Cher Reflects on 'I Got You Babe' 50 Years Later

— -- Later this month, it will be 50 years since Sonny & Cher's hit "I Got You Babe" first hit number 1 on the Billboard charts.

To celebrate the incredible accomplishment, Cher, 69, spoke to Billboard magazine, even getting into the details of how the song came about.

When asked if having the duo's first chart topper was a big accomplishment on Aug. 28, 1965, Cher said, "Jesus, it was everything that we were living for. It was what we were breathing for. It was our goal to do it. We struggled and struggled and struggled because of the way we [Sonny & Cher] looked."

Cher said before the duo hit it big, "we looked different than anyone else. We got thrown out of every place. We couldn't get in ... we looked so strange to everyone."

Cher said eventually they went to England, which was more progressive at the time, and that's when things took off.

"We had songs that didn't do anything, and then all of a sudden we had all these songs on the [chart] at one time," she added. "What happened was there were songs we made before, so when 'I Got You Babe' became famous, they released the songs that we had done before 'I Got You Babe.' So everything was just released at one time."

In fact, Cher didn't think much of "I Got You Babe" when Sonny Bono came up with the tune.

"Sonny woke me up in the middle of the night to come in where the piano was, in the living room, and sing it. And I didn't like it and just said, 'OK, I'll sing it and then I'm going back to bed.' So I was never a very good barometer," she added.