‘Don’t Worry Baby’: the moment Brian Wilson tried to copy his favourite song
Few groups were as deeply ingrained in the pop music scene of the 1960s as The Beach Boys. Led by the endless innovation of Brian Wilson, the California rockers found inspiration in everybody from The Byrds to Chuck Berry – often to their detriment. In their early days, Wilson’s outfit were heavily criticised for finding a bit too much inspiration in the riffs and compositions of Chuck Berry. Of course, Berry was not the only person the band ‘borrowed’ from, with one of their biggest tracks arising from the hits of an iconic New York girl group.
The Ronettes were among the most popular and recognisable groups of the early 1960s, an intrinsic aspect of Phil Spector’s ‘wall of sound’ technique. Composed of sisters Veronica and Estelle Bennett, along with their cousin Nedra Talley, the vocal group were noted for an impressive run of hits, including ‘Baby, I Love You’ and, most famously, ‘Be My Baby’. The latter was a particular favourite of Brian Wilson, who went so far as to dub the single “the greatest record I ever heard”, saying “When I first heard it, it blew my mind”.
Saying that Wilson enjoyed The Ronettes’ track would be a vast understatement. He was noted for his all-encompassing obsession with the song, written by Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich, and Phil Spector. Wilson’s daughter, for instance, once remembered how the song would soundtrack her home life, saying, “I woke up every morning to boom boom-boom pow! Boom boom-boom pow! Every day.”
Inevitably, therefore, it would not take long before Wilson incorporated his love for ‘Be My Baby’ into the material of The Beach Boys, just as he had done with Chuck Berry. The product of the inspiration came in 1964, with the hit single ‘Don’t Worry Baby’.
You do not have to be a musicologist to notice the deep similarities between the two songs: the key is the same, the chord progression is very similar, as are the melodies. Apparently, Wilson had originally written the track for The Ronettes, but it was not to the taste of Phil Spector, so The Beach Boys had a crack at it.
Wilson revealed to Goldmine in 2011, “I wrote that with Roger Christian, and it took me two days to write it,” he said. “I started out with the verse idea and then wrote the chorus. It was a very simple and beautiful song. It’s a really heart and soul song, I really did feel that in my heart.” Such a description could equally be attributed to ‘Be My Baby’, which goes some way to explaining the deep inspiration the song provided for Wilson.
On the actual meaning behind the track, Wilson shared, “Some say it’s about a car and others say it’s about a girl, who’s right? It’s both. It’s about a car and a woman.” Whatever the true meaning behind the song, the deep ties it has to the Ronettes’ defining track certainly cannot be denied.
