https://spoti.fi/3qAYCFF

1

“And if my thought dreams could be seen

They’d probably put my head in a guillotine”

I guess it’s hard to transport your mind back to the mid-sixties, especially if you didn’t live through them. The world was both bigger and smaller. Everybody didn’t have the possibility of reaching everybody, but those who got inside the corral, who played and won, had much greater impact than anyone today, for there was less competition for attention. Furthermore, there were fewer scenes, fewer niches, fewer verticals. You couldn’t just go on Reddit and find a sliced and diced thread that appeals directly to you, and just those who feel the same way, very few in all.

And in the sixties, you were either on the bus or off the bus. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, immediately read Tom Wolfe’s “Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.” It’s not about appearances, it’s who you are on the inside. You couldn’t fake it with Ken Kesey. The trappings were not sufficient, who were you REALLY? And when the sixties started, there were beatniks. Today, beatniks are seen as Maynard G. Krebs. Then again, most people today have no idea what a beatnik is, they may have never even heard the word, kinda like “keen”…for a moment there it was a descriptor bigger than “cool,” but I haven’t heard anybody use it that way in eons.

So, do you know how much inner strength it takes to go against the path prescribed from birth by Jewish parents? To drop out of college and go your own way? That was not de rigueur when Bob Dylan came of age. And he went to New York City to find like-minded people, before most of America even knew what Greenwich Village was. And he revered Woody Guthrie and ended up jumping off the platform Guthrie established but for a long time only insiders knew him. They might have known his songs, via the efforts of his manager, Albert Grossman, who got his other clients, Peter, Paul & Mary, to cover “Blowin’ In The Wind,” but Bob really didn’t get traction until “Like a Rolling Stone” in ’65. And this was a big deal, because the song was six minutes long and Bob had anything but a traditional radio-friendly voice.

Times have changed. To make it on Top Forty radio way back when, you used to have to have a classically great vocalist. That’s not Bob Dylan. And in the wake of the Beatles, you had to write your own songs. Today we’ve got two-dimensional voices with no writing chops on TV competition shows, none of which break through beyond this show, and zillions of less than stellar vocalists all over AAA and Active Rock radio while those not even featured keep complaining they deserve more attention when they wouldn’t have even gotten to play way back when.

So, just getting Dylan on the radio was a really big thing. Sure, he wrote the song, but credit Columbia with pushing it over the top.

But Dylan had already been around for years! As a folkie.

If I hear one more person tell me about Dylan going electric at Newport, my head will explode…well, maybe you’d like to see that. First and foremost, at the time MOST PEOPLE DIDN’T KNOW! It was not like today, where if anything meaningful happens we all know it instantly, the only way you might know about Newport was by reading it in the newspaper, a newspaper most in the scene didn’t bother to read at all, at least not religiously. So, it’s all in hindsight. What you had was an insular folkie scene which wanted no change, which resented the Beatles, the same way today’s aged rockers hate streaming, as if by complaining they can hold back the future. But that’s impossible.

So, Dylan pivoted. At least that’s what they call it in tech-speak.

2

So a year ago I did a podcast with legendary DJ Pete Tong. We talked about his big payday over the millennium. I asked Pete if he could make that same money today. And Pete said…ONLY IF I REINVENT MYSELF!

That has stuck with me ever since. Your audience wants you to remain who you are. Fans abhor change. They’ll castigate any efforts deviating from the norm. They want you set in amber. And then you’re no longer an artist, but a jukebox. Bob Dylan decided to break the norm, to reinvent himself, and that’s why he’s continued to exist, to be important all these years later, because he’s not afraid to take chances, to do it differently. Furthermore, he’s doing it his way and he doesn’t really care what you think. Well, at his Musicares speech a few years back one of the astounding elements of this highlight of the year, definitely the best acceptance speech in the history of the music business, was that he’d been paying attention! But prior to this night, he never bit back. After “Don’t Look Back” he didn’t even bother. As a matter of fact, Dylan, to this day, is the king of obfuscation. You can’t trust a thing he says, he’s making his own myth, in an era where everybody is a tool of the machine, vomiting up every detail as grist for the mill. Bob seemingly exists OUTSIDE the system. He CONFOUNDS critics. Live he switches from guitar to piano, he completely rearranges songs to the point of incomprehensibility. Some people like him in principle, others hate him in principle and if you dare to analyze, you’re stuck in the middle with almost no one. Dylan is like our political system, you either love him or hate him. And that is unfortunate, but that is today.

David Bowie reinvented himself into a long career. And, of course, Madonna has done this too. But it’s too risky for most artists.

So the folk scene is burgeoning. And Bob ends up the spokesman. But whenever you ask him for advice, he always says you know as well as he does, he doesn’t have the answers. How Dylan had this insight at such a young age is astonishing. The truth is we’re all equal, we all have insights, and this leads me to “Dear Landlord,” from his 1967 comeback album “John Wesley Harding”: 

“Now, each of us has his own special gift

And you know this was meant to be true

And if you don’t underestimate me

I won’t underestimate you”

The talk was always about “All Along the Watchtower,” and ultimately Hendrix’s cover. But the (Small) Faces did an incredible cover of “Wicked Messenger” and Joe Cocker covered “Dear Landlord” and this ultimately proves that the artists were paying attention, today it’s all about data, but you cannot measure this kind of impact, the kind that penetrates souls.

And in ’67, when his old pal/keyboardist Al Kooper was employing a big band, i.e. Blood, Sweat & Tears, to make his music come alive, “John Wesley Harding” was simple.

Then “Nashville Skyline” was country, suddenly Bob was a crooner, a compatriot of Johnny Cash when most of his fans abhorred the Nashville sound, and then for the first time Bob failed, with “Self-Portrait.”

3

And four months later, Dylan came back with “New Morning.” He was gonna show us, that he still had it, he had no time to waste, forget schedules, he was gonna do it HIS way.

That’s where I came in. “New Morning” was the first Dylan album I bought. Sure, I knew his material, at least the “hits,” you couldn’t avoid them, but you had to own an album to go deep.

And “New Morning” got good reviews but it promptly fell out of the public discussion. It was out of time, it didn’t fit the airwaves. And at this late date, it’s seen as minor, yet it was anything but.

“Build me a cabin in Utah

Marry me a wife, catch rainbow trout

Have a bunch of kids who call me ‘Pa’

That must be what it’s all about

That must be what it’s all about”

And it is. Dylan was way ahead of the curve. Once again, he pivoted from the public to the personal, telling us fame was overrated, that family was where it was at.

