Baby It’s You
Bacharach & (Mack) David
The first two Beatles albums included around 40% of songs covered from other artists. These were mostly taken directly from their live act.
They avoided the most famous artists — no Elvis for example — and songs that had reached the higher reaches of the UK singles charts. All were chosen with their NME-reading peers in mind, which ruled out anything British .
In short they were looking for hip American minor hits of recent vintage, preferably from black artists. The New Jersey girl-group The Shirelles fitted this template and provided two songs for Please Please Me.
The Shirelles
The Shirelles combined the sweetness of the Doo Wop with teenage angst — in what has been described as a “naive schoolgirl sound”.
Formed by four teenage schoolgirls in 1958 they had a US number one with Will You Love Me Tomorrow in 1960 and another top three hit Dedicated to the One I Love.
Burt Bacharach was not yet a household name but he had written hits, most notably Magic Moments for Perry Como. He offered The Shirelles a new song called I’ll Cherish You. The Shirelles loved the tune and arrangement but thought the words too demur. And they demanded a better title.
Bacharach and his then writing partner Mac David (brother of Hal) came back with what was now called Baby It’s You. This had what Macdonald describes as ‘quietly vicious’ lyrics (‘Cheat! Cheat’) as counterpoint to the ‘ethereal kitsch’ of the music.
A daring approach to a pop song . The Shirelles simply added their vocals onto the Bacharach’s home-produced demo and released the single.
Baby It’s You reached number 8 in the US in 1961.
The Beatles version
Baby It’s You became a staple of The Beatles live set in 1961. The following year they recorded their version in three takes for their first album.
Their arrangement mirrors that of the Shirelles, but interestingly the sound is distinctive. As David Hepworth has pointed out The Beatles never sound remotely like the artists they cover.
This live performance is an improvement on the studio recording. It contains and impressively soulful lead vocal from John — who manages the higer notes more comfortably than he does on the LP. George’s backing vocal is also prominent.
In interviews, The Beatles generally referred to Baby It’s You as a ‘Shirelles song’. This downplaying of Burt’s contribution was unconscious, as songwriters were not high in the pop-world pecking order.
Bacharach-Williams-David (Mack rather than Hal in this case) was simply another combination of names on record label.
