronnie, who is really sounds like
she's winging it and like while she's singing it, she's
not sure how it's coming across to people, but she's
absolutely putting her heart into it, and you can really
hear that she's putting herself on the line.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
And I think especially in the context of like so
much much of the kind of like fifties and sixties
sort of girl group kind of song energies that were
happy at that time, Like there is so much of
that lyrically, the sort of confidence that's happening from the
way that the perspective that Ronnie's singing from, like this
character who is like you know, be mine, Like it's
(08:18):
like very much like very forward in terms of kind
of the more kind of submissiveness of a lot of
the characters that we see in a lot of the
songs from this time, especially sung by women, Like it's
very I know, she's able to kind of carry that
in such a perfect way where it is that kind
of rock and rollness of her voice and that kind
of brashness of the way that she sings, and that
you know, she doesn't need to like be the sort
(08:39):
of like super perfect kind of image of what we
thought a pop star could be, and she kind of
carries it so well in terms of even just the
messaging of the song being so unique and different to
what we were used to hearing at the time.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Absolutely, it's so true, Like, I mean, you're so one
hundred percent right about how it really contrasts with how
a lot of the singers from that era were, i
mean cross especially the young female ones. And there's no
hesitation in what she's singing, and there's no real calculation
in it either. You can hear her confidence build line
by line the moment in the first verse where she's
(09:11):
just kind of warming and then she says, we'll make
them turn their heads every place we go and I
feel like that's the moment where she really snaps into
being Ronnie Specter and yeah, it's like, wow, no, this
is where she's absolutely the confidence is surging at this point,
and it's really amazing to hear how that spirit has
really defined the song through the years, through the decades,
(09:33):
through the generations, in every culture. It's really amazing.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Yeah, And what are some of your favorite I mean,
I can think of like a million different references I
really love that have been made to the song directly,
whether it's to Ronnie or to the beat or anything.
But what are some of your favorite kind of uses
of the song or influences of the song that have
existed in pop music?
Speaker 3 (09:52):
I love it because it's everywhere.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
So, you know one of the all time great albums
of the eighties Psycho Candy by The Jesus and Mary Chain,
and the way that it begins with that beat and
that you know, the Jesus and Mary Chan are saying like, yes,
we're really depressive Scottish boys. We haven't seen the sunlight
in years because we can't see through our hair, and
this is how we're going to present ourselves to the
(10:16):
world in this feedback drenched version of the Be My
Baby beat, and it's such a beautiful statement about all
their goals and all their aspirations. I love how the
Jesus and Mary Chain song comes in at the end
of Lost in Translation, when Scarlet's in the back of
the taxi having her moment, and you could really tell that,
you know, it's not just the Jesus and Mary Chain
(10:37):
that she's hearing in her head in that scene, she's
really like listening to Ronnie Spector in that scene. That's
how it feels. And I really think so if your
couple used it self consciously that way, and now I
know you love to all time kings of eighties hair
metal Poison with their debut album Look What the Cat
Drag In. And I love how that album begins with
(10:57):
cry Tough, which is just, you know, the be My
Baby Be beat and a very be my Baby type
of pop love song. And it's funny because you know,
for me as a team who like, I really loved
the Jesus and Mary Chain album and I love the
Poison album and the Camera out around the same time.
They did not have overlapping audiences, but I love that
these two bands that were opposite in so many ways
(11:18):
and from thousands of miles apart and totally different record collections,
but this is where they met. They all wanted to
be Ronnie Spector.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Yeah, I really love the drum beat sample on Lana
Delray's Love is a favorite of mine.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
I think that one. I think she's also.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Like Lana is obviously so heavily influenced by Ronnie and
the Ronettes, and I mean just kind of like all that,
and obviously that song in particular is like her most
direct homage to Ronnie Spector, and have you seen Lana
live before? And kind of just the presentation that she
does with like sixties girl group energy and like the
(11:54):
dancers and everything.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
But yeah, I love that sample on there.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
And even just like the songs that kind of offhanded
reference it, Like there's an Arctic Monkey song that sort
of references the Mean Streets opening scene with be My
Baby on it that I really love, and also the
theory that Night Moves is supposed to reference Be My Baby,
even though he gets the year wrong in it, like
starts singing a song from nineteen sixty two. But yeah,
I think that I love just kind of like how
(12:20):
ingrained into our pop culture, into our own consciousness.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Of like pop music.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
This song is that just like it's kind of just
an offhanded reference now just for so many musicians to
make on there to signify a certain point or a
certain type of like love song that they're referencing, or
nostalgia or anything like that.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Absolutely, I mean so many careers come out of this song,
legendary careers. You think about Bruce Springsteen, who I mentioned earlier,
but his whole sensibility you can hear Be my Baby.
You would absolutely be able to convince somebody that just
based on the first three Springsteen albums, that Be my
Baby could very well be the only song he'd ever heard.
(12:57):
Obviously there's a lot of music going into those albums,
but his commitment to that kind of style of an
ordinary kid with an ordinary voice, just like absolutely putting
all their heart into it and coming up with something extraordinary.
