I don’t remember who gave me the generous gift of a shiny red “My First Sony” Walkman sometime in the early ’90s, but allowance being what it was then for an early grade schooler, I could generally afford no more than cassingles.* The earliest cassette I recall being gifted was the Oliver & Company soundtrack, and the first purchased with my own funds was Michael Jackson’s Bad. Subsequent acquisitions included Billy Joel’s Storm Front (naturally, the track I disliked the most at seven is the one that makes me weep as an adult) and singles by the Rolling Stones and Tina Turner.
When I was nine and poised to embark on the first of several operations that would result in cumulative weeks of hospitalization and months of recovery at home, my mom took me to either Kmart or Venture and said I could pick out a full cassette on her dime. It was an important decision that required careful deliberation. Already a Beach Boys fan and wanting the most bang for her buck, I selected Endless Summer, which the cover touted as a technological marvel: a double-album (albeit one consisting of very short songs) on one cassette.
And so it was that “Don’t Worry Baby” became my favorite song in 1992 and for many years thereafter, one I still consider perfect, even if there are now others I love as much or more. On the opposite side of the tape was “The Warmth of the Sun,” a beautiful and almost eerily off-kilter, mournful tune; it paired much better with morphine than the resplendent “Don’t Worry Baby.” Drifting in and out of consciousness in my hospital bed, I could flip the tape after one song ended and hear the other with minimal hassle. At least that’s how I remember it — I can’t overstate how drugged I was, or how minimally cognizant I was of the passage of time.
To this day, I can’t quite separate the two songs in my head, even though they were recorded years apart and don’t have much in common. “The Warmth of the Sun” had been written in the immediate aftermath of John F. Kennedy’s assassination and reflects the somber disorientation of the moment; “Don’t Worry Baby” was Brian Wilson’s legendary response to the Ronettes’ smash “Be My Baby.” (This is a topic for another day, but many times since childhood I’ve tried and failed to master meditation; the closest I’ve come to being able to quickly clear my mind is to listen to, or mentally recreate the extraordinary production of, “Be My Baby.”)
Accounts vary over whether Phil Spector officially or unofficially rejected an offer for the Ronettes to record Wilson’s tribute, but the end result was the same — the Beach Boys recorded it instead. In 1999, long divorced from Phil, Ronnie Spector released an EP, She Talks to Rainbows, on Kill Rock Stars. It included an unimpressively produced but well-sung cover of “Don’t Worry Baby,” and if one great thing came of it, it was the blissful expression on Wilson’s face when Rodney Bingenheimer played it for him.
* Birthdays and holidays were where I really cleaned up. Cassettes by Paula Abdul, Boyz II Men, Tevin Campbell, En Vogue, Hi-Five, DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, NKOTB, C.M.B. (my parents argued about that one), and of course Kris Kross and Heavy D & the Boyz, filled a shoebox under my bed.