And Bob played “Alias” in “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid,” a third-rate flick that wasn’t all bad, it did feature Slim Pickens and Harry Dean Stanton, but we went to see it and had no idea that “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” would become a classic, at the time it was seen as a movie throwaway!

And Bob tried throughout his career to make palatable movies, and he never succeeded, but if you can do one thing great, you’re a legend. Everybody believes they can do more, but the truth is almost nobody can.

But then Dylan made a deal with David Geffen and went on the road and… This is important, before I get into a discussion of “Before the Flood,” Dylan ultimately beat Geffen. Dylan never signed the contract and he went back to Columbia. Then again, that’s the legend and Geffen might see it differently, but after that one always wondered if jumping ship was ever prudent, after all your original label had your catalog…

So, in preparation for the “Before the Flood” tour, I went back and bought all the albums that came before. And contrary to conventional wisdom, I found 1965’s “Bringing It All Back Home” to be my favorite, it’s still my favorite.

The ’62 debut was the blueprint, most people couldn’t see who he’d become, but the label stuck with him and it ended up getting ’63’s “Freewheelin’,” with “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” both made famous by the aforementioned Peter, Paul & Mary. Management is everything, you can’t make it without a great manager, and Albert Grossman was the best of his era.

1964’s “The Times They Are a-Changin'”…the title track never goes out of style.

Dylan’s other ’64 album, “Another Side,” which no one ever references, no one ever talks about, contained “All I Really Want to Do,” “My Back Pages” and “It Ain’t Me Babe,” all of which were made into big hits by other artists, that’s how most people became aware of the cat.

1965’s “Highway 61 Revisited” had “Like a Rolling Stone,” and was seen as the best Dylan album until its double LP follow-up, 1966’s “Blonde on Blonde,” widely considered to be his best work, but in between “Another Side” and “Highway 61” came 1965’s “Bringing It All Back Home.”

4

Today “Subterranean Homesick Blues” is a classic. It wasn’t back then. Actually, “Don’t Look Back” made the song a classic, most people didn’t see the movie back then, but the flick has had a long afterlife.

And what you get to see in the film is the inanity of the press. I hate to tell you this, but the press ALMOST ALWAYS GETS IT WRONG! At least when it comes to music. The writers are either not familiar with the scene or are second or third-rate scribes. Dylan gets so frustrated he does end up writing “Ballad of a Thin Man,” but he refused to play the game thereafter. As time went by he seemed to exist outside the public relations paradigm. You couldn’t get an interview, or he made up answers, he became an enigma, and the writers disappeared while Dylan’s stature only grew greater. 

Actually, that’s one of the great lines from “Absolutely Sweet Marie” off “Blonde on Blonde”:

“But to live outside the law, you must be honest”

If you can’t understand this line, you’re off the bus. The truth is if you go your own way, you cannot compromise, you can’t make mistakes, the machine and the audience won’t support you. But if you’re always honest, you can get away with doing anything, kind of like Neil Young, he’s never compromised his values.

And “Bringing It All Back Home” has “Maggie’s Farm.” And “She Belongs to Me.” And “Mr. Tambourine Man.” And “Gates of Eden.” But it also contains Dylan’s masterpiece, his best work in my mind, at least my absolute favorite, because of the truth contained, “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding,” from which the initial lines at the top of this screed are excised.

Most people heard “It’s Alright, Ma” first on the “Easy Rider” soundtrack, via the Roger McGuinn version. “It’s Alright, Ma” is classic Dylan, in that it was not a hit single, but it has survived the sands of time via its excellence, like so many similar non-hit parade Dylan tracks.

And the reason “It’s Alright Ma” is so great, is because although it’s singular, it was also universal, or at least after its release. As in listeners were affected by the song, society changed, people started to question authority. I’m not talking about conspiracy theories, but the supposed bedrock of our nation:

“For them that must obey authority

That they do not respect in any degree

Who despise their jobs, their destinies

Speak jealously of them that are free

Do what they do just to be

Nothing more than something they invest in”

Bingo! Are you an automaton, or do you think for yourself and forge your own path? That was the question in the sixties, and most young people ended up on Dylan’s side.

“While one who sings with his tongue on fire

Gargles in the rat race choir

Bent out of shape from society’s pliers

Cares not to come up any higher

But rather get you down in the hole

That he’s in”

This applies as much today. Everybody’s telling you to be like them, to conform, if you do it your way you’re going to be lambasted.

“Old lady judges watch people in pairs

Limited in sex they dare

To push fake morals, insult and stare

While money doesn’t talk it swears

Obscenity, who really cares

Propaganda, all is phony”

Should women control their own bodies? Is sex dirty? Is the system right? And now we all know it comes down to money. And propaganda…hell, look at Trump. But back then, the young ‘uns never would have fallen for it.

“While them that defend what they cannot see

With a killer’s pride, security

It blows their minds most bitterly

For them that think death’s honesty

Won’t fall upon them naturally

Life sometimes must get lonely”

No one gets out of here alive. You bloviate as if it counts, and then you die and it’s all irrelevant. All the politicians, the business heroes…they’re so powerful and then they’re not, they’re forgotten.

“Although the masters make the rules

For the wise men and the fools

I got nothing, Ma, to live up to”

A rejection of the system as opposed to a buying in, which is the ethos of the upper middle class/highly-educated caste of today.

5

The rest you might know. Or maybe not, maybe you’re just that young.

So after the ultimately disappointing “Planet Waves” for Geffen, which did contain “Forever Young,” but it ultimately took Howard Cosell’s usage of the song as a sports metaphor to make it part of the public consciousness, and “Before the Flood,” in 1975 Dylan released “Blood on the Tracks.”

Essentially no one comes back, reaches the height of their previous work, never mind employing a different formula. “Blood on the Tracks” was personal. And just before its release, Dylan recut it with friends in Minneapolis and if you’ve heard the original version, you know it was the correct decision. Dylan went by instinct. Most times he cut it and that was it. He wasn’t as insane about it as Frank Sinatra, but Dylan knew that the performance was all about capturing lightning in a bottle. It didn’t have to be right, it just had to capture the zeitgeist. All true artists know this, and they can tell the difference. Yet, to a great degree once people make it they spend endless time in the studio, eviscerating all the life from a recording in an effort to make it “perfect.”