The song itself born to Run. It's just a very
obvious answer song to Be My Baby. It doesn't echo
the drum beat, but that passion is absolutely coming straight
(13:19):
from Being My Baby. But so many other bands, especially
the punk rock groups that pretty much emerged entirely from
this song, thinking especially of the New York Dolls and
the Ramones, who were both obsessed with this song. They're
obsessed with girl group rock in general. Gold group pat
from the early sixties so formative for punk rock bands
(13:41):
from everywhere. But it's all how the New York Boys,
they really the New York Dolls just wanted to be
Ronnie Spector. They wanted to dress like her, they wanted
to sing like her, they wanted to feel as deep
as she did. And you know, you listen to those
Dolls albums and it's like, yeah, they are absolutely going
for a true Veronica Bennett realness. And the Ramones, of course,
Or She became very close with Joey Ramon and they
(14:02):
had just a wonderful musical partnership in what turned out
to be the later years for both of them. But
it's just really beautiful that the way that they collaborated,
since you know, everything the Ramones did comes from somewhere
and be.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
My Baby, Yeah, yeah, I mean, I love how much
of that like punk rock connection to all of those
like sixties girl groups, especially obviously Ronnie being sort of
the leader of that pack, you know, that sort of
like star of sort of the ideal kind of like
punk aesthetic of that. I always kind of like love
that connection because I feel like it's sort of almost
(14:36):
kind of i know, underrated, and when we talk about
the general sense of punk in the seventies and the
late seventies, and I think that's such a special connection
that all those bands had to that genre of music,
but especially to her and to her performance, because she
was so punk rock and just everything about her her
presence was so punk rock.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
I mean, the Beatles and the Stones were both they
were both very close to the run, but they both
were groups of English boys who really wanted to be
Ronnie Spector. Famously, when the Beatles were in New York
for the first time sixty years ago, John Lennon spent
his first night in New York listening to the radio
stations because we're back in England they only had two
stations and calling them up and asking them to play
(15:17):
the Ronettes, And you know, that was the person they
were really excited to meet when they came to New York. Yeah,
and they did a lot of hanging out with the
Ronettes over the years. Ronnie says in her book, She's
a great story about taking them up to Spanish Harlem
where they could just you know, go to get food,
because she said nobody in the neighborhood would recognize them,
like they just think that they were just a bunch
(15:38):
of like ordinary long haired dudes, like guys were their
hair long in that neighborhood, and she's like, none of
them cared about English rock and rollers. So yeah, but
it's wild to think. You know, David Bowie, someone who
very self consciously, you know, aspired to be my baby
miss in everything he did, constantly talked about Ronnie Spector
as a fascination and inspiration for him.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Yeah, and of course Brian Wilson was, oh, so it
is so in love with the song.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
He loves it so much, and I love the story.
The first time he heard it, he had to.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Pull off the road just to like listen to it
and analyze it and think about it and just every
story about you know, him sort of imitating that drum
beat and playing in and talking about, you know, just
the fact that this is the greatest song of all
time to him and such a major impact on his
own music, kind of shifting the way he thought about
what music could be or kind of the way to
write pop music and writing his own response songs.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
To it over the course of his career.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
But yeah, I love every story about his sort of
just like deep deep obsession with with be My Baby.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Yes, and it's such a beautiful Colin response. Today happens
to be the day that the new Beyonce album, Cowboy
Carter has dropped, so all day I've been obsessed with
the moment on that album, as I know you're obsessed
with it too, where Beyonce just starts singing good Vibrations,
which is such a great like I don't know a reference,
but you think about where that song comes from. It
(16:59):
comes very much from Brian Wilson listening to a black
girl saying on the radio and you know, hearing his
own story echoed in her voice, and that you know,
Beyonce's moving that story forward into such a typically brilliant
and scholarly way in pop girl music. Today, a Taylor
Swift song that I Know you love, Hey Steven, which
(17:20):
is a song that we both love and has that
great moment where it just pauses for the be My
Baby beat, and it's really great because it's just brilliantly
poised in the song just to say you know, we're
just going to have a moment, a moment for Ronnie.
And it's just such a beautiful affirmation of that continuity
(17:41):
through the years with Ronnie Specter and her so many
great inheritors. It's wild just to think in terms of
one specific song, take Me Home Tonight by any Money,
And it's so funny that that song in itself has
such a bizarrely long afterlife. I think if you went
back in time to the eighties and told people forty
years from now, you will here take Me Home Tonight constantly,
(18:03):
just in the course of the day, like you can't
you know, you can't get into a cab or you know,
shot for shoes or you know, like by toothpaste at
the front seat, You're just always going to hear that song,
which is really kind of mind blowing considering this song
is very specifically about, you know, listening to be My
Baby and Eddie Money. Part of the beauty of this
(18:24):
song is the way Eddie Money himself just you know,
kind of like ordinary guy, ordinary voice, but a heartful
of soul like Ronnie Spector, and that he just is
beat just like Ronnie saying be my little baby, and
she comes on to sing, and it's really wild that
that happened at a time when she hadn't had a
new record or much less a hit in an awful
long time, and yet that became such a huge part
(18:48):
of her legend. The fact that the song was inescapable
so much comes from the fact that, you know, there's
this other major song that just says just like Ronnie saying,
be my little baby. And it's so wild how that
is so biquity seen itself.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
You know, like it's like one of those songs where
it's like, not only is a song amazing, and like,
you know, again, like we've talked about so many songs
on here that sort of had new lives or kind
of disappeared for a little bit and have researched or
you know, kind of seeing how legacies play out, especially
for you know, the older songs that we've talked about.
