[10] They recorded the song at Gold Star Studios, but Spector withheld its release, as he had felt that the group needed more time to refine their stage act.

[12] Biographer Mick Brown surmised that Spector may have "intended 'Be My Baby' as an explicit declaration of his growing feelings for Ronnie", and that the song, in retrospect, served as a foreshadowing of their marriage, which lasted from the late 1960s through the early 1970s.

"[16] On July 29, 1963, Spector produced "Be My Baby" at Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles with his de facto house band, later known as "the Wrecking Crew".

People talk about how great the echo chamber was at Gold Star, but they never heard the sound in that ladies' room ... That's where all the little 'whoa-ohs' and 'oh-oh-oh-ohs' you hear on my records were born.

"[17] In his book Classic Tracks, author Rikky Rooksby writes, "Notice Ronnie Spector's voice is kept quite dry and upfront; her vocal, and those carefully rehearsed wha-ah-oh-ohs, along with the vast sound, make the record what it is.

[23] Cher stated in a television interview, "I was just hanging out with Son [Bono], and one night Darlene [Love] didn't show up, and Philip looked at me and he was getting really cranky, y'know.

"Be My Baby" (backed with "Tedesco and Pitman") was released by Philles Records in August 1963 and reached number 2 on the Billboard Pop Singles Chart by the end of the summer.

In her 1991 memoir, Ronnie wrote that the group subsequently had dinner with Spector to celebrate their success; at the end of the meal, however, he asked them to cover the bill.

"[22] In her autobiography, Ronnie relates that she was on tour with Joey Dee and the Starlighters when "Be My Baby" was introduced by Dick Clark on American Bandstand as the "Record of the Century.

"[full citation needed] It remains the Ronettes' most successful song; although the group enjoyed several more top 40 hits, they sold at underwhelming volumes compared to "Be My Baby".

[25] A live rendition of "Be My Baby" was performed by the Ronettes on the 1966 rock concert film The Big TNT Show, for which Spector was the musical director and associate producer.

[31] Producer Steve Levine compared the track's groundbreaking quality to the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations" (1966), 10cc's "I'm Not in Love" (1975), and Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" (1975).

[33] Producer Rick Nowels, who lifted the drum beat for a Lana Del Rey song, said, "'Be My Baby,' for me, is Ground Zero for the modern pop era.

"[33] AllMusic's Jason Ankeny noted in his review of the song, "No less an authority than Brian Wilson has declared 'Be My Baby' the greatest pop record ever made—no arguments here.

"[34] In his 2004 book Sonic Alchemy: Visionary Music Producers and Their Maverick Recordings, David Howard writes that many regard ""Be My Baby" as "Spector's greatest achievement—two and a half sweaty minutes of sexual pop perfection.

"[35] In 2016, Barbara Cane, vice president and general manager of writer-publisher relations for the songwriters' agency BMI, estimated that the song has been played in 3.9 million feature presentations on radio and television since 1963.

[36][37] His biographer Peter Ames Carlin describes the song as becoming "a spiritual touchstone" for Wilson,[38] while music historian Luis Sanchez states that it formed an enduring part of Wilson's mythology, being the Spector record that "etched itself the deepest into Brian's mind ... it comes up again and again in interviews and biographies, variably calling up themes of deep admiration, a source of consolation, and a baleful haunting of the spirit.

Wilson first heard "Be My Baby" while driving and listening to the radio; he became so enthralled by the song that he felt compelled to pull over to the side of the road and analyze the chorus.

[45] He had originally submitted "Don't Worry Baby" for the Ronettes' consideration, but this motion was halted by Spector, who had a policy against producing records that he himself did not write.

[51] Sanchez characterizes the accumulation of stories such as these as effectively depicting "an image of wretchedness: Brian locked in the bedroom of his Bel Air house in the early '70s, alone, curtains drawn shut, catatonic, listening to 'Be My Baby' over and over at aggressive volumes, for hours, as the rest of The Beach Boys record something in the home studio downstairs.

"[39][nb 4] The Beach Boys' 1977 song "Mona", written by Wilson, ends with the lines "Listen to 'Be My Baby' / I know you're going to love Phil Spector".