And then Dylan went Christian. And although he ultimately rejected that, “Slow Train Coming,” produced by Barry Beckett and Jerry Wexler, was one of his best albums ever. Come on, listen to “Man Gave Names to All the Animals” and “When You Gonna Wake Up,” never mind the famous title track. And let’s also not forget the contributions of Mark Knopfler and his Dire Straits bandmate, Pick Withers.

But as good as “Slow Train Coming” was, its follow-up, “Saved,” was nearly that bad.

And then Dylan’s output thereafter has been hit and miss. But he stays in the game, and sometimes connects, whether it be “I and I” from 1983’s “Infidels” or…2000’s “Things Have Changed,” from the soundtrack to “The Wonder Boys.”

I read the book, and the film was better. And as soon as you heard Dylan singing you realized he had hit the note once again, created something just as great as his classics, yet years later…you know it when you hear it and I did, and ultimately so did others. Do you know how rare that is?

And then Bob went on the endless tour, long before his contemporaries were forced on the road for long periods as a result of the lack of recording income as a result of Napster/the internet, and he did it his way, as stated above.

So…

6

Today it’s announced that Bob Dylan has sold his songs to Universal and the scuttlebutt is all about the penumbra. Dylan has been reduced to one dimension. There are those criticizing him online as worthless, others referencing his whiskey and commercials…the songs, the music itself, is barely mentioned, the focus is on the money, whereas the focus was never on the money at the beginning, you just couldn’t make that much in music. It was only after the Beatles broke and Peter Grant insisted on 90% of the concert gross that artists really became rich, but nowhere near as rich as today. Sure, Dylan likes money, but what has that got to do with the MUSIC!

But that’s today, where everybody’s got an opinion and feels entitled to post it online and argue about it. It makes them feel good about themselves, however detached and uninformed their opinion might be. Hell, Dylan needs to write a song about this. My inbox is full of authoritative misinformation. And sure, I know more of the inner workings of Dylan’s life than the people on the street, but his camp is famously tight-lipped so I’m focusing on the business deal and the music itself. The deal is detached from the music, it doesn’t affect the songs whatsoever. And with the focus on the money the music is left behind, when that’s where the focus must lie.

Sure, Dylan has occasionally whiffed. But he’s not afraid to play, he’s not afraid to do something for fear it might tarnish his image.

Also, Dylan knows the game and refuses to play it, he’s an original. Once upon a time the biggest stars were originals, but the influx of the money in the seventies and eighties had people pulling back the reins, they didn’t want to put their cash flow in jeopardy.

And you might think Dylan has a bad voice. I’m not gonna argue with you, you’re entitled to your opinion, I’m not going to say you don’t understand, that his vocals are great, or great for his material, all I’m going to do is implore you to listen to the music, because it’s all there. The myth-making, the scuttlebutt, is superseded by the songs and the recordings, that’s what will remain. Bob Dylan has been doing it for sixty years, no one has ever counted him out, all true musos are always gonna check out his new work, he’s at the pinnacle of the classic rock artists on this, you never know when he’ll surprise you.

And it’s always a surprise. Most recently with “Murder Most Foul.” An almost seventeen minute track about the Kennedy assassination? And it may not have much repeatability, but one listen is more impactful than almost everything on the hit parade, it’s got gravitas without beating you over the head with its importance. Today people play it straight up the middle, Dylan’s viewpoint was always skewed, and made you think about the subject.

There is so much to dive into.

I know, I know, everybody talks about 1998’s release of the Albert Hall concert from 1966, and that package, “Bootleg Series, Vol. 4,” deserves your attention, but not as much as “The Bootleg Volume 6: Bob Dylan Live 1964 – Concert at Philharmonic Hall.”

’64. Sure the Beatles had broken, but there were not endless arena and stadium shows, most people in America hadn’t even heard of Philharmonic Hall, which was rebranded Avery Fisher Hall and now sports David Geffen’s name. But when you listen to this double album, you’ll yearn to have been alive in that era, to have been at that gig, because Dylan is making it up as he goes, he hits the stage naked, with no accompaniment, you can see him at work, he even forgets some of the words of “It’s Alright, Ma.”

Playing without a net. That’s what Dylan did with 1975/6’s “Rolling Thunder Review.” One and done, no one else has equaled it. And the ultimate movie featured Sharon Stone as a pivotal character, as if Kanye West had impacted Ronald Reagan, albeit a bit less obvious as a joke in Stone’s case. Dylan’s always bobbing and weaving. He has stayed forever young, aging all the while. He is not trying to be young and hip, he’s just being himself, going his own way. Dylan is a beacon, the Beatles knew it, many of your heroes knew it, and you can either get on the train or be left out of the loop. The slow train has finally arrived, it’s at the station, are you willing to get on? We all did back then, and no one sees Dylan’s work as nostalgia, it was vital, and it still is today. How many other artists can you say that about?

Is he imperfect?

Yes.

Has he made mistakes?

Yes.

Have all his decisions been admirable?

No.

But Bob Dylan keeps on keepin’ on, never resting on his laurels, constantly pushing the envelope, his music will remain long after the scuttlebutt fades away.

He not busy being born is truly dying…how many others have written bedrock aphorisms of society?

I rest my case.

… on Ready Steady Go with the lovely Cathy McGowan as Cher and Brian Jones as Sonny.

Then everyone as either one.

Good Fun!

antgimel

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Bob: I was Sonny & Cher’s first agent. I signed them to William Morris when I was just a baby agent. All my colleagues told me not to do it, except Harvey Kresky, who later became their manager. We had heard ‘I GotYou Babe.’ I was a TV agent and my accounts were scale television and game shows. This made Shindig my show.

One day The Rolling Stones were on the stage singing Satisfaction, and I was watching from the wings. Then an anomaly occurred, the three hundred kids in the audience were ignoring the Stones and calling to someone in the wings in front of me. It was Sonny Bono, I had never seen nor heard of him, but the kids loved him.

Making a long story very short, We signed them to the Morris Office. A month later they had 5 singles in the Billboard top 100. Now what happened in that month is an even better story.

Sonny was a really smart, really nice guy and Cher was even sweeter. Hartmann

John Hartmann

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Sonny, one of my dearest friends. He and his wife Susie and I were skiing at Heavenly the day my Mom passed away. He fell that day and tore the ligaments in his right hand. Every time we went skiing he tore or broke or sprained something. Salvatore Philip Bone was a horrible skier and that’s how he met his demise. But he was a lovely, caring, loving man. RIP Sonny Bono.