But I think with this song, it's like one of
(19:21):
those things where one is just a perfect song. It's
hard to not immediately love it the minute hear it,
no matter what generation you're from or like kind of
how you come to it. It's also completely unavoidable in
every capacity. You know, these are artists that are some
of the most popular right now who are still referencing it. Versus,
if you are kind of getting into any any artists
(19:42):
from any decade, you're gonna stumble upon Be My Baby
in some some form.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
You know, you could turn.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
On any movie or you'll hear it, You'll.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Turn on any TV show.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
It's like there's like a statistic or something that was
just like it's over. It's been played over three million
or something times, and like radio and like TV and
film and all that, Like it's like crazy how many
times that this song has been used.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
It's so it's impossible to not discover it, you know. Yes,
and next.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Up we will be joined by songwriter Jeff Barry. Right
now we are joined by the incredible songwriter Jeff Barry. Jeff,
thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
My pleasure, my pleasure.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
Sir.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
There are legends and there's Jeff Barry to thank you
for being here, but also thank you for all the
songs that you've given the soundtrack of our lives.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
I'm curious before we start talking about Be My Baby specifically.
I mean, you have such an incredible canon of songs
that you have been a part of You're a very
important part of the fabric of music history. I'm curious
what got you into songwriting in the first place. What
made you so interested in writing music.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, in that atmosphere
when it comes time to think about the future. I'd
put it this way. Songwriting was not on the list
of you know, job titles. But it was always something
I did just because I really loved to sing and
entertain and you know, I had a little do wop
(21:16):
group and we would we would actually perform local events
when I was in high school. But I actually didn't
know that well. I knew, but I didn't consider songwriting
as an occupation. But I wanted to be an entertainer.
And someone in my family knew someone who knew someone,
(21:37):
and I finally got in front of someone in the
industry to just listen to me as a singer. And
that person was Arnold Shaw, and he was a music publisher.
So he listened to me sing. And the only thing
I could sing we was songs I wrote because I
only know two chords and I couldn't sing anybody else's songs.
(22:00):
And he was more interested in the songs than the singer.
And I was in college at the time, studying something
that I wasn't really good at. They offered me a
songwriting job for seventy five bucks a week, so I
quit college and that's how I became a songwriter. The
singing the career was sidelined. But you know what, the
(22:24):
good part is that over my career I was really
writing my act because then I got to do for charity,
major events, many many, many events, singing the hits. And
there's not many artists who can get up and sing,
you know, a couple of dozen hits. And besides, I
(22:44):
wasn't being judged as a singer at that point either,
So it all worked out.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
You've already done so many hits by the time that
you did Be My Baby. How could you tell or
could you tell that the song was something special while
you were writing it?
Speaker 4 (23:01):
You know, I think it's creative instinct. If you're writing
something that you want people to hear, that's the criteria
because it's, you know, to some degree, showing off. You
play them, play people a song and they like it,
and that's great, and then you start to just play
(23:22):
trust your instincts. There's no book on it. You know,
there's dozens of books on songwriting, but when I address
songwriting classes, I tell them you can't learn how to
write songs. You can learn music, and you should. I
wish I had, you know, been able to go to
Juilliard and know all the chords. But so I write
the part the singer sings. I write lyrics first, melody second,
(23:46):
and I mean I've written kind of hits myself, but
they'll usually be basic chord progressions. But it's great to
write with people who know the chords. And I really
do love the co writing processes. Kind of fun. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Do you remember how quickly the song came together? Was
it something that I felt like it was pouring out
of the three of you when you were writing it,
or did.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
It take some time to put together? What was the
experience like?
Speaker 4 (24:12):
I would say that most of them were done in
two sittings. For me, the three hours of writing, and
it's really intense. I mean, I do nothing for three hours.
I don't even drink or eat or anything, and after
three hours it's like, Okay, the tank is empty. As
far as creativity goes. You could push it to longer,
(24:33):
of course, but two songs. I know how long they took.
A song I wrote called Ianesty Love You Olivion John
that took exactly exactly six hours with Peter Allen three
hours one day, three hours, the next day, Wow song
of the Year. And then the other was Hanky Panky,
which Ellie and I wrote in the hall of the
(24:55):
studio in about ten minutes.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
The experience of writing be My Baby, did you know
while you were writing it that you were writing a
song that would make such an impression?
Speaker 4 (25:08):
No, none of the songs did, I really think. You know,
I believe that they could all be hits. But the
idea of the hit at the time is different from
now looking back, because be My Baby was a hit,
but then it becomes a standard. Nobody was thinking standard. No, seriously,
(25:35):
you know, like even the most obvious one to me
is Christmas Baby, Please Come Home. Yeah, we wrote that.
Was still wanting an original Christmas song in the album,
and it's becoming, or has become a Christmas standard, and
that's very cool. Chair just recorded it on her Christmas album.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
Her version is so great.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
You know, most of them are pretty good. I think
my favorite is You Two.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
It's so great.
