{"id":516661,"date":"2026-06-29T13:55:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T13:55:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/516661\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T13:55:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T13:55:12","slug":"i-just-felt-something-come-over-me-and-i-said-now-were-gonna-do-our-first-number-one-record-its-called-baby-come-back-hope-you-like-it-the-story-of-the-classic-yacht-rock-sin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/516661\/","title":{"rendered":"“I just felt something come over me and I said, \u2018Now we’re gonna do our first number one record. It’s called Baby Come Back \u2013 hope you like it”: The story of the classic yacht rock single that Clive Davis rejected but the world fell in love with"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the wake of his death, much has been written this week about Clive Davis<\/a>\u2019s ability to identify a hit when he heard it, but even legendary talent-spotters get it wrong sometimes.<\/p>\n

Such was the case with ’70s soft-rock outfit Player, and a 1977 song of theirs that would end up topping the US Billboard Hot 100 chart for three consecutive weeks. Prior to this, Davis had the chance to sign the band and release said song, but he elected to pass.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

We\u2019re talking about Baby Come Back, the soulful lead single from Player\u2019s eponymous debut album. Written by guitarist\/vocalist Peter Beckett and keyboard player JC Crowley, the band\u2019s founding members, it sounds like the epitome of smooth west coast pop, but the song\u2019s road to the top was actually rather rocky.<\/p>\n

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Player – Baby Come Back – YouTube
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Born in Liverpool, Beckett moved to LA in 1974 to try and make it as an artist and songwriter, but he wasn\u2019t having much luck. With money running out, he was eventually invited up to a party in the Hollywood Hills, where he met and bonded with Crowley.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the Rock History Music<\/a> channel on YouTube, Beckett said: \u201cHe was totally different to me \u2013 he was a Texan country singer and I was a Liverpool rocker \u2013 but we got on great, and so a couple of days later we got together and started writing in his garage. We wrote a handful of songs which we eventually started hawking around the producers in LA without much success.\u201d<\/p>\n

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That was about to change, though: \u201cOne afternoon [Crowley] started plonking around on this chord and we started just writing a verse around it,\u201d says Beckett. \u201cBy the end of that day we had the verses basically, with some of the words.\u201d<\/p>\n

The seeds of a hit record had been sown: \u201cSecond day he came to my place and we worked on it some more,\u201d Beckett recalls. \u201cOvernight I had come up with Baby Come Back, the title. We were looking for something that went [sings Baby Come Back chorus hook melody] because we had the tune, we had the chords and it just came into my head. It\u2019s like a trumpet blast.\u201d<\/p>\n

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With the verses and chorus sorted, Beckett then had an idea for a bridge.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always loved the Righteous Brothers and I said, \u2018What if we do a bridge where you sing a line and I do like the Bobby Hatfield part, the high part?\u2019 We just put it in there, and it worked. I think that has a lot to do with why the song was a hit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beckett and Crowley now had to find a way of getting the song released, and they managed to arrange a showcase for a man who definitely had the ability to make that happen.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe had that song and we went to the Beverly Hilton Hotel \u2013 which is Hotel California, by the way \u2013 and we’re in the ballroom to play to Clive Davis,\u201d says Beckett. \u201cAnd by then we had the rest of the guys who were gonna become Player, and we were on this stage in the ballroom just sitting on stools, Pignose amp for the bass and just acoustic guitars.<\/p>\n

\u201cClive Davis came in, sat in the front. He’s the only guy in there, you know \u2013 he’s sitting like this with his arms folded, in a suit, you know, \u2018impress me\u2019 \u2013 and so we started playing and we played a couple of songs and then we thought, \u2018We got it now when we do Baby Come Back\u2019. And we did Baby Come Back and he goes \u2018Yeah\u2026 you guys look good, you sound good, but I don\u2019t hear a hit,\u2019 and so that was the end of our chances with Clive Davis.\u201d<\/p>\n

To be fair to Davis, he wasn\u2019t the only one who didn\u2019t hear the song\u2019s potential. Recalling another showcase, Beckett says: \u201cWe did about five songs, and then I walked up to the mic. There’s about 30 people in there at the back of the room and I just felt something come over me and I said, \u2018Now we’re gonna do our first number one record. It’s called Baby Come Back \u2013 hope you like it.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Beckett, even this didn\u2019t do the trick, but the breakthrough did come when he and Crowley were sitting in the offices of some other record company executives. They played a few songs and didn\u2019t get much of a reaction, but then they put on Baby Come Back.<\/p>\n

Before that it was like \u2018Yeah, nice. You guys look good, nice songs,\u2019 and then when we threw that in the mix it was just like, mouths dropped, silence for a few seconds.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything changed,\u201d says Beckett. \u201cBefore that it was like \u2018Yeah, nice. You guys look good, nice songs,\u2019 and then when we threw that in the mix it was just like, mouths dropped, silence for a few seconds.\u201d<\/p>\n

This opened the door to meeting with Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter, who could eventually produce Baby Come Back. \u201cThey said, \u2018I think that song\u2019s a hit,\u2019\u201d remembers Beckett.<\/p>\n

It was Lambert and Potter who then played the song to another industry heavyweight, RSO records co-founder Al Coury.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe fell in love with it and the rest is history,\u201d says Beckett.<\/p>\n

History may have been slightly different, of course, if Clive Davis hadn\u2019t passed on the record, but the fact that Player could never quite repeat the trick may have made Baby Come Back\u2019s eventual success a slightly less tough pill to swallow.<\/p>\n

The song has certainly stood the test of time, though, and continues to pick up new generations of fans thanks to its presence in film and TV and on social media.<\/p>\n

In fact, Baby Come Back is just about to get a limited edition reissue as a vinyl single (just 1,000 copies will be pressed) so if you want to hear it just like people did almost 50 years ago, now’s your chance.<\/p>\n

The single will be available on Fontana Records from 28 August.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the wake of his death, much has been written this week about Clive Davis\u2019s ability to identify…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516662,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[146,85,46,409],"class_list":["post-516661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}