Cher magic: From ‘I Got You Babe’ to ‘Believe’, the pop diva’s 10 best songs

To mark the legendary singer’s impending tour of these islands, Graeme Ross compiles a playlist of Cher’s finest musical moments

Cherilyn Sarkisian LaPiere – aka Cher – in feathered headdress on a 1973 episode of ‘The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour’ (Getty)

The legendary Cher hits these shores on 20 October, with a gig at London’s 02 kicking off the eight-date UK and Ireland leg of her Here We Go Again world tour. It’s the superstar’s first UK dates for 14 years and her legions of fans can expect a typically flamboyant spectacle, during which Cher will showcase songs from her most recent album Dancing Queen, a tribute to the music of Abba. However, with a back catalogue reaching back to the mid-Sixties, she will undoubtedly perform plenty of her most loved songs, many of which you will find here in the top 10 Cher songs playlist.

10 All I Really Want to Do (1965)

Cher’s solo career operated in tandem with that of Sonny and Cher and her take on the Dylan song was actually released just prior to the duo’s breakthrough hit “I Got You Babe”. Bob wasn’t too impressed by Cher’s version, which inhabits the middle ground between the mocking tone of his original and the Byrds’ featherlight cover; however it stands up well thanks to wall of sound production and a terrific vocal.

Although the Byrds’ version outperformed Cher’s in the UK, the 19-year-old’s eclipsed the folk-rock pioneers in the all-important Billboard charts, no mean feat considering the Byrds’ singles either side of “All I Really Want To Do”, (“Mr Tambourine Man” and “Turn, Turn, Turn”) both topped the charts.

9 Dark Lady (1974)

Cher followed the format of previous chart-toppers “Gypsys, Tramps, & Thieves” and “Half-Breed” with another brilliantly melodramatic performance that overcame any shortcomings in the song itself. “Dark Lady” completed a trilogy of story songs that in retrospect play like an audition for Cher’s subsequent acting career, and she threw herself into this rather daft but atmospheric murder ballad with complete conviction, bookending the second successful phase of her career and giving her a hat trick of US No 1s as a solo artist.

8 Take Me Home (1979)

A rare but successful excursion into disco for Cher for the famed Casablanca label with a pretty self-explanatory title. She was no Donna Summer but “Take Me Home” saw a return to the Billboard top 10 for the first time in five years. Cher was initially reluctant to join the disco bandwagon, but with her critical stock at an all-time low following her disastrous 1977 album with her then husband Gregg Allman, she probably reasoned she had nothing to lose.

7 The Beat Goes On (1967)

You can almost smell the incense and visualise the kaftans in this Sonny and Cher hit that perfectly captures the hippie era. “The Beat Goes On” still sounds effortlessly cool and gloriously retro, and owes much to Carol Kaye’s irresistible bassline. Sonny and Cher didn’t know it at the time but the hits would soon dry up as the once golden couple were deemed resolutely square by the very people they were singing about on this record.

6 Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) (1966)

The first of Cher’s “story” songs and a transatlantic smash reaching No 3 in the UK and written and produced by Sonny. Those more familiar with Nancy Sinatra’s spare, slightly sinister remake may be surprised at the kitchen sink production on Cher’s much more dramatic version which, with its campfire violins and eastern European melody was the first of a number of Cher songs to tap into her exotic family lineage.

5 Half-Breed (1973)

There couldn’t have been many records in 1973 that mixed tribal chants with a prototype disco string arrangement and thundering drums courtesy of Wrecking Crew alumni Hal Blaine (although Smokey Robinson’s “Just My Soul Responding” comes close), but Cher managed it with “Half-Breed”. It really shouldn’t have worked but this is Cher and it did. On “Half Breed”, an impassioned attack on racial prejudice, she didn’t mess too much with the story-telling formula that gave her a US No 1 in 1971 with the similarly themed “Gypsys, Tramps, & Thieves”, and she was rewarded with another Billboard chart-topper.

4 I Got You Babe (1965)

After a couple of failed singles under the more exotic Caesar and Cleo moniker, Sonny and Cher hit paydirt with this brilliantly produced piece of folk-rock with Phil Spector-like flourishes, which sold over a million copies and topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic. Written and produced by Sonny and trading on the duo’s carefully cultivated image as love’s young dream in the burgeoning hippie era, the song’s simple but optimistic message resonated across the airwaves and even managed to briefly cross the ever-widening generation gap of the times.

3 If I Could Turn Back Time (1989)

For much of the 1980s, Cher the recording artist took second place to Cher the actor, climaxing in 1987 with an Oscar for Moonstruck. Towards the end of the decade, she made a musical comeback that culminated with the Heart of Stone album, which contained a clutch of hit singles including “Just Like Jesse James”, but it is “If I Could Turn Back Time” that stands the test of time. By all accounts, Cher had to be persuaded to record Diane Warren’s song, but it remains the quintessential Eighties power ballad with an afterlife that continues to grow and grow.

2 Believe (1998)

It’s scarcely believable that it is now over 20 years since “Believe’s” huge global success, with Cher’s move into electro dance-pop reinvigorating a recording career that had played second fiddle to her acting one. Though hugely influential, “Believe” certainly has a lot to answer for, containing one of the first uses of the dreaded, omnipotent auto-tune device – subsequently provoking many a listener to reach for the off button of their radio – but as club bangers go, “Believe” would get even my feet twitching.

1 Gypsys, Tramps, & Thieves (1971)

Cher hadn’t troubled the top 40 for four years, with or without Sonny, when she recorded this iconic single with the famed Wrecking Crew session musicians, but the result was the first of her many comebacks and a worldwide smash. The jangling intro and memorable opening line of Cher’s greatest song – “I was born in the wagon of a travellin’ show” is the hook that draws the listener in as we are swept along in a breathless two minutes 38 seconds with Cher, her soaring contralto in all its glory, as she narrates a tale that encompasses bigotry, hypocrisy, prostitution and teenage pregnancy in America’s south.