Speaker 4 (26:05):
I love what they did with it.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Do you remember the first time that you heard Ronnie's
vocals on be My Baby and what was it like
to hear that song come to life with her voice?
Speaker 4 (26:17):
No, I don't remember the first time. I do remember
saying to myself that she didn't phrase some of it
the way I would have. But you know, they were,
they were they were great records. They just sounded like
you know, another Phil Spector records.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
You know, you know, you say that they were great records,
and they certainly were. But it all comes down to
the songs. And you wrote so many different types of
classic songs.
Speaker 4 (26:45):
Oh well, that's very much appreciated that you recognize that
people know about the dua ditties, but they don't know
about the country hits and the R and B hits
and the TV theme songs, and they all know the
other stuff. So I appreciate that recognition because for me,
it's all about words and notes and the common emotions
(27:09):
that we all have. So, you know, what genre that
is created in almost doesn't matter. You're still doing the
same thing.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
That's absolutely really inspiring to hear you talk about these songs.
After all the songs you've written. Thank you so much
for talking with us today.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
We really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
Really an honor.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
Oh it's absolutely my pleasure. I really love to talk
about it and hopefully inspire people who might be listening
to this.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Thank you so much for listening to Rolling Stone's five
hundred Greatest Songs. This podcast is brought to you by
Rolling Stone and iHeartMedia. Hosted and written by me, Rob
Sheffield and Brittany Spanas, Executive produced by Gus Winner, Jason Fine,
Alex Dale and Kristin Horde, and produced by Jesse Cannon,
with music supervision by Xiler. Thanks for watching
Welcome to five hundred Greatest Songs, a podcast based on
Rolling Stones hugely popular, influential, and sometimes controversial list.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I'm Britney Spanas and I'm Rob Sheffield.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
We're here to shed light on the greatest songs ever
made and discover what makes them so great. This week,
we're diving into an all time favorite for both of us,
Be My Baby by the ron Nets.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
A song that actually maintained its ranking on the two
thousand and four list into the twenty twenty one list.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
It stayed at number twenty.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Two on both lists, which is like pretty remarkable that
I was able to maintain that between the two votes.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
But this song is such an all time classic.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
It's such a foundation for a lot of artists, a
lot of.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Great pop music.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
I mean, I think that the references alone are endless,
Like that's an entire separate episode of us talking about
every single song and artists that has referenced the drum
beat or you know, the Woo's or the Ronnie's or anything.
But it's such an excellent, perfect, perfect girl group song.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
It's absolutely phenomenal, a song that, like you said, the
drumbeat alone, you hear that in every genre of music.
Every band does there be My Baby. How many movies begin,
you know, with that drum intro? How many albums, how
many careers begin with that drum intro. It's just part
of the universal language of pop music. It's as universal
(01:26):
as a pop song can be, and it never sounds dated.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yeah, And I mean also just the vocals of Ronnie
on the song Rispector. I mean, she is like just
the ultimate ultimate rock and roll girl, Like she is
just so cool and her voice is just like so
edgy and rob but also so pure in that kind
of perfect girl groupy way. And I mean she just
really carries so much of the charisma of the song
and makes it work so well. And again a foundation
(01:51):
for a lot of artists, a lot of artists, especially
after her passing last year, I mean, I think a
lot of artists. The tributes came pouring in about how
much she had impacted who they were and who they
wanted to be as performer, and it's very clear.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Yeah, I mean, she had such an amazing and long
career as a phenomenal vocalist. But really, even if we
were just this one song, her vocals in this song
alone just transformed music. In so many ways, so many
individual moments in this song spawned entire careers. You know,
you listen to this line, it's like, oh, everything Brice
Springsteen ever did, never aspired to do, came out of
(02:25):
this line.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
And you know, everything Brian Wilson wanted to do came
out of this line. And you know, just the influences
all over music, from goth to metal to hip hop
to everything. There's just this deep be my Baby Ronnie
Spector passion running through it.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
And the song was written in nineteen sixty three by
Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich, and Phil Spector. Jeff and Ellie
Actually they had the most songs written by a non
performing duo on the two thousand and four list. They
had six songs. They wrote so many incredible classics. Chapel
of Love is a number one favorite of from the
Hurricanon and River Deep, Mountain High and so many others.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
And they wrote this song and.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Phil Spector was auditioning this new girl group that was
of course Ronnie and her sister and her cousin. And
they were signed to the Phillies label, which is Phil
Spector's label. And you know, they were not really ready
yet for a while they kind of withheld their first
couple of singles and wasn't really sure that they were
totally radio ready, performance ready, but then gave them Be
(03:27):
My Baby, and the rest is history. Of course, Ronnie
really carries this song, and this is a song that
exemplifies so much of the wall of sound that Phil
Spector is known for, and you know, just in the
way that they recorded it. I loved reading an anecdote
from Ronnie that she said that it's a lot about
the studio, but she also recorded a lot of the
vocals in the ladies bathroom at the studio, and she said,
there's a lot to say about the acoustics in that
(03:48):
lady's bathroom.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Total in your memoir, which everybody should run out of,
it's one of the all time great rock memoirs. But
