Side 1 Track 2 2.59. Remarkably, a B-Side. To I Get Around. Perhaps the most immediate appropriation of that opening drum trick after Be My Baby itself came out. Until The Beatles came along Spector was probably the bench mark by which Brian Wilson by which he measured his progress. One of the best things he ever wrote.
"Don't Worry Baby" is lush with echo and gorgeous open-throated background harmonies that set off a sweet tenor lead vocal by Wilson himself. The intro is pure Spector, as befits a song originally intended as the Ronettes' follow-up to "Be My Baby"; Hal Blaine drumbeats lead into surging harmonies, followed by a reverbless post-surf guitar slashing the meter in half.
If those are "Don't Worry Baby" ' s roots, its lineage extends just as deeply into the future. Give it a country accent and you have an apotheosis of the seventies California rock epitomized by the Eagles. Similarly, Mike Love's doo-wop bass balanced by a choral backdrop drawn straight out of the Four Freshman handbook of harmonic corn sets the stage for Lindsey Buckingham's seventies arrangements for Fleetwood Mac.
With "Don't Worry Baby" Wilson casually overturns everv convention of a genre he all but invented, turning melodramatic car crash numbers like "Dead Man's Curve" and "Tell Laura I Love Her" inside out. Rather than face death in order to prove his devotion or his cool. the singer is troubled because he's "shot [his] mouth off" about his car and now fears that he's going to be defeated in a drag race (and lose the car, not his life or his love). Rather than toughing it out, he confesses that he feels this foreboding all the time. It's a moment of male vulnerability that was probably unprecedented in rock and roll at that time, and one which laid the groundwork for every singer/songwriter confessional of the seventies. What rescues him from his own dread is his girl's reassurance, which she repeats to him in the title phrase. That's corny, too, but it's also extremely effective. Not to mention useful, and maybe even emotionally truthful.'
Dave Marsh - The Heart of Rock & Soul
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