Musician Harold Battiste provided the instrumental arrangement. The session for the song was held on June 7, 1965, at Gold Star Studios in Hollywood and lasted between 2 and 5 PM. If neither were interesting singers, their plodding, matter-of-fact performances gave the song a common-man appeal. Set to waltz time, the tune retained a light feel despite the sometimes busy instrumentation, led by a prominent oboe accompanied by a bassoon and the alternating vocals between the two singers. Where Dylan was musically simple, however, Bono, without fully rebuilding Spector's Wall of Sound, was more structurally ambitious, following the song's standard verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-verse-chorus form with an ascending coda that built to a climax, then started building again before the fadeout, all in only a little over three minutes. Recalling Dylan's bitter 1964 song "It Ain't Me Babe" (soon to be a folk-rock hit for the Turtles), Bono wrote his own opposite sentiment: "I Got You Babe." Where Dylan was lyrically complex, Bono was simple: His lyrics began with the ominous youth-versus-grownups theme of "they" who set up barriers to romance, but soon gave way to a dialogue of teenage romantic platitudes. Billboard said of the song "using the successful combination of folk and rock, this one has the performance and production of a smash." ĪllMusic critic William Ruhmann praised the song: "I Got You Babe" became the duo's biggest single, their signature song, and a defining recording of the early hippie countercultural movement. Session musicians known as The Wrecking Crew supplied the instrumental track. When Cher was woken up to sing the lyrics, she hated the song and didn't think it would soon be a hit and immediately went back to bed. Sonny Bono, a songwriter and record producer for Phil Spector, wrote the lyrics to and composed the music of the song for himself and his then-wife, Cher, late at night in their basement. Sonny & Cher, 1966 Background and composition
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |