Photograph titled "Dog Rides this VW Everywhere" by Mark C. Glunz, 1967
This is the fourth installment in my series of posts about the "Be My Baby" drumbeat (the first three can be found here, here and here).
I don't have a thesis or unifying concept this time - these are just three songs I've been enjoying lately that make use of the great "Be My Baby" drumbeat. "What's a Girl To Do?" by Bat for Lashes is a great song I've just recently become acquainted with - it took me a while to get around to getting the group's first album Fur and Gold, even though I really enjoyed the second one Two Suns. The use of the drumbeat in this song is cool because it appears in the first to measures and then disappears, not coming back until the chorus. This song extends the girl-group comparison beyond the drumbeat, using Shangri-Las-style spoken word sections that have Natasha Khan doing a quite-decent Mary Weiss impression.
This combination of using the "Be My Baby" drumbeat in combination with a spoken intro works well on the Super Furry Animals' "Run-Away" as well. They dirty up the sound a little, but the song is a fairly straightforward Ronettes/Shirelles/Shangri-Las homage. Unlike the Bat for Lashes song, "Run-Away" uses the "Be My Baby" drumbeat through the verse section and then drops it for the chorus. This is one of my favorite SFA songs, and it's a fair argument that any band can and should do a girl-group homage. Does it ever NOT work?
Bruce Springsteen was another rocker who could pull off an excellent girl-group-style song. Springsteen's late-'70s songs bore a lot of early (late '50s and early '60s) rock/pop influences, and his lightweight girl-group songs from the era were a lot of fun. However, they often didn't fit into his album concepts like The River and Darkness on the Edge of Town, so these songs often got shelved, turning up on releases like the Tracks box set or, in the case of "Gotta Get That Feeling", on The Promise. Springsteen doesn't do a spoken-word intro, but he does make good use of "sha-na-na-na" backing vocals, another excellent girl-group ingredient.
"What's a Girl To Do?" by Bat for Lashes
"Run-Away" by the Super Furry Animals
"Gotta Get That Feeling" by Bruce Springsteen
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