she's a great She's like, you know, the lady's room
sounded better than the studio. She's like, people talk about
the great echo in the studio, but it was even
better in the bathroom. A story that I love. I mean,
as you say, her vocal is so key to the
whole thing that she was flying out to la to
(04:12):
do it. It was the first time she'd ever been
on a plane. She was with her mom, she was terrified,
she was just a kid, And she went into the
bathroom at LaGuardia before the plane took off and just
sang that song over and over again in that bathroom
to just rehearse her vocals. And it's really funny that
the ambience of you know, singing that song to yourself
(04:33):
in the bathroom is such a like she could hear. Yes, Yeah,
I'm not sure they've they've remodeled those those bathrooms since then.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
But it's had to keep the same. Yes, you never
know when the next my baby is going to be exactly.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
It's a sacred part of world cultural history. But it's
well that every detail of the recording is so perfectly engineered,
so precisely arranged and everything, but it all comes down
to that vocal. Yeah, that it's the absolute realness and
rawness of you know, this teenage girl just absolutely like
(05:09):
blowing the roof off.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
And this is a song by the Ryas that is
just it's just Ronnie Spector singing on it. But also
a favorite fun fact of mine is that Sonny and
Cher saying background vocals because they were in the studio
and Darling Love wasn't in that day and they were
recording with Phil Spector and ended up getting doing just
a little bit of background vocals on the song, which
I love knowing that that Share is somewhere somewhere deep
(05:33):
in the in the mix.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
I love that. Yes, it's funny, that's a story that
there's some some dispute over its veracity. But I really
feel like I personally always hear Share, you know, just
somewhere in the background. Yeah, but like just Ronnie as
someone you know, you can definitely tell this is not
a trained voice. This is not somebody who's been doing
the voice lessons, This is not somebody who has a
(05:56):
lot of live experience. This is just a kid who
listens to music on the radio, sings along with it,
and you know, realizes this is her big moment. You
can hear that she's terrified. In terms of like the
great vocals, we can hear how scared the singer is.
There's you know, some of the all time greats are
like that, and you could definitely hear that in her
voice that she is really nervous. All her emotions are
(06:19):
on edge, and that comes across in absolutely every part
of it. Her vibrato, the way she hits all those
high notes just incredible.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Yeah, I mean it's just kind of the perfect rock
and roll song.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
You know.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
It's like the just all of those the levels of
the harmonies, and just the way that I mean obviously
the production being that wall sound production, that kind of
room filling sort of acoustic kind of you know, you
play it on the stereo and it kind of takes
over your entire car home when you're listening to it.
Just the fact that she's able to kind of really
(06:52):
transcend so much of already like a really great kind
of wrecking crew kind of performance beneath it and just
like make it so much more powerful and make it
kind of the voice as her as this like beautiful
centerpiece to it, and just kind of like cuts.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Through all of that.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Like the minute that she starts singing, like that drum
beat at the beginning, you're like immediately forget about it,
and then it comes back You're like, oh, yeah, that
was also amazing. Yeah, when the trump beat returns at
the end, you're like, oh, yes, I almost forgot that.
We just started off with that excellent intro and we're
so distracted by Ronnie's like perfect performance of it.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Yeah, and it's great because the drum is pure confidence.
You know, of course it's one of the ultraime great drummers,
hal Blaine, the rhythm of the Wrecking Crew, and this
is you know, a pro who absolutely knows what he's doing.
This beat is, you know, the center of the hal
Blaine legend. This is when people talk about how greaty is.
This is the song, but it's well that that is
(07:43):
such a contrast with Ronnie, who is really sounds like
she's winging it and like while she's singing it, she's
not sure how it's coming across to people, but she's
absolutely putting her heart into it, and you can really
hear that she's putting herself on the line.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
And I think especially in the context of like so
much much of the kind of like fifties and sixties
sort of girl group kind of song energies that were
happy at that time, Like there is so much of
that lyrically, the sort of confidence that's happening from the
way that the perspective that Ronnie's singing from, like this
character who is like you know, be mine, Like it's
(08:18):
like very much like very forward in terms of kind
of the more kind of submissiveness of a lot of
the characters that we see in a lot of the
songs from this time, especially sung by women, Like it's
very I know, she's able to kind of carry that
in such a perfect way where it is that kind
of rock and rollness of her voice and that kind
of brashness of the way that she sings, and that
you know, she doesn't need to like be the sort
(08:39):
of like super perfect kind of image of what we
thought a pop star could be, and she kind of
carries it so well in terms of even just the
messaging of the song being so unique and different to
what we were used to hearing at the time.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Absolutely, it's so true, Like, I mean, you're so one
hundred percent right about how it really contrasts with how
a lot of the singers from that era were, i
mean cross especially the young female ones. And there's no
hesitation in what she's singing, and there's no real calculation
in it either. You can hear her confidence build line
by line the moment in the first verse where she's
(09:11):
just kind of warming and then she says, we'll make
them turn their heads every place we go and I
feel like that's the moment where she really snaps into
being Ronnie Specter and yeah, it's like, wow, no, this
is where she's absolutely the confidence is surging at this point,
and it's really amazing to hear how that spirit has
really defined the song through the years, through the decades,
(09:33):
through the generations, in every culture. It's really amazing.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Yeah, And what are some of your favorite I mean,
I can think of like a million different references I
really love that have been made to the song directly,
whether it's to Ronnie or to the beat or anything.
