Thursday May 19, 2022 “Take Good Care of My Baby” Bobby Vee
Way back when I was a teenager, just before the introduction of motor cars, my family had a summer home which was really cool for so many reasons. Perhaps most important though was that I had summer friends who lived in different cities and went to different schools than I did and that allowed me to reinvent myself from June to Labor Day.
So how does that make today’s song a favorite? I’m not completely sure, but whenever I hear “Take Good Care of My Baby” it takes me back to a late September weekend when I was able to talk my mother into driving up to that summer home and I was hanging out by the closed community pool on a crisp, clear, fall night bundled up in a flannel shirt and sweater sharing lies and exaggerations about how cool we all were in our respective high schools.with the few summer friends who also made the trip.
And that weekend, when I wasn’t hanging out creating an alter ego I was incessantly listening to the two new records that I had just added to my collection, Dion’s “Runaround Sue” with the B side “Runaway Girl” and Bobby Vee’s “Take Good Care of My Baby”, B side “Bashful Bob”.
“Take Good Care of My Baby” written by Carole King and her then husband Gerry Goffin was Bobby Vee’s only number one hit although he had many other top 40 hits. The Beatles chose “Take Good Care of My Baby” for their audition with Decca Records which didn’t turn out so well for them as they didn’t get signed. Didn’t turn out so well for Decca either as they didn’t sign the Beatles.
Stay safe and well…and rumor has it that Dion was offered “Take Good Care of My Baby” before Bobby Vee but he rejected it.
"Take Good Care of My Baby" was one of the first songs I learned on guitar and it has that very familiar C Am F G chord pattern.