Val Garay

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That record saved Atlantic Records. The company was for sale. Their sale to ABC for a paltry $3 million fell apart because the label couldn’t warrant they had paid all their royalties. Wexler was playing footsie with Leiber and Stoller over a merger (to Ahmet’s horror) because their Red Bird Records was hotter than Atlantic by a mile. Ahmet bought the master for $5000 over the phone without ever having heard it and “I Got You Babe” became the biggest hit in Atlantic history, not just No. 1 in this country but a worldwide smash the company had never seen before.

Joel Selvin

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And in one of the more incredible stats of 1965, the Billboard number one song of the year, which, by the way, only got to number two but was the first American artist to sell a million copies of a single since the beginning of the British Invasion, was Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs “Wooly Bully”!

It stayed in the top 5 for 2 months.

Side note. I once asked Bill Graham what was the worst act to ever play the Fillmore West. His response:

By far, Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs.

John French

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The absolute best cover of the song (of many) for me was watching post-Ziggy Bowie duet with Marianne Faithfull (who was wearing a nun’s habit and huge wimple…open at the back, as I clearly remember – she looked utterly fabulous) at the Marquee Club in London, 1973. Fan Club only audience, and not packed by any means. Utter magic – although I missed Woody Woodmansey. Recorded for American TV.  A very special thing, and everybody in the room knew it. I floated home afterwards.

Hugo Burnham

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I always liked Sonny & Cher, especially “I Got You Babe” and “Baby Don’t Go.”  And I liked Sonny’s solo “Laugh At Me,” even have the album.  And I have the “Ringo I Love You” novelty single, well sung by Cher under the name Bonnie Joe Mason, co-written by Phil Spector with Anders & Poncia, possibly produced by Phil or maybe actually Sonny.   Sonny was all over the place back then, doing anything and everything to be in the music biz: songwriting, playing on sessions, producing, plugging records.  Whatever it took to make it in the music business. And then he met Cher, and he recognized that diamond in the rough, and without him, who knows what might have never happened.  She put in the hours also, singing on any project and for anyone who let her.  Together, what they created was real, not artifice.

Toby Mamis

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I saw a lot of Cher during her marriage to Gregg Allman and I remember the swarms of National Inquirer reporters and photogs who followed them constantly. I had to hire a security guy which we had never done previously. She was always very kind and generous and she came to Gregg’s funeral. I don’t think Gregg ever stopped loving her. A funny aside… when “Ramblin’ Man” made it to to #2 on the Billboard singles chart, Cher was at #1! (I think I am remembering that correctly).

Willie Perkins

P.S. I looked it up. Cher’s “Halfbreed” was #1 when ABB’s “Ramblin Man” was #2.

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At 13 years old, I  saw Sonny and Cher sing  (no doubt lip sync) “I Got You Babe” on tv via The Lloyd Thaxton Show.  Yep, Sonny was wearing that fur vest and I remember thinking Cher was really nice looking! And yes, I know every word and sing along every time I hear the song.

Rob Evans

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When I was 12, I’d drop in at the Sunset Blvd office of managers Greene & Stone. “Are Sonny and Cher here?” They always seemed to be; it was a cool hang. One day, coming home from guitar lessons, a white car pulled over on Selma. It was Sonny- he asked about the guitar and encouraged me to keep with the lessons. It was so special to be recognized by this warm and sweet man. Unfortunately, my guitar playing began and ended with a sorry “Tom Dooley.”

Mike Minky

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Bill Murray will forever be linked because of “Groundhog Day”

Marc Platt, Los Angeles

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There’s the power of pop MELODY, which Sonny was skilled at, having witnessed the masters first hand work, he was a good student obviously

And Sonny could write and arrangement.  There is a symphonic feel that was both on-the-way-out yet still contemporary

Then they juxtapose Cher’s musical voice with Sonny’s off register answers and for some odd reason the combination is enchanting, not overpowering, not maudlin.

Dennis Pelowski

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Fall in love, then listen to I GOT YOU BABE.

It takes on a whole other dimension… especially in he midst of a pandemic.

Suzanne “Ponyta” Nuttall

Toronto, Canada

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If you are of a certain age there are a handful of songs you know from the opening licks that you will stop what you are doing and listen all the way through. House of the Rising Sun by the Animals. And yeah, I Got You Babe. The oboe gets your attention but it’s the performance that’s holds you to the end, that and the expression of a need you won’t truly understand until much later in life, the need for a companion to share the ups and downs and to be there all the way until the final act, holding your hand. In the time of Covid-19 when people are forced to die alone that simple image assumes even more poignancy.

George Laugelli

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Just a true great great song.. words, chorus, melody, performers.. im not sure there are many people that don’t know a line or two from it. There was something truly special about their partnership. But, this song was and is the best example of how great a simple 2-3 min song can be.

Chris Anderson

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Time is a lot kinder to their songs than some of their contemporaries. Baby Don’t Go (with that chromatic harp) and You Better Sit Down Kids (which may have been solo Cher) are my two faves.

Dave Murray

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songs of all time with I Got You Babe!!!  That song defined love (and like) in a relationship better that any.  Funny but I also think of Bon Jovi’s Living On A Prayer as another generation’s follow up.  Once again, the musicianship provided by the Wrecking Crew made I Got You Babe stand out so distinctively on the radio and while Cher carries and belts it, Sonny also did his best vocal job on that song as well.  Not gonna lie, I have been known to belt it out with various friends in a karaoke bar or three over the years __.

Keep hitting those buttons pal and stay healthy!!

Tommy Nast

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Name another duo where the one was elected to Congress and the other was an Oscar winning actress.

Tom Rooney

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Wow!  I think  only a gifted writer such as you could succeed at giving a counter culture authenticity to Sonny and Cher and their top  40 anthem “I got you babe”.  Sonny was a self indulgent promoter . A less offensive version  of Trump. He took Louie Prima and Keely Smith’s popular act from the 50s wrapped it in PG rated hippie attire and offered a safer version of the scary counter culture to  a mass audience, and struck it  rich.   Cher was the talent and the star, Sonny ended up  right where he belonged amidst his grifterpeers in the Republican Party.

alan segal  san diego

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I loved the way she would look at him, sometimes with pure love and sometimes

with a look of laughter, derision, or disbelief.

Van Easton

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“I got you Babe” is the song that Bill Murray wakes to each morning in the movie “Groundhog Day”.

Timeless song.