But what are some of your favorite kind of uses
of the song or influences of the song that have
existed in pop music?
Speaker 3 (09:52):
I love it because it's everywhere.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
So, you know one of the all time great albums
of the eighties Psycho Candy by The Jesus and Mary Chain,
and the way that it begins with that beat and
that you know, the Jesus and Mary Chan are saying like, yes,
we're really depressive Scottish boys. We haven't seen the sunlight
in years because we can't see through our hair, and
this is how we're going to present ourselves to the
(10:16):
world in this feedback drenched version of the Be My
Baby beat, and it's such a beautiful statement about all
their goals and all their aspirations. I love how the
Jesus and Mary Chain song comes in at the end
of Lost in Translation, when Scarlet's in the back of
the taxi having her moment, and you could really tell that,
you know, it's not just the Jesus and Mary Chain
(10:37):
that she's hearing in her head in that scene, she's
really like listening to Ronnie Spector in that scene. That's
how it feels. And I really think so if your
couple used it self consciously that way, and now I
know you love to all time kings of eighties hair
metal Poison with their debut album Look What the Cat
Drag In. And I love how that album begins with
(10:57):
cry Tough, which is just, you know, the be My
Baby Be beat and a very be my Baby type
of pop love song. And it's funny because you know,
for me as a team who like, I really loved
the Jesus and Mary Chain album and I love the
Poison album and the Camera out around the same time.
They did not have overlapping audiences, but I love that
these two bands that were opposite in so many ways
(11:18):
and from thousands of miles apart and totally different record collections,
but this is where they met. They all wanted to
be Ronnie Spector.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Yeah, I really love the drum beat sample on Lana
Delray's Love is a favorite of mine.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
I think that one. I think she's also.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Like Lana is obviously so heavily influenced by Ronnie and
the Ronettes, and I mean just kind of like all that,
and obviously that song in particular is like her most
direct homage to Ronnie Spector, and have you seen Lana
live before? And kind of just the presentation that she
does with like sixties girl group energy and like the
(11:54):
dancers and everything.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
But yeah, I love that sample on there.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
And even just like the songs that kind of offhanded
reference it, Like there's an Arctic Monkey song that sort
of references the Mean Streets opening scene with be My
Baby on it that I really love, and also the
theory that Night Moves is supposed to reference Be My Baby,
even though he gets the year wrong in it, like
starts singing a song from nineteen sixty two. But yeah,
I think that I love just kind of like how
(12:20):
ingrained into our pop culture, into our own consciousness.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Of like pop music.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
This song is that just like it's kind of just
an offhanded reference now just for so many musicians to
make on there to signify a certain point or a
certain type of like love song that they're referencing, or
nostalgia or anything like that.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Absolutely, I mean so many careers come out of this song,
legendary careers. You think about Bruce Springsteen, who I mentioned earlier,
but his whole sensibility you can hear Be my Baby.
You would absolutely be able to convince somebody that just
based on the first three Springsteen albums, that Be my
Baby could very well be the only song he'd ever heard.
(12:57):
Obviously there's a lot of music going into those albums,
but his commitment to that kind of style of an
ordinary kid with an ordinary voice, just like absolutely putting
all their heart into it and coming up with something extraordinary.
The song itself born to Run. It's just a very
obvious answer song to Be My Baby. It doesn't echo
the drum beat, but that passion is absolutely coming straight
(13:19):
from Being My Baby. But so many other bands, especially
the punk rock groups that pretty much emerged entirely from
this song, thinking especially of the New York Dolls and
the Ramones, who were both obsessed with this song. They're
obsessed with girl group rock in general. Gold group pat
from the early sixties so formative for punk rock bands
(13:41):
from everywhere. But it's all how the New York Boys,
they really the New York Dolls just wanted to be
Ronnie Spector. They wanted to dress like her, they wanted
to sing like her, they wanted to feel as deep
as she did. And you know, you listen to those
Dolls albums and it's like, yeah, they are absolutely going
for a true Veronica Bennett realness. And the Ramones, of course,
Or She became very close with Joey Ramon and they
(14:02):
had just a wonderful musical partnership in what turned out
to be the later years for both of them. But
it's just really beautiful that the way that they collaborated,
since you know, everything the Ramones did comes from somewhere
and be.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
My Baby, Yeah, yeah, I mean, I love how much
of that like punk rock connection to all of those
like sixties girl groups, especially obviously Ronnie being sort of
the leader of that pack, you know, that sort of
like star of sort of the ideal kind of like
punk aesthetic of that. I always kind of like love
that connection because I feel like it's sort of almost
(14:36):
kind of i know, underrated, and when we talk about
the general sense of punk in the seventies and the
late seventies, and I think that's such a special connection
that all those bands had to that genre of music,
but especially to her and to her performance, because she
was so punk rock and just everything about her her
presence was so punk rock.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
I mean, the Beatles and the Stones were both they
were both very close to the run, but they both
were groups of English boys who really wanted to be
Ronnie Spector. Famously, when the Beatles were in New York
for the first time sixty years ago, John Lennon spent
his first night in New York listening to the radio
stations because we're back in England they only had two
stations and calling them up and asking them to play
(15:17):
the Ronettes, And you know, that was the person they
were really excited to meet when they came to New York. Yeah,
and they did a lot of hanging out with the
Ronettes over the years. Ronnie says in her book, She's
a great story about taking them up to Spanish Harlem
where they could just you know, go to get food,
because she said nobody in the neighborhood would recognize them,
like they just think that they were just a bunch
(15:38):
of like ordinary long haired dudes, like guys were their
hair long in that neighborhood, and she's like, none of
them cared about English rock and rollers. So yeah, but
it's wild to think. You know, David Bowie, someone who
very self consciously, you know, aspired to be my baby
miss in everything he did, constantly talked about Ronnie Spector
as a fascination and inspiration for him.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Yeah, and of course Brian Wilson was, oh, so it
is so in love with the song.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
He loves it so much, and I love the story.
