Neil Young has been called the “Godfather of Grunge.” He made Harvest. He made Rust Never Sleeps. He spent decades fighting his record label over creative control and once made a protest album, Landing on Water, about how landing a crashing jet in water guarantees everybody dies. He’s not a man associated with sweet-sounding orchestral pop. And yet for more than sixty years one song has lived permanently in his soul: “Be My Baby” by The Ronettes. Phil Spector‘s Wall of Sound. Ronnie Spector‘s voice. 42 takes. “It is in my soul,” Young says. “Phil Spector is a genius.”
The contradiction is the whole story. Young built his entire career on refusing to make the music anyone asked him to make. His record label spent several years begging him to sound more like a more commercially successful version of himself. Landing on Water was his iconic response: an album whose title referred to instructions for surviving an unsurvivable situation. “You’re landing on water where there’s no clear floor underneath you,” he explained. “Everybody dies.” That’s the man who loves “Be My Baby.” He heard no contradiction in that. Neither should we.
@oldiesvidzBe My Baby – The Ronettes #60s #theronettes #oldies #singing #voice
♬ original sound – OldiesvidsNow here’s what made him love it. “Be My Baby” was released in 1963 and peaked at No. 2 on Billboard. It’s Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound at its most complete: layers of instrumentation, orchestration, and echo stacked so densely that the song feels less like a recording and more like a place you can walk into.
The opening drum beat — bum-ba-bum-BOOM — was played by session drummer Hal Blaine. Here’s what makes it even more awesome: Blaine dropped his stick on the first take and missed the snare on beat two. He left that mistake in. That missing beat two is what makes the pattern so distinctive. “Soon everyone wanted that beat,” he said. You hear it, and you’re already inside the song before Ronnie opens her mouth.
Young mentions “the groove” specifically. That’s the exact groove he means: an accident that became more perfect than anything rehearsed. What most people don’t know is that only Ronnie Spector’s voice is on the track. The other Ronettes aren’t singing at all. Spector rehearsed Ronnie for weeks and had her record 42 takes before he finally got what he wanted. Jack Nitzsche arranged it. Young heard all of that. He didn’t just love the song. He peeled back the layers and understood how it was built from top to bottom. “The groove,” he said. “The beautifully resonant background vocals. The track. It is all one thing. Phil Spector is a genius. Jack Nitzsche is a genius.” Two declarations. No qualifications.
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Spector died in prison in 2021, having been convicted of murder in 2009. Young’s declaration of genius refers specifically to what Spector built in the studio in 1963 — a distinction worth making and one Young has never walked back.
This is what Young does that most musicians don’t. He doesn’t just hear music. He hears what the music is doing and why. The Ronettes sound nothing like anything on Harvest or Tonight’s the Night. But the commitment to a specific sound — the absolute refusal to settle for anything less than exactly the right thing — is identical. Spector made Ronnie record 42 takes because take 41 wasn’t what he wanted. Blaine dropped a stick and made the most famous drum intro in pop history on accident.
Listen to the drum intro of “Like a Hurricane.” The way it builds before Young’s guitar arrives. That’s a man who learned from Hal Blaine’s opening beat what a properly placed moment of anticipation can do. He’s said similar things about The Beach Boys. Pet Sounds. Brian Wilson building something architecturally complex out of studio technology and sheer obsessive will. The same qualities. The same refusal to settle for almost right.
‘Be My Baby’ Is in My Soul
Young’s full declaration: “‘Be My Baby’ by the Ronettes has a sound I always will love. It is in my soul. Ronnie sings it so great. The groove, the beautifully resonant background vocals on the track: It is all one thing. Phil Spector is a genius. Jack Nitzsche is a genius.” That’s not a casual compliment. That’s a man who fights everyone for his creative vision, telling you that two other people got it exactly right. He’s still fighting.
Young headlined Glastonbury in 2025 and released Talkin’ to the Trees in June 2026. The muse is still presenting itself. Sometimes it’s feedback and distortion. Sometimes it’s Ronnie Spector recording the same two minutes and forty-three seconds forty-two times until Phil Spector heard what he’d been looking for. And sometimes it’s Hal Blaine dropping a stick and accidentally inventing the most imitated drum beat in pop history.
Neil Young spent decades refusing to make the music anyone asked him to make. He made protest albums about crashing jets. He fought every record label that tried to own his sound. And through all of it, one song stayed permanently in his soul: a 1963 girl group record that took 42 takes, two geniuses, and one dropped drumstick to make.
He never could shake it. He never tried.
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