1994: Baby, Come Back - Pato Banton (Featuring Ali and Robin Campbell of UB40)

Looking back at 30 years of music | Pato Banton

We’ve all played the game - whether with friends, family or colleagues - of “What was #1 the day you were born?”. If, like me, you were born in the UK on 19th, November 1994 (or any other day from October 29th onwards that year) then the answer is Baby, Come Back by Pato Banton (featuring Ali and Robin Campbell of UB40).

Likewise, if you were born almost 30 years earlier, any time between July 3rd 1968 and the 23rd of the same month, then the song that was Number 1 on the day you were born was also Baby, Come Back, this time in the shape of the original (and more famous) version by The Equals. 

Founded in North London in 1965 by Guyanese-British musician Eddy Grant, drummer John Hall, rhythm guitarist Pat Lloyd and Derv and Lincoln Gordon (vocals and bass / guitar respectively), The Equals fused elements of the contemporary pop and rock sounds of the time with a combination of blues and R&B - like a lot of bands at the time did - as well as ska - which set them apart from a lot of other groups - and were quite notable at the time for being a “mixed” band. Whilst in America the session groups in Motown, Muscle Shoals and Stax (amongst others) featured both black and white musicians, for a name, mainstream band this was still quite uncommon. 

The makeup of the band was reflected in some of their material including songs such as Police On My Back (1967), Black Skin Blue Eyed Boys (1970) and the best of the lot, 1972’s fuzzy and funky Stand Up and Be Counted but it was a more conventional pop song that took them to the top of the charts for the only time, in 1968, in Baby, Come Back. The song would return to this position in the chart 26 years later thanks to Pato Banton.

Before that could happen, though, The Equals lyricist and guitarist Eddy Grant would release solo versions of his own in 1984, 1985 and 1989 without troubling the charts (he did, however make it to No 1 in 1982 with I Don’t Wanna Dance and No 2 in 1983 with his classic track written in response to the Brixton riots of two years prior, Electric Avenue).  

Baby, Come Back is one of only 30 songs to have reached Number 1 in the UK Singles charts in multiple incarnations. Others to have achieved this feat include Unchained Melody (a chart topper on four separate occasions thanks to Jimmy Young, the Righteous Brothers, Robson & Jerome and Gareth Gates), With a Little Help From My Friends (Joe Cocker, Wet Wet Wet and Sam & Mark), Uptown Girl (Billy Joel and Westlife) and Mambo No. 5 (Lou Bega and, two years later, Bob the Builder). 

By bringing Robin and Ali Campbell on board it seems that Birmingham-born reggae singer and Toaster Pato Banton was on a sure fire trip to the top of the charts, as UB40 had previously brought two singles back to the summit by covering them, first in 1985 with I Got You Babe (Sonny & Cher, 1965) and then again in 1993, with (I Can’t Help) Falling in Love With You (originally a 1962 Chart-Topper for Elvis Presley).

Banton’s version replaces the front-and-centre surf-rock riff and Motown-esque drum beat intro with a pure 90’s reggae rhythm and breezy brass motif, an organ swirls its way around the opening chorus - sung by the boys from UB40 - before Banton comes in with his own MC verses between the original refrains. 

I must have played the “What song was Number 1 when you were born” game plenty of times before, and surely out of curiosity listened to this song, but I can’t remember ever having heard it before sitting down to write this. In contrast, the version from Eddy Grant and The Equals feels so familiar. It feels like the kind of song that would have been used in a million adverts and in a million movies. They are recognisably the same song; overall the lyrics and the melody are the same (albeit with additional verses from Pato Banton and some lines dropped) and the instruments used are similar, even if what they’re playing is pretty different. 

The style has changed from Rock to Reggae, but another feature that has notably changed is the feel. Pato Banton’s Baby, Come Back is more lighthearted. His baby may have left him but with the lighter mood, he feels less worried about if she’ll be back and more worried about when, and what they’ll do when she gets there. He’s more laid back about the whole thing and we know that when she returns, she’s going to have a good time. I don’t get that impression from the original. When Derv Gordon asks his baby to come back, he feels like he needs it more. He says it’s the first time he’s asking, but when he asks for a second chance, it feels like he’s closer to asking her for the fiftieth time than for the first. 

There were 26 years between the first version of this song hitting the top of the charts and the second. It’s now been a further 29 years since the most recent of the two releases so we’re overdue a new rendition. 

I'm asking you for the first time, to baby, come back. 

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Elsewhere in the year…

Highest selling Single (UK): Wet Wet Wet - Love Is All Around 

Highest selling (non-compilation) album (UK): Mariah Carey - Music Box 

Number 1 on Nov 19, 1994 (USA): Boyz II Men - I’ll Make Love to You

Notable Releases: 

Blur - Parklife

Green Day - Dookie

Hole - Live Through This

Jeff Buckley - Grace

Madonna - Bedtime Stories

Morrissey - Vauxhall & I

Nas - Illmatic

Nirvana - MTV Unplugged in New York

Pulp - His ‘n’ Hers

Oasis - Definitely Maybe

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