-Sonny (yes, that is my name) in Phoenix

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Played that song 100 times on the jukebox at Mancinis Pizza. I was 11. Trying “Baby Don’t Go”. It’s my fav. Thanks for the pleasant reminder of those carefree days! Richard King

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Also: that gorgeous oboe!

Steve Lindstrom

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My fave Sonny song, “Needles And Pins”.

Chris Mancini

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Hey Bob,

Maybe you’ll like this version.

Ari Posner

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It’s been the alarm on my phone for years via ground hog day.

Johnny Lloyd Rollins

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I Got You Babe is a great song.  It was the oboe that put it over the top.  The oboe was the hook.

My sister is ten years older than me.  We used to sing the song together.  Of course, she sang Sonny’s lines and I sang Cher’s.

Steve Monk

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Every teenage ‘couple’ at the time had a song that was theirs.  For my first serious teenage girlfriend and I, it was I Got You Babe.

Maybe that’s why it went to number one — all of us teen couples?

R. Lowenstein

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i know where you’re coming from. even the carpenters (THE CARPENTERS!) sound good in retrospect, though we wouldn’t be caught dead admitting it at the time.

rsands9

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In the early 70s when Imus was still an AM DJ in NY, I remember him playing it. After the end, with the fade of I got you babe being repeated several times, he said “Sounds like a disease”. I think of that every time I hear it. hahaha
Kevin Kiley

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The Sonny & Cher original is a nice enough time capsule piece. How often do you hear an oboe in a pop song? It does, though, tend to  smack of hippie commercialization. It might even be the first instance of it.

When I listen to it now, I think of how they always ended their variety show with it.

Give me the frenetic Etta James version any day.

Kind Regards,

John Jordan

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I Got You Babe/Best Version

Al Kooper

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I Got You Babe is a classic example of the cover being better than the original.  Even though the drums are programmed, the UB40 version with Chrissie Hynde has soul – Sonny and Cher’s version is all bubblegum and tinsel.  The Beatles’ Twist and Shout, Judy Collins’ Both Sides Now, Hendrix’s All Along The Watchtower, and James Taylor’s You’ve Got A Friend are other great examples.

I’d love to read your take on covers being the definitive version.  Aretha’s version of Bridge Over Troubled Water, maybe?  Hard to say – the original is so great as well.

Cheers,

Andy Dayes

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As a preadolescent boy watching on TV, I’m seeing this dorky guy and he has CHER. To this day, I think flat abs are very sexy and I suspect that it’s somehow tied to those early images of Cher on TV. So hell yes, I loved that song. “I Got You Babe” was a first fantasy that I didn’t even understand in the moment but it would prove to be unforgettable. As I recall, Gregg Allman was equally stricken.

I could never break down a song the way that you can but for me, this song was number one for a reason and Cher’s belly button was probably the reason. LOL

Mark McLaughlin

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I like the UB40/Chrissie Hynde version.

I was just a kid when that came out and hated it!

Rodney Rowland

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Growing up with the Sonny & Cher show, well it was a big deal in our house. We’d all watch it together, my stepdad would comment on Cher’s outfits. Mom would roll her eyes. We thought Sonny was a loser, but we liked him anyway. We had this TV antennae on a pole by the side of the house that would move when the wind blew and one of the kids had to go out and turn it to get a decent signal. Dad in his recliner directing the turning operation and one of us stuck outside while the show was on trying to get it just right. Hold it! No, back a little. Too far. Back. OK. Then back inside and by then a commercial was on. Reading your piece brought all that back to me, and I can’t help but smile about it.

Jim Warren

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By 1965, my Aunt had given me a couple Chubby Checkers albums, and my Grandmother had gifted me a Beatles single, but the first record I ever bought with my own money was “I Got You Babe.”  You’re right – it was everywhere — and I wanted to own it.  That high oboe, or whatever it was, going “dah dah, dah dah, dah dah…” was the ultimate earworm.  I was also happy to play the flip side,”It’s Gonna Rain,” over and over again.  What I remember when I saw them on TV was that Cher was pretty and they dressed “young.”  It didn’t register at all that Sonny was that much older than Cher — they looked like a couple in love.

Everyone had a soft-spot for “I Got You Babe” — Bowie performed it with Marianne Faithfull in 1973 for the 1980 Floor Show — him wearing red PVC and black ostrich plumes, and her sporting the Flying Nun’s wimple, and a habit with no arms and nothing on underneath.  (I bought the bootleg of that, and it’s NOT one I play much!)

Even Joey Ramone & Holly Beth Vincent (of Holly & The Italians) put out their single of it in 1982.

And even though you didn’t watch it, Sonny & Cher closed their TV show each week with a bit of their signature song.

I’m glad you finally came around and re-experienced it.

Here’s a clip of Sonny & Cher performing “I Got You Babe” on Top Of The Pops.  This time, Cher’s wearing the fur vest.  It takes me back to ’65.  And I still have the single.

Mark Helfrich

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I was sixteen and came down from Liverpool to stay with a friend in London for the weekend.

Walking around London we saw two very exotic looking people coming down the steps of a hotel. They were being escorted by large fit-looking gentleman in slick dark electric blue Italian suits, white shirts black ties. I thought the exotics must be a prince and princess from some South American country although I was fairly sure that most South American countries did not have princes and princesses. They were too clean for Rock and Roll. To exotic and cool for show biz. The suits got the couple into an awaiting black limo, checking out roof tops in this quiet London street as they did so in a similar way that Trump would be gotten into a car outside a hotel in downtown Los Angeles. The said couple were wafted off into the sun-streamed afternoon.

That night we went to the Marquee to see The Spencer Davis Group. We then realised that as part of the deal was that we had to stand through a one hour ‘Live from the Marquee’ Radio London radio show. It was hosted by DJ Pete Murray. Several act just did one number each. I can only remember two of them. One, a girl duo,  was called ‘The Two of US’. The other act closed the show. Our South American prince and princess came onto the stage. It was Sonny and Cher. It was the first I had heard of them. They sang I got You Babe (to track!). It was the first time I had heard the song too. I don’t know if it had been released yet. This was a promo visit. They  had some pizzaz – Cher more than Sonny but it seemed like it was probably going to be a catchy, slightly cheesy one-hit wonder if it was ever going to be a hit. It had the best chance of the Radio London’s  offerings that night.

