Roll of the Dice: Baby I

On May 18, 1966, a sixteen-year-old Bruce Springsteen walked into a recording studio (if you can call an in-store booth at the Brick Mall in Bricktown, New Jersey a studio) for the very first time. For a whopping sum of fifty dollars, Bruce and his band, The Castiles, cut more than a half-dozen acetates, of which a few are known to have survived.

I’d love to write about how his record debut evinced signs of future brilliance, but come on, let’s be real: the kid was sixteen and had been in a band for all of a year. Their performance sounds exactly like you’d expect it to sound–charming and exuberant but slavish and rough.

As for the song itself, Bruce co-wrote “Baby I” with Castiles bandmate George Theiss (who sings lead vocal on the track) in the backseat of their manager’s car on the way to the studio.

It shows.

The  lyrics are, shall we say, basic–although the song goes on for about two minutes, the lyrics are comprised of a total of nine unique lines that repeat at least once.*

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

Given their youth and the fact that the song was written minutes before it was recorded, we’ll forgive the boys that clumsy, wince-inducing “Baby I you will never miss” and their inability come up with a fourth line for the chorus.

Musically, the boys took their cue from early Beatles tracks and other contemporary guitar groups–they definitely had that garage vibe going.

Although it’s believed that The Castiles performed the song often over the next year, there are no live recordings or even surviving setlists to attest to it. The studio version that was released on Chapter & Verse in 2016 and the unedited circulating bootleg are the only recordings were have of Bruce’s very first recorded composition.

*The officially released version of “Baby I” is edited for brevity. The original version ran about 15 seconds longer, due to a third instance of the “tended kiss” verse. If you’d like to hear the unedited version, take a listen below (but you’re really not missing anything if you don’t).

Updated 10/23/20: Well, knock me down with a feather: we finally have a document of Bruce playing “Baby I” live, and it’s a video to boot. It’s not vintage, though–in fact, it’s about as modern as it gets. From the documentary film Letter to You, here’s Bruce and his cousin Frank playing the very first song Bruce ever wrote.

Baby I
Recorded: May 18, 1966
Released: Chapter & Verse (2016)
First performed: November 2019 (Colts Neck, NJ)
Last performed: November 2019 (Colts Neck, NJ)

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