The first time he heard it, he had to.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Pull off the road just to like listen to it
and analyze it and think about it and just every
story about you know, him sort of imitating that drum
beat and playing in and talking about, you know, just
the fact that this is the greatest song of all
time to him and such a major impact on his
own music, kind of shifting the way he thought about
what music could be or kind of the way to
write pop music and writing his own response songs.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
To it over the course of his career.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
But yeah, I love every story about his sort of
just like deep deep obsession with with be My Baby.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Yes, and it's such a beautiful Colin response. Today happens
to be the day that the new Beyonce album, Cowboy
Carter has dropped, so all day I've been obsessed with
the moment on that album, as I know you're obsessed
with it too, where Beyonce just starts singing good Vibrations,
which is such a great like I don't know a reference,
but you think about where that song comes from. It
(16:59):
comes very much from Brian Wilson listening to a black
girl saying on the radio and you know, hearing his
own story echoed in her voice, and that you know,
Beyonce's moving that story forward into such a typically brilliant
and scholarly way in pop girl music. Today, a Taylor
Swift song that I Know you love, Hey Steven, which
(17:20):
is a song that we both love and has that
great moment where it just pauses for the be My
Baby beat, and it's really great because it's just brilliantly
poised in the song just to say you know, we're
just going to have a moment, a moment for Ronnie.
And it's just such a beautiful affirmation of that continuity
(17:41):
through the years with Ronnie Specter and her so many
great inheritors. It's wild just to think in terms of
one specific song, take Me Home Tonight by any Money,
And it's so funny that that song in itself has
such a bizarrely long afterlife. I think if you went
back in time to the eighties and told people forty
years from now, you will here take Me Home Tonight constantly,
(18:03):
just in the course of the day, like you can't
you know, you can't get into a cab or you know,
shot for shoes or you know, like by toothpaste at
the front seat, You're just always going to hear that song,
which is really kind of mind blowing considering this song
is very specifically about, you know, listening to be My
Baby and Eddie Money. Part of the beauty of this
(18:24):
song is the way Eddie Money himself just you know,
kind of like ordinary guy, ordinary voice, but a heartful
of soul like Ronnie Spector, and that he just is
beat just like Ronnie saying be my little baby, and
she comes on to sing, and it's really wild that
that happened at a time when she hadn't had a
new record or much less a hit in an awful
long time, and yet that became such a huge part
(18:48):
of her legend. The fact that the song was inescapable
so much comes from the fact that, you know, there's
this other major song that just says just like Ronnie saying,
be my little baby. And it's so wild how that
is so biquity seen itself.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
You know, like it's like one of those songs where
it's like, not only is a song amazing, and like,
you know, again, like we've talked about so many songs
on here that sort of had new lives or kind
of disappeared for a little bit and have researched or
you know, kind of seeing how legacies play out, especially
for you know, the older songs that we've talked about.
But I think with this song, it's like one of
(19:21):
those things where one is just a perfect song. It's
hard to not immediately love it the minute hear it,
no matter what generation you're from or like kind of
how you come to it. It's also completely unavoidable in
every capacity. You know, these are artists that are some
of the most popular right now who are still referencing it. Versus,
if you are kind of getting into any any artists
(19:42):
from any decade, you're gonna stumble upon Be My Baby
in some some form.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
You know, you could turn.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
On any movie or you'll hear it, You'll.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Turn on any TV show.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
It's like there's like a statistic or something that was
just like it's over. It's been played over three million
or something times, and like radio and like TV and
film and all that, Like it's like crazy how many
times that this song has been used.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
It's so it's impossible to not discover it, you know. Yes,
and next.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Up we will be joined by songwriter Jeff Barry. Right
now we are joined by the incredible songwriter Jeff Barry. Jeff,
thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
My pleasure, my pleasure.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
Sir.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
There are legends and there's Jeff Barry to thank you
for being here, but also thank you for all the
songs that you've given the soundtrack of our lives.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
I'm curious before we start talking about Be My Baby specifically.
