Sonny & Cher – I Got You Babe

“I Got You Babe” – Single by Sonny & Cher from the album Look at Us
B-side “It’s Gonna Rain”
Released July 9, 1965
Label Atco
Songwriter Sonny Bono
Producer Sonny Bono
Charted No.1 in US, No.1 in UK; No.3 in West Germany, No.1 in Canada, No.1 in New Zeeland, No.7 in France

“I Got You Babe,” topped the Billboard Hot 100 on Aug. 14, 1965.

Music video by Sonny & Cher performing “I Got You Babe” (from ‘Top of the Pops’). ©1965 Atco Records.

Sonny Bono was an up-and-coming record producer when he got Cher a job with Phil Spector as a session singer. They started dating and moved in to their manager’s house, where Bono would write songs on a piano in the garage. He came up with “I Got You Babe” and wrote the lyrics on a piece of cardboard.

This isn’t an anti-war song, but it went over well with the hippie crowd because it stuck up for guys with long hair when Cher sang, “Let them say your hair’s too long, I don’t care, with you I can’t go wrong.”

The recording session for the song was held on June 7, 1965, at Gold Star Studios in Hollywood and lasted between 2 and 5 PM. Harold Battiste provided the instrumental arrangement, and session musicians The Wrecking Crew performed the instrumental track. Richard Niles quotes Battiste as saying the prominent instrumental figure in the song is actually played on an oboe rather than an ocarina.

In the United States, the song had sold more than 1 million copies in 1965, being certified Gold by the RIAA. As of November 2011, Billboard reported the digital sales of “I Got You Babe” to be 372,000 in the US.