Official studio version
Baby I don't need your loving no more
Baby I don't need your kisses no more
Baby I don't need your tender touch
Baby I
Baby I don't need your tender kiss
Baby I you will never miss
Baby I don't want you 'round me no more
Baby I
'Cause I got someone new
Somebody better than you
Somebody who'll be true
Somebody better than you
Aw!
Baby I don't need your loving no more
Baby I don't need your kisses no more
Baby I don't need your tender touch
Baby I
Baby I don't need your tender kiss
Baby I you will never miss
Baby I don't want you 'round me no more
Baby I
'Cause I got someone new
Somebody better than you
Somebody who'll be true
Somebody better than you
Baby I don't need your loving no more
Baby I don't need your kisses no more
Baby I don't need your tender touch
Baby I
Baby I don't need your tender kiss
Baby I you will never miss
Baby I don't want you 'round me no more
Baby I
'Cause I got someone new
[Spoken outro:] Yes indeed.
BABY I is a song written by Bruce Springsteen and George Theiss and released on Springsteen's Chapter And Verse compilation album in 2016. The above lyrics (minus the parts in bold) are for the official studio version of BABY I as released in 2016.
The song is edited on Chapter And Verse; the parts in bold are edited out. It is complete on the bootleg releases.
Bruce Springsteen probably performed BABY I live with The Castiles around 1966, but no live performance of the song has been documented. The Castiles recorded the song in studio on 18 May 1966 (see the "Composition and Recording" section below).
The Castiles recorded BABY I and THAT'S WHAT YOU GET on 18 May 1966 at Mr. Music Inc., a recording booth at the Brick Mall shopping center in Bricktown, NJ. That was the very first time that Springsteen's voice and guitar were captured on vinyl. According to Dave Marsh, the one-hour session cost $50.
In an interview published in issue #20 (Spring 1987) of Backstreets magazine, former Castiles member George Theiss told Robert Santelli that BABY I and THAT'S WHAT YOU GET "were written in the backseat of Tex's car on the way to the studio to record them." This was Castiles manager and sponsor Tex Vinyard's 1961 Ford Mercury. Theiss explained that they cut the record simply because Vinyard said, "Let's make a record." They didn't collectively have any idea of distribution or getting signed to a label.
Seven or eight 7-inch acetates were reputedly cut during the session and, according to Brucebase, at least four of which survive. In early 2009, Rolling Stone's David Fricke conducted an interview with Bruce Springsteen at Springsteen's New Jersey home. At the end of the interview, Springsteen told Fricke that he found the actual two-track master tape of the Castiles record and digitized it. He even played it for the writer.
In a March 2009 interview conducted by Jim Henke (the curator of Springsteen's exhibit at the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame And Museum) at Springsteen's New Jersey home, Springsteen recalled: "It was a tiny little room, maybe half the size of this living room, which is not that big. And they couldn't stand any volume whatsoever going into the microphones. We had to turn all our amps to the wall and literally put covers over them. The guitars sound real clinky, because we had the volume turned down to '1' ─ we couldn't get any distortion or speaker sound out of it. The recording studio was not set up in those days for any kind of overdrive; they just simply weren't ready to record rock bands in Bricktown, New Jersey in 1965 [sic]. But it was a big deal. We saved up ─ I think it cost us, I don't know, $300 or $100, some enormous amount, what we thought was an enormous amount of money. We saved it up, did a session where we cut those two songs. Of course, they give you your two-track, which we recently found, and then they give you the acetates, the little tiny 45-sized acetates. And some of those survived, also."
For its release on Chapter And Verse, BABY I was mastered by Bob Ludwig at Gateway Mastering Studios in Portland, ME. According to the album's credits, the band line-up on the song is Bruce Springsteen on vocal and guitar, Bob Alfano on organ, Curt Fluhr on bass, Vinnie Manniello on drums, Paul Popkin on tambourine, maracas, and vocals, and George Theiss on guitar and vocal.
Chapter And Verse is a Bruce Springsteen compilation album released on Columbia Records on 23 Sep 2016 in the U.S. It was officially announced on 28 Jul 2016. The album is an audio companion to Springsteen's autobiography Born To Run, which was published four days later, on 27 Sep 2016, by Simon & Schuster.
The album is a career retrospective consisting of 18 tracks. It spans almost half a century of Springsteen's career, from as early as 1966. According to the press release, Springsteen selected the songs to reflect the themes and sections of the autobiography. The first five tracks have not been previously released.
Tracks 1 and 2 are from The Castiles era, track 3 is from the Steel Mill era, and track 4 is from The Bruce Springsteen Band era. Tracks 5 and 6 are Springsteen solo, from around the time he signed his record deal with CBS. The remaining 12 tracks are compiled from 12 different Bruce Springsteen studio albums, from 1973 to 2012. All song were written by Bruce Springsteen, except tracks 1 (co-written by Bruce Springsteen and George Theiss) and track 2 (written by Willie Dixon). Track 2 is only song on the album recorded live.
Chapter And Verse is available as a single-disc CD and as a double-disc LP, as well as digital download and streaming.
Side 1:
Side 2:
Side 3:
Side 4:
Prior to its release on Chapter And Verse, this official studio version of BABY I appeared on several bootlegs, including Deep Down In The Vaults (E. St. Records) [disc 1, track 02].
As far as it's known, Bruce Springsteen has never performed BABY I live.
As far as it's known, no artist has recorded and released Bruce Springsteen's BABY I.
List of available versions of BABY I on this website:
BABY I [Official studio version]