With our hour of penance watching floor managers hold up huge boards with ‘Applause’ written on them out of the way, the gig we had come to see was allowed to proceed. The support was The Mark Leeman Five, a very good band with Brian ‘Blinky’ Davison on drums before joining the Nice. Sadly Mark Leeman subsequently died in a car crash. A  great warm-up for a great Spencer Davis Group set. When we thought all was done, various members of the Mark Leeman five came back on stage to jam with the Spencer Davis Group.  This allowed Steve Winwood to move from guitar to keyboards, harmonica and vocals with always someone available to cover the instrument he had just vacated. The jam session really began to pick up pace with renditions of R&B classics (R&B in the old sense). A number of musos had turned up to see Spencer Davis that night and started to join in the jam for a number or two. They included Eric Clapton, Erick Burdon and Chris Barber (trombone). They greatest jam session that I have ever, ever witnessed. Who M.D.’ed this and held it all wonderfully together? Seventeen year-old Steve Winwood.

What a night. All stated off with the curious and quirky appearance of a totally unknown Sonny & Cher.

Mike Lowe

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My big brother, seven years older, had this record. He moved out shortly after my mom remarried and he and my stepfather didn’t get along. Bill was just eighteen. He didn’t take his records right away.
I was just turning eleven and my friend Renee and I played these records everyday after school in my empty apartment. Beatles, Stones, Animals, Yardbirds, Them.

We’d finagled our moms to buy us those white leather go-go boots, and we’d dance until we fell down on the carpet, panting and sweaty. Roll Over Beethoven!
We were entranced by the Sonny & Cher record though, playing it over and over. Yep, the idea of having a forever best friend who understood you and was there for you, no matter what, even if you owned next to nothing?

Their hair and clothes signaled they were different from the rest of the pop acts. The liner notes and photos on the back of the record proved it. They had headshots of their crew. They all looked like latter day beatniks, as did Sonny & Cher except S & C were so polished, camera ready. These grainy B&B images showed real beatniks who were scruffy, unsmiling, dead serious about – whatever they were about! Being the essential peeps behind the scenes of S&C, their real friends. S&C supposedly wrote the notes under each one. A woman with probably one name was basically described as “not having worn shoes for the past year, and probably won’t this year” and I never forgot that. Actually embraced barefooted style as much as I could get away from it because it seemed this woman had higher principles, that what mattered most to her was beyond surface appearances. They planted the seed for my future hippie self.

Yep, that wall of sound made that song pop, that carnival my, pied piper organ sound, and I recall Val telling me about hanging around the Phil’s studio then, watching Sonny create his future. Who knew he’d become a congressman and die running into a tree on skis, and Cher would live on to rescue the loneliest elephant in the world during a pandemic? Life is scary and also pretty outrageous.

Melissa Ward

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You got it right except for a few things ~ I can remember all the girls at school trying their best to look like Cher ~ Cutting bangs and ironing the curls out of their hair ~ The school jocks got those girls first ~ The rest of us were stuck with the left overs ~

You don’t as far as I’m concern give enough credit to Sonny for the lessons learned from working with Phil Spector because he took those lesson and formulated it into the Sonny & Cher sound and took it all to the bank ~

Also I don’t know how Sonny did it but some how back in 1967 he got ABC Motion Pictures ( they made all those horrible Surf movies ) to produce a movie for them called “Good Times” just as all their star power was fading ~

They were never my cup of tea back in the day but they did manage to fall from grace as I remember it seems that  back when everyone was smoking pot and taking LSD they came out against drugs ~ I remember thats when they looked like our elders and not one of us ~

In all actuality they did manage to have the last laugh in the 70s with there TV show ~ They made a lot of money and were once again America’s little darling ~

RS ~

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Now go back and give Cher’s (solo) version of All I Really Want To Do another shot.   You won’t be sorry.

I’m a Gen X’r. Grew up with the 70’s Cher,.. the one that invented that Eddie Vedder affectation that was so big with all the late era grungers.

Not a peak in her creative journey,… but when I discovered teenage 60’s Cher when I was a teenager myself in the mid 80’s,… boy was that a revelation.

I guess she was imitating Sonny, which as you will see listening to All I Really Want To Do, she was able to sing both the male and female parts by herself.  But man did she take her mentors idea and go somewhere entirely of her own. Somewhere tough and ballsy and totally female, empowered teenage female.  That’s probably what I fell in love with when I was a teenage boy in the era of Debby G and Tiffany. Both fine in their own right but not in the same league.

Steve McDonald

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For those too young to remember this pre-FM era could have a Stones song, followed by Frank Sinatra’s STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT, to the Dave Clark Five, to We Five,  to the Temptations,  to Sonny and Cher……

Look at those Top 40 lists from that time.  You would think you’d be sharing the radio with your parents.

It’s a mix tape before mix tape.

Tom Rooney

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haha. Bob, I saw them sing it at my first concert. my dad dropped me and two friends off for the WOR FM Birthday party at the Village Theatre which became Fillmore East. they may have been first, we didn’t go to see them. The Doors headlined and closed, blew the roof off and my mind. here’s some of the line up I remember:
Sonny and Cher
Janis Ian
The Blues Project
The Chambers Brothers
Richie Havens
The Doors

i googled the dj’s,
Jim Lounsbury
Johnny Michaels
Scott Muni
Murray The K
Rosko

Owen

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glad you finally got this one bob!

Peter Noone

I don’t believe in selling your songs.

We are in a once in a lifetime era, where songs are valued higher than they ever have been before as a result of the recognition of the value of said songs, especially as companies have realized digital/internet provides more avenues of exploitation and more money than previously believed, and there are ever fewer independent catalogs available.

Credit Merck. He rounded up a ton of money and wants it all, he wants to buy your catalog outright, lock stock and barrel. Merck wasn’t the first to pay big bucks, but the first to insist he was taking it all. Sure, there’s a theoretical back end, but the odds of it paying are extremely low, that’s why Merck is paying such extremely high prices.

And then you’ve got Larry Mestel and Primary Wave. But he’s selling a different paradigm, he’s not only going to buy your catalog, he’s gonna work it. That’s part of the Stevie Nicks deal. In an era where traditional labels give up on marketing you if you don’t have hits, even though they own the tracks and are collecting streaming revenue, showing the power of ownership, you want to boost said revenue and participate. Mestel has product managers, Primary Wave is a marketing juggernaut, illustrating once again the changes the internet has wrought on the business. There are more opportunities, and innovative companies, but the media, and to a great degree the major labels, only focus on the Spotify Top 50 and big numbers and the public has a skewed vision of what the music business is all about.

