The 10 Greatest Phil Spector Songs (Part 1)

1) Be My Baby- The Ronnettes

I remember seeing something once where Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys said that the first time he heard Be My Baby he was driving and was so blown away that he swerved off the road. Whether that's true or not what's undoubtedly true is that unless you swerved off too than you haven't heard it right. It's a record worth swerving off to; and make sure the road is treacherous and very high. Like a prophecy come true, the drums are in the sky to announce that Ronnie's coming with two minutes and forty seconds of eternal teenage life. Why more cars didn't swerve off is the question. Here's what winning every bet you ever placed, hitting the lottery, finding love, and being young all mixed together with the greatest drum beat of all time would sound like if it was all recorded exactly right. There's a road to swerve off to for all time right here, and if I don't come back baby it's all alright.




2) Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)- Darlene Love

Along with the Pogues's "Fairytale of New York" and Elvis Presley's "Santa Claus is Back In Town" this is the undisputed greatest Christmas song ever written, sung, produced or performed. Darlene Love sings it like she's in the middle of a warzone, the northen lights flashing blue and purple in the sky, the snowflakes storming down on her like little tyrants, and the Crystal's singing backup as she's fighting for her life. Here's passion, here's love, here's a whole universe in December, every broken promise ever made, and life as love and love as life. The Passion in December. Darlene and Ronnie were sent by Phil to frozen lands to look for love and they're still there and they're still young and will still be for all of time. Baby please come home, and she never will, and he never will, she'll be out there still singing all through the summer. The hooks in this song are too good for just December and the pain in her heart's for all the blue and purple in the sky. And for whoever the piece of shit is that made her beg like that at Christmas time.



3) To Know Him Is To Love Him- The Teddy Bears

Phil Spector's father killed himself when Phil was 9 and the words on his grave were "To Have Known Him Was To Have Loved Him". When Phil was a senior in highschool he took his father's epitaph, changed the tense, and made a hit song. There's an eerieness here like it's something from a dream. The drum sounds like it was recorded not far away but long ago, like it's not just a drum with echo, but it's the memory of a drum. This was Phil's first number one hit and it's ironic in a way as everything seems to point to the fact that to know Phil Spector is not to love Phil Spector, but rather it brings on how the opposite feeling would go. But to hear that distant drumbeat is to fall in love with drumbeats, and to love something here but barely, like Phil's lost Rosebud in the snow. And I do and I do and I do and I do and I do...




Continued next post