31 August 1985
Sonny and Cher’s ‘I Got You Babe’ is a charming ’60s classic and certainly the best record ever made by someone called Bono. This UB40 and Chrissie Hynde reggae rendition engages with the original the way a knife-wielding maniac might break into your home and engage with your puppy dog’s throat. It’s brutal.
UB40 are always terrible; we know that. Hynde, like a lot of early-’80s rock singers, always had a reggae-adjacent singing style, so she’s just as culpable here of leaning too much into the beat and crushing any melody or nuance. I like to think Cher was passing comment on the awfulness of UB40 when she appeared on a later cover version with the more musical Beavis and Butthead.