Maybe if you have no heirs. Stevie Nicks has neither a spouse nor progeny. So she gets the value of her catalog instantly, now, while she is still alive. She’s not going to live another thirty years, she could live much less than that, so now she has the ability to utilize all that cash while she’s still breathing.

But what are you going to do with the cash?

Business is littered with people who got huge payouts and then blew the cash. All of it. It’s very easy to do. Hell, you can spend ten million in a day, if not more. Did you see that guy who started Pizza Hut blew through all the cash from its sale? That’s a common story. Whereas if they drip the money out on a regular basis, which is the essence of music publishing, you’ve got the equivalent of an insurance policy.

And odds are the younger generations are nowhere near as good with money as you were. Can you say “Edgar Bronfman, Jr?,” never mind his two sisters who supported Keith Raniere and NXIVM? Music publishing is essentially a trust for your heirs, to ensure that they don’t blow through everything you created overnight.

Meanwhile, selling is antithetical to all the territory taken by artists in the late sixties and seventies. Ownership of your publishing was a BREAKTHROUGH! Not having it cross-collateralized against recording revenue was a breakthrough. As for the value of copyrights… Peter Grant sold out Led Zeppelin’s record royalties and then the rights became a gold mine. Same deal with Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis Presley. Doesn’t anybody look at history?

As for exploitation, you can always make a deal with a publisher to do this, usually at de minimis rates. And publishing royalties are historically more transparent than recording royalties, you should get paid, what you’ve earned or close to it.

In a perfect world artists would own all their rights, and just license them. But too many acts are uninformed, never mind having brief careers, and the percentage partners see a gold mine today, which otherwise they may never get, i.e. Peter Grant and Colonel Tom Parker. But these publishing sales are moving the ball in the wrong direction.

Paul McCartney tries to recapture the rights to the Beatles songs and is undercut by Michael Jackson. The value of those songs keeps going up. And McCartney has put a huge chunk of his earnings into music publishing. Wouldn’t others wake up and follow his lead?

But we are not living in the sixties and seventies anymore. Music doesn’t represent the same thing, sure, music is everywhere, but it’s not the soul of the culture like it once was. As for the sale of today’s acts’ publishing in the future? So far, almost no one has created a catalog that compares to that of the titans of yore.

This is the marshmallow test. This is Wimpy and the burger. Can you resist today’s chunk for more riches tomorrow?

As for value… So far, historically, music publishing catalogs keep going up. Fewer are available and revenues for publishing keep ascending.

How many people can resist the cash dangled?

Dylan selling is disappointing.

P.S. Copyrights will expire when Disney is willing to let Mickey Mouse go into the public domain. A songwriter may have little political capital, but the Mouse House has plenty. It’s looking like copyright is forever.

I didn’t like it.

Now you’ve got to remember, we were in the heyday of the British Invasion, rock ruled, and if you look at the songs on the hit parade in the summer of ’65 your jaw will drop. Yes, there was “Satisfaction.” But also “Help” and my personal favorite, “California Girls.” Motown was represented too, with “It’s the Same Old Song,” “Nothing But Heartaches” and “Tracks of My Tears,” and this was when Dylan finally hit the Top Forty airwaves, with “Like a Rolling Stone,” and the number one record was…I GOT YOU BABE?

And it was never really a Top Forty, barely twenty records got played, and the top five were played over and over again, which you kinda liked, because if you missed a favorite you just kept your transistor tuned to the station and soon enough it would come back on, meanwhile, you’re twisting the dial trying to find the track on another outlet, fearful you’ll miss it on the station you left, and while twirling the dial or pushing buttons you’d be subjected to number one over and over and over again. Which meant that I heard “I Got You Babe” many more times than I ever wanted to, and to tell you the truth, I don’t ever remember listening to it all the way through.

I didn’t think Sonny & Cher were their real names. Come on, Cher with a “C”? At this point naming your act was important, and who would live their lives with these monikers? And then I saw them on TV, I can still vividly remember it, they were singing “All I Really Want to Do,” actually Cher was singing, Sonny was just hanging out on stage in this fur vest that was so bogus, so ersatz, I never ever cottoned to the act…NEVER!

Not that you could evade their songs, but really the only two giant ones thereafter were “The Beat Goes On,” which Vanilla Fudge covered well on their very disappointing second LP, and Sonny’s “Laugh at Me,” which we did.

But then the act turned to TV. That’s what you did when you were running out of gas. Thank god I didn’t have a television set at that time, so I wasn’t subjected to their visages. But the show was such a hit that it was all over the press, back when we knew who the people were in the gossip pages, and the divorce story was interesting…who wouldn’t leave Sonny? And then I ran into Sonny and Chastity on their way out of the sporting goods store I was working at in Hollywood, he was driving a Porsche 911, we talked a bit, and I never forgot it.

And by this time I knew Sonny had worked for Phil Spector.

My friend Andrew Loog Oldham says the worst thing that ever happened to Phil was that Tom Wolfe article, “The First Tycoon of Teen,” Phil believed his press, and didn’t have that much success after, although he did work with the Beatles, but the Beatles were older, they remembered his wall of sound.

And I ultimately knew that originally the act did have fake names, as in Caesar and Cleo, but this was the deep trivia that came out in rock magazines, and dedicated readers ate it up and memorized it, but we weren’t going back and listening to their records, hell, we’d have to buy them, there was no streaming, no YouTube, and that was never going to happen. Furthermore, I don’t remember the Caesar and Cleo records being in the bins. Yes, people forget how bad the physical era was. Distribution was king and there was a good chance the record you wanted was out of print, unavailable, although you did constantly try and search for the ones you wanted, like I did with “Lumpy Gravy,” which I finally had to buy on import.

And, of course, as the seventies progressed, Cher had AM hits and then she became a movie star, never mind marrying Gregg Allman, and the last hurrah happened on Letterman, which I actually saw the evening of, on my VCR, I taped the show every night, it was a club, and when Dave moved to 11:30 it just wasn’t the same. So I was aware of the performance and then it exploded, became legendary, you can see it here: https://bit.ly/3lFrzwu And while I’m proffering links, this was not the show I saw, but here you can see the fur vest: https://bit.ly/2JAdeEn And ultimately, with help from Diane Warren, John Kalodner and a tattoo on her ass, Cher had a gigantic hit in the MTV era, turning back time, and when the internet came along I paid neither the deceased Sonny nor the still extant Cher any mind. But the other night I was listening to the top hits of 1965 on Spotify and I heard…”I Got You Babe.”

