1985 UB40 Featuring Chrissie Hynde – I Got You Babe

1985 UB40 Featuring Chrissie Hynde – I Got You Babe

I Got You Babe was the song that finally launched Sonny and Cher’s careers. They both worked for Phil Spector, Cher as a session singer and Sonny as a songwriter and producer. They released their own singles as Caesar and Cleo as early as 1963, but Sonny struck gold when he wrote the song in part as a reaction to the non-romantic song It Ain’t Me Babe.

Etta James covered the song in 1969, and her single reached #32 on the R&B chart and a disappointing #69 on the Hot 100.

While it’s mostly forgotten now, a third version reached the top forty in 1985.

UB40 was a British band formed in 1978 in Birmingham, England. They primarily produced reggae music. While they only reached the US top forty with five singles, two of them reached the top of the chart (Red Red Wine and (I Can’t Help) Falling in Love with You). The band had a third number one record in the UK: a cover of I Got You Babe.

If you grew up listening to Sonny and Cher sing the song, you would expect that a couple would sing the song. For the UB40 recording, the group had Chrissie Hynde from the Pretenders as their featured second singer. In spite of topping the chart in the UK, the single only reached #28 on the US Hot 100.

UB40 and Chrissie reunited for another single in 1988, Breakfast In Bed. They again reached the top ten in the UK, but the single failed to chart in the US.