I mean, you have such an incredible canon of songs
that you have been a part of You're a very
important part of the fabric of music history. I'm curious
what got you into songwriting in the first place. What
made you so interested in writing music.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, in that atmosphere
when it comes time to think about the future. I'd
put it this way. Songwriting was not on the list
of you know, job titles. But it was always something
I did just because I really loved to sing and
entertain and you know, I had a little do wop
(21:16):
group and we would we would actually perform local events
when I was in high school. But I actually didn't
know that well. I knew, but I didn't consider songwriting
as an occupation. But I wanted to be an entertainer.
And someone in my family knew someone who knew someone,
(21:37):
and I finally got in front of someone in the
industry to just listen to me as a singer. And
that person was Arnold Shaw, and he was a music publisher.
So he listened to me sing. And the only thing
I could sing we was songs I wrote because I
only know two chords and I couldn't sing anybody else's songs.
(22:00):
And he was more interested in the songs than the singer.
And I was in college at the time, studying something
that I wasn't really good at. They offered me a
songwriting job for seventy five bucks a week, so I
quit college and that's how I became a songwriter. The
singing the career was sidelined. But you know what, the
(22:24):
good part is that over my career I was really
writing my act because then I got to do for charity,
major events, many many, many events, singing the hits. And
there's not many artists who can get up and sing,
you know, a couple of dozen hits. And besides, I
(22:44):
wasn't being judged as a singer at that point either,
So it all worked out.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
You've already done so many hits by the time that
you did Be My Baby. How could you tell or
could you tell that the song was something special while
you were writing it?
Speaker 4 (23:01):
You know, I think it's creative instinct. If you're writing
something that you want people to hear, that's the criteria
because it's, you know, to some degree, showing off. You
play them, play people a song and they like it,
and that's great, and then you start to just play
(23:22):
trust your instincts. There's no book on it. You know,
there's dozens of books on songwriting, but when I address
songwriting classes, I tell them you can't learn how to
write songs. You can learn music, and you should. I
wish I had, you know, been able to go to
Juilliard and know all the chords. But so I write
the part the singer sings. I write lyrics first, melody second,
(23:46):
and I mean I've written kind of hits myself, but
they'll usually be basic chord progressions. But it's great to
write with people who know the chords. And I really
do love the co writing processes. Kind of fun. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Do you remember how quickly the song came together? Was
it something that I felt like it was pouring out
of the three of you when you were writing it,
or did.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
It take some time to put together? What was the
experience like?
Speaker 4 (24:12):
I would say that most of them were done in
two sittings. For me, the three hours of writing, and
it's really intense. I mean, I do nothing for three hours.
I don't even drink or eat or anything, and after
three hours it's like, Okay, the tank is empty. As
far as creativity goes. You could push it to longer,
(24:33):
of course, but two songs. I know how long they took.
A song I wrote called Ianesty Love You Olivion John
that took exactly exactly six hours with Peter Allen three
hours one day, three hours, the next day, Wow song
of the Year. And then the other was Hanky Panky,
which Ellie and I wrote in the hall of the
(24:55):
studio in about ten minutes.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
The experience of writing be My Baby, did you know
while you were writing it that you were writing a
song that would make such an impression?
Speaker 4 (25:08):
No, none of the songs did, I really think. You know,
I believe that they could all be hits. But the
idea of the hit at the time is different from
now looking back, because be My Baby was a hit,
but then it becomes a standard. Nobody was thinking standard. No, seriously,
(25:35):
you know, like even the most obvious one to me
is Christmas Baby, Please Come Home. Yeah, we wrote that.
Was still wanting an original Christmas song in the album,
and it's becoming, or has become a Christmas standard, and
that's very cool. Chair just recorded it on her Christmas album.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
Her version is so great.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
You know, most of them are pretty good. I think
my favorite is You Two.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
It's so great.
Speaker 4 (26:05):
I love what they did with it.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Do you remember the first time that you heard Ronnie's
vocals on be My Baby and what was it like
to hear that song come to life with her voice?
Speaker 4 (26:17):
No, I don't remember the first time. I do remember
saying to myself that she didn't phrase some of it
the way I would have. But you know, they were,
they were they were great records. They just sounded like
you know, another Phil Spector records.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
You know, you know, you say that they were great records,
and they certainly were. But it all comes down to
the songs. And you wrote so many different types of
classic songs.
Speaker 4 (26:45):
Oh well, that's very much appreciated that you recognize that
people know about the dua ditties, but they don't know
about the country hits and the R and B hits
and the TV theme songs, and they all know the
other stuff. So I appreciate that recognition because for me,
it's all about words and notes and the common emotions
(27:09):
that we all have. So, you know, what genre that
is created in almost doesn't matter. You're still doing the
same thing.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
That's absolutely really inspiring to hear you talk about these songs.
After all the songs you've written. Thank you so much
for talking with us today.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
We really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
Really an honor.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
Oh it's absolutely my pleasure. I really love to talk
about it and hopefully inspire people who might be listening
to this.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Thank you so much for listening to Rolling Stone's five
hundred Greatest Songs. This podcast is brought to you by
Rolling Stone and iHeartMedia. Hosted and written by me, Rob
Sheffield and Brittany Spanas, Executive produced by Gus Winner, Jason Fine,
Alex Dale and Kristin Horde, and produced by Jesse Cannon,
with music supervision by Xiler. Thanks for watching
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