i got you babe :-)
i’ve been thinking about a curious phenomenon in life: when a big “narrative plot” moment coincides with a piece of media, that media becomes permanently stamped into memory. a song, a film, a line of dialogue — suddenly it’s a portal back to a time and feeling. for some reason, i associate “come on eileen” with breakups and the grease soundtrack with driving around los angeles with my brother. psychologists call this an involuntary memory. proust wrote about it describing a flood of memories triggered by the smell of madeleine cake. i like to call them memory keys.
one such key for me is the song “i got you babe” by sonny and cher. written by sonny bono in 1965 as a protest to bob dylan’s “it ain’t me babe,” it remains their biggest hit: a sweeping, sentimental waltz-bop with that big wall-of-sound feel. i imagine it held countless layers of meaning for sonny and cher themselves, given their relationship.
but what fascinates me most is how the song became a central memory key to anyone who’s watched the film groundhog day (1993), a story about reliving the same day endlessly. bill murray’s character, phil connors, wakes up each morning at 6 a.m. to “i got you babe.” over and over, he hears:
“then put your little hand in mine, there ain’t no hill or mountain we can’t climb…”
the film is really about escaping the ouroboros of a selfish, monotonous life. phil begins cynical and self-absorbed. he tries indulgence, manipulation, despair — even suicide. none of it works. the loop only ends when he learns to love: to live for others, to be present, to act with compassion. only then do we hear the full recording of “i got you babe,” symbolizing his freedom from samsara and selfishness. by tying this song to the film’s central arc, the filmmakers planted a quiet message: the only way to truly break free is through love.
and what is love here? it’s right there in the title: i got you, babe. not just romance, but a mutual devotion, rooted in trust. to say it and mean it implies i can trust myself enough to truly be there for you. this is so beautiful to me — it’s the christlike love that transforms — not by grasping, but by patiently abiding with another (or with yourself) in the slow, uncomfortable shedding of ego.
the memory keys we collect are like nodes in our internal narrative — on both the individual and collective scale — keeping us caught in loops of self-identification until we’re willing to meet them with loving awareness through self-examination.
i felt this truth recently while working with arthur aron’s ‘36 questions,’ designed to foster intimacy. one night i turned them inward, asking and answering myself aloud — an exercise i highly recommend. when i reached, “share an embarrassing moment in your life,” something broke loose. i told myself the story for the first time in detail, and a flood of tears came.
in that moment, a painful memory shifted from shame into compassion. i sat in the half-lotus position and naturally began chanting the zoroastrian words — good words, good deeds, good thoughts — until the memory gently dissolved into pure, formless awareness. when i opened my eyes, i didn’t remember who or what i was — and it didn’t matter. peace had replaced all sense of identification.
i’m convinced love can transform us from the inside out — but only when the ‘i’ is willing to expand its awareness through deepened self-compassion. this kind of intimacy — with ourselves and with each other — isn’t just important, it’s life-altering and life-sustaining. if we’re willing to go to the depths within ourselves, and love through it all, we may discover just how much sweeter our shared reality could become.
what memory keys live in your psyche? and what might they reveal if you choose to explore them? whatever you find, may you remember this: i got you, babe.
