The five best covers of ‘I Got You Babe’ that put Sonny & Cher to shame
Some songs, with the best will in the world, were never meant to age well.
To be clear, this isn’t really a criticism. Pop music is one of the most immediate art forms around. It’s meant to define the times as they are at the present, with no thought for what comes next, because living in the moment is the most important thing.
If anything, a pop song being written with one ear on how it’s going to sound six decades from the time it’s written is missing the point. But then, you get a song like ‘I Got You Babe’, by Sonny & Cher.
Now, there’s an argument to be made that ‘I Got You Babe’ was never meant to be cool. After all, it was written as a response song to Bob Dylan’s sneering kiss-off classic ‘It Ain’t Me Babe’. While that was all about setting a clingy ex brutally straight on exactly how little they meant to the singer, ‘I Got You Babe’ was the opposite. A celebration of two people, truly in love with each other, standing against a world that, for vaguely defined reasons, wanted to see them apart.
Perhaps that world wanted to see Sonny Bono apart from Cher because he was 27 to her 16 when they met and went on to be best mates with Phil Spector, but that’s not my place to speculate. The point is that the track is the very picture of 1960s corniness, and Cher, who infamously hated the song when she first heard it, could see that from the moment it was written. What she couldn’t see was just how much of a megahit it would be.
That corniness has only gotten more pronounced with time, to the point where it’s gone from outright bad taste to a more palatable form of warm, nostalgic kitsch, the kind the 1960s specialised in. It must be why so many bands and artists have given the track their own spin. Unlike many attempts at classic songs from the 1960s, there’s a decent chance that a cover of ‘I Got You Babe’ might just be better than the original!
Let’s dive into five such instances.
Five ‘I Got You Babe’ covers better than the original:
UB40 with Chrissie Hynde
The original pairing of Sonny Bono and Cher was a mismatch, with the former a jobbing songwriter pushing 30 and the latter a teenager with more star power in her toenails than most have in their entire being. While UB40 and Chrissie Hynde may have been established pop stars when they joined forces on this 1985 cover, their union is just as baffling. Hynde had already been a major league rock star with The Pretenders and street cred for days. Her duet partner, though, is a different story. UB40, while having an extensive collection of hits to their name, were very much a white reggae band.
That may have been a slightly more acceptable proposition in 1985, one of the many things that we’d do well to leave in that decade. It was still as cool as Kenny G, and the dated, synthesised backing does little to make this cod-dub reggae version of ‘I Got You Babe’ more than a curio. It is a little more of a duet of equals, though, with Hynde and UB40 frontman Ali Campbell both feeling like stars rather than the hydrogen bomb vs coughing baby match-up of Sonny vs Cher.
David Bowie with Marianne Faithfull
This is just surreal.
The story behind this performance is that Bowie was offered a slot performing a full set on the NBC show The Midnight Special. In true Thin White Duke fashion, he only accepted on the condition that he get full creative control over the set, which was gladly granted. He set about turning Soho’s iconic Marquee Club into a sci-fi boudoir, where he and a number of guests ripped through a live-wire set of covers and Bowie classics.
One of these guests was a singer who had actually performed with him back when he was still Davey Jones, trying to break into the industry in the mid-1960s. According to her, Marianne Faithfull had been impressed with the young Bowie and always kept an eye on his career afterwards, striking up a friendship with him many years later. The two of them duetted a surreal take on ‘I Got You Babe’, with Bowie sporting a feather collared catsuit and Faithfull a PVC Nun’s outfit. Thrilling stuff for 1973.
The Dictators
Punk and kitsch go hand in hand. The New York Dolls dressed in two-dollar wigs found in the trash outside the Mercer Street Arts Centre.
The Damned covering The Beatles’ ‘Help!’, and arguably, the best example of this came from New York proto-punk band The Dictators, whose whole shtick was reframing tropes from the rock ‘n’ roll of the 1950s and 1960s through an abrasive, punk rock filter. I mean, just look at the title of their debut record: The Dictators Go Girl Crazy!
Among songs called ‘(I Live For) Cars and Girls’ and ‘Teengenerate’ are two covers. A version of Joe Jones’ ‘California Sun’ and a surprisingly straight-faced cover of ‘I Got You Babe’. One can imagine a version of the song similar to Sid Vicious’ ‘My Way’. A pop song so traditional it borders on easy listening, given a guitar-infused kick up the jacksie, but The Dictators instead strip everything down, giving their version a sincere twist that might just be the most punk rock thing to do with a song as corny as ‘I Got You Babe’.
Holly Beth Vincent and Joey Ramone
Joey Ramone was arguably the king of making sweetness a radical punk rock statement. Everything from his voice to his demeanour to his taste in music spoke to a butter-wouldn’t-melt personality. Then that voice would start singing over a deafening punk rock squall about beating “on the brat with a baseball-bat-oh-yeah”, and one of the most magical bands in the history of punk was born. He also released the best version of the “punk rock take on a standard” trope with his weirdly tear-jerking version of ‘What A Wonderful World’.
Thus, it makes sense that he teamed up with Holly & The Italians singer Holly Beth Vincent on this utterly charming version of the Sonny & Cher classic. It may be a little doused in studio cheese, the way most things in rock were in the early 1980s—check out those synth horns parping along to the chorus—but the sheer charisma both Joey and Holly exude in spades just about carries it home.
Both artists were trying for success away from their parent groups at the time, and this track is a perfect example of why.
Etta James
You might have noticed that every other song in this list has been couched in a certain dismissiveness. While these covers are experiments in novelty more than anything, you’d actually want to spend time listening to, that attitude ends here. Etta James‘ ‘I Got You Babe’ isn’t just the best version of the song on this list, it’s the best version of the song, period, and it’s not even close. Putting all comments on taste, kitsch and legacy aside, Etta’s take on the song fucking rips, pure and simple.
She may be on the marquee, but she is not the only artist responsible for this full rework of the song. This was originally recorded at Rick Hall’s Fame Studios in the sessions that yielded her classic Tell Mama album. Hall’s production sheds the song of anything resembling its folky roots, doing away with its waltzing sweep for a four-to-the-floor, Muscle Shoals strut.
When those horns blast in, all bets are off. This is the definitive take on this song, and if you take one thing away from this list, it’s to go and give this masterful example of making a song your own a spin. Phenomenal.
