Okay, Bobby V’s hit song from decades back, “Take Good Care of My Baby,” is a really pretty song, one I liked when I first heard it on our (now officially) Oldies station in the middle '70s. But, here’s the thing - I thought it was about adoption.
While I’m not adopted, a really good friend had been. I knew from what my parents told me back then that a child given up for adoption is b/c the birth parents just weren’t able or ready to have kids. Hence, when I heard the song first, at about 7 or 8, i thought, “Well, it’s a guy who had a baby, and he’s telling someone else to take care of her b/c they love her and he just didn’t do a good job - hadn’t been a true parent.”
As I got into my teen years, I realized the numerous different ways to refer to lovers, and that some guys, for odd reasons, referred to them with terms such as “baby,” and figured it was about a girlfriend he hadn’t been true to.
Now, however, I wonder - some of the other thigns I hear in the song just sound so much like the things you’d say about real babies. I mean, “Once upon a time that little girl was mine” is one thing, but you hear talk of never letting a little kid see a cloudy sky, not a lover who should be ont he same level as you. Same with making a rainbow all around them. I even wrote a piece of fan fiction on fanfiction.net called “Take Good Care of My baby” about adoption.
So, what do you dopers think? Is the song about adoption, a lover who the singer was untrue to, or is it one of those that is classic because it could be either, and the writer was just talented enough to make it that way.
