Usually in experiments one tries to minimize noise as it degrades the signal and results in uncertainty in the measured property. It turns out, however, that in some cases noise can be put to good use. This is true for a class of laser-based spectroscopies called noisy light spectroscopy. Here noise in the laser's electromagnetic field is used to provide these techniques with ultrafast (sub-picosecond) time resolution in spite of the very long temporal duration of the laser pulses themselves. Noisy light spectroscopy provides a third laser-based method to complement the more traditional continuous wave and ultrashort pulse based techniques. This talk will deal with some of the basic principles behind noisy light spectroscopy from both an experimental and theoretical point of view.