Baby Loves That Way

Written by: David Bowie
Recorded: July 1965; July, October-November 2000
Producers: Shel Talmy; David Bowie, Mark Plati
Engineers: Glyn Johns; Pete Keppler

Released: 20 August 1965

Available on:
Toy

Personnel

1965:
David Bowie: vocals, harmonica
Denis ‘Tea-Cup’ Taylor: guitar, vocals
Nicky Hopkins: piano
Graham Rivens: bass guitar, vocals
Phil Lancaster: drums, vocals

2000:
David Bowie: vocals
Earl Slick, Mark Plati: guitar
Mike Garson: piano
Gail Ann Dorsey: bass guitar, vocals
Sterling Campbell: drums
Lisa Germano: violin
Holly Palmer, Emm Gryner: vocals

‘Baby Loves That Way’ was the b-side of ‘You’ve Got A Habit Of Leaving’, David Bowie’s 1965 single with The Lower Third.

Credited to Davy Jones, it was the first of two singles Bowie released with the band. The follow-up, ‘Can’t Help Thinking About Me’, was released in January 1966.

Bowie’s music hadn’t really moved on from what he was doing with the Manish Boys. The Lower Third were probably more aggressive, they played a little bit louder. When the Manish Boys finished, Bowie brought the Lower Third in and played me some of the stuff they were doing and I said, ‘Cool, let’s carry on.’

They were all pretty good musicians and I supplemented them with Nicky Hopkins. In my free time I worked on how to cut everything a little bit louder and I liked working right near the edge without going over it. I brought that with me – various miking techniques that nobody had been doing in England or in America either. I developed some skills that nobody in England was using, and most of them caught on.

I liked the songs a lot. They were different from the records that went into the charts at that point; the songs I did were nothing like anything that was in the charts, and that was my mistake. We were too far ahead of the market.

David always impressed me. He was very bright and I always enjoyed talking to him. We spent a fair amount of time together and he was a smart guy. I happened to like that, so we got on really well. I could tell he was gonna make it; unfortunately I wasn’t part of when he really made it big because several years further on he reinvented himself, as he did on several occasions, and that caught on with the public.

In the studio

‘You’ve Got A Habit Of Leaving’ and ‘Baby Loves That Way’ were recorded in July 1965 at IBC Studios in London’s Portland Place. Bowie had previous recorded the Manish Boys’ single ‘I Pity The Fool’ at the same studio.

Both sides of the single were produced by Shel Talmy, who had also worked with the Kinks and the Who.

It was the big time. David’s recording manager was Shel Talmy. When you consider who was in that room working on that record… Shel Talmy, Glyn Johns was the engineer behind the glass and then you had Nicky Hopkins coming in as a session piano player on it…

We were completely in the dark about the business side of it, we were just hoping to get on to make it. Shel was very laid-back on the session. He let us do our thing, listened to most of it. Then he said, ‘Nice cut,’ and then pissed off. He must have come back, because on the b-side we all did the backing vocals – including him and Les Conn, David’s manager at that moment.

Bowie re-recorded both ‘Baby Loves That Way’ and ‘You’ve Got A Habit Of Leaving’ in 2000 for the aborted Toy album.

The release

The single ‘You’ve Got A Habit Of Leaving’ was released on 20 August 1965 as Parlophone ‎R 5315, with ‘Baby Loves That Way’ on the b-side.

In late 1965, ‘Baby Loves That Way’ was included on Beat ’66, a compilation issued in Germany by Columbia/EMI. The now-rare album has the distinction of being the first to feature David Bowie.

The Toy re-recording was released in 2002 on the Japanese ‘Slow Burn’ CD single, and on one of the European CD singles of ‘Everyone Says ‘Hi”.