Do you fast-forward or not. Come on, you’ve experienced this problem. You’re listening to a playlist, or you’re shuffling your tracks, and you hit a bummer, a bad song, or one that does not suit your mood, and if you click past it…then you start clicking through other songs and the mood is broken, you’ve got to listen to the bummers, and sometimes they reveal themselves to you. “I Got You Babe” revealed itself to me Tuesday night.

“They say we’re young and we don’t know

We won’t find out until we grow

Well I don’t know if all that’s true

‘Cause you got me and baby I got you”

It was a different era. There was a huge middle class. You could survive on minimum wage, you could make beaucoup bucks with your hands, especially on the assembly line, and everybody did not believe they could become famous and…”I Got You Babe” was evidencing optimism, it’s the opposite of the paranoia and pessimism of today. And, the youthquake had started to tremble, we were aware of an unjust war in Vietnam, boys might get their ass shot off for no good reason and we stopped respecting our elders, we were young and we believed we knew.

“I got you babe, I got you babe”

By this time I’d had camp girlfriends, two in fact, but I really knew nothing about relationships, the power of two, oftentimes against the world, you only have each other, you lean on and rely on each other to forage forward. And the truth is life is scary, and no one really listens to you after you leave school, you’re lucky if you have anyone at all.

“They say our love won’t pay the rent

Before it’s earned our money’s all been spent

I guess that’s so, we don’t have a pot

But at least I’m sure of all the things we got”

You didn’t need to buy career insurance. Doctors were rich people. You needed no safety net, you could enter the landscape with your eyes open and odds were you were gonna make it.

And the track had the feel of the Byrds, with the jangly guitar, and even though the vocals were right up front there was a wall of sound behind, and then just an organ or some instrument that sounded like a carnival and then came a bridge.

“I got flowers in the spring, I got you to wear my ring”

It’s hard to explain the era, with its sports and traditions hanging over from earlier days. Glenn Frey loved football, and the truth was you wanted to give your letter sweater to your girl, assuming you had one to begin with, and your fraternity pins and rings…

“And when I’m sad, you’re a clown

And if I get scared, you’re always around”

And this was when Cher became Cher. She reached deep down and bellowed, and it seemed like she was really in love, that she truly believed what she was singing, and we became convinced she and Sonny were actually together, this was not a studio concoction, and Sonny did write the lyrics.

“So let them say your hair’s too long

‘Cause I don’t care, with you I can’t go wrong”

Hair. It was a constant battle. How long were you allowed to grow it, what did your parents say, what did the school say, I remember coming back from the barber shop and my mother insisting I go right back because they hadn’t taken enough off, and she was liberal! But there was a dividing line, between us and them, you can say it’s akin to tattoos and hip-hop, but tattoos are permanent and back in the sixties things fashion was moving so fast you didn’t want to get stuck in some backwater, unable to switch your look to avoid being made fun of, there was no nerd culture, i.e. nerds were not lionized and embraced, either you were cool or you didn’t even exist, so people constantly tried to be cool. And sure, hip-hop may piss off boomers like rock pissed off boomers’ parents, but the funny thing was the rock songs were so good that they ended up being remade as AC numbers, my father knew “For Once In My Life” having never heard the Stevie Wonder version, he knew it as “beautiful music,” no one’s cutting adult versions of hip-hop, actually a lot of hip-hop is built on samples from the rock canon.

“Then put your little hand in mine

There ain’t no hill or mountain we can’t climb”

This was not nihilism, this was not destruction, this is one thing that has been lost in the rewrite of the sixties, boomers wanted to be nonviolent, there was a whole anti-football contingent, boomers only turned to violence and destruction when their elders insisted they go overseas to risk getting shot while having no choice in the matter, ergo the lowering of the voting age.

“I got you to hold my hand

I got you to understand”

UNDERSTAND! We want someone to talk to who listens and gets us, that’s more important than how the other person looks or how rich they are.

“I got you to walk with me

I got you to talk with me”

The word “rap” was pulled from the inner city, it meant talking, we were rapping constantly, conversation drove the sixties, after all we had no internet, no social media, there was no other way to connect.

So I’m hiking in the mountains and a whole picture develops in my brain as I’m listening to “I Got You Babe.” There were people just a bit older than I was who embraced this as their anthem, and those who’d made their choices and felt, or wanted to feel good about them. I didn’t expect to see the sixties encapsulated in “I Got You Babe.”

“I got you babe

I got you babe

I got you babe

I GOT YOU BABE!”

The song did not fade out, it doubled-down on its essence, having each other was enough, and even though they were singing to each other we were empowered too, that was the magic of the music, sure, people listen to music today, but music does not drive the culture the way it used to, it was just about all we had, these pied pipers were leading us to new lands, they were opening our minds, they were showing us there was another way to live our lives, we just didn’t have to repeat the steps of our parents.

And I’d like to tell you I’m getting the same sensation listening to “I Got You Babe” right now, two days later, inside, in my office, but serendipity oftentimes plays a part in the listening experience, right song, right time and not only are memories made, but insights generated, feelings kindled.

So many songs I know by heart I was too young to understand so this late date discovery process is enlightening and satisfying, but that’s the entrancing element of music, you can always peel back the layers, you can always go deeper.

“Babe

I got you babe”

1965 is set in amber. I’m no longer pissed that “I Got You Babe” is keeping the Beatles from being number one, eliminating space for something more palatable to me, it can be evaluated on its own terms. And at the time I thought “I Got You Babe” was a throwback, but it was squarely placed in the culture of the day. Sure, Sonny may have been old, but Cher was preternaturally young. she wasn’t even twenty! She was truly one of us, how did she grab the brass ring at such a young age? And Cher was the alternative to the blond beach bunnies, you could have dark hair and be attractive and sexy and Sonny and Cher might have started the bell-bottom craze.

And the funny thing is this fifty-five year old track survives, in an era where what happened last year is completely forgotten, where music goes by so fast you can’t even remember the songs you liked, and a lot less is known by heart.

There’s not a boomer alive who doesn’t know every lick of “I Got You Babe.” That’s right, the biggest Stones fans, the darkest personages, they know this song, because they were forced to listen to it on the radio, and at this late date even I can smile and feel good listening to “I Got You Babe,” that’s the power of a great song and great production.