Surfer Girl (September 1963)

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/1AhsZr98dNCfhO1XC4Ht7C

Album History (Released September 1963)

Six months after Surfin’ U.S.A., the Beach Boys’ released their 3^rd album, easily their strongest to date. Capital could not get enough of Brian Wilson’s hits and wanted to churn them out and fatten their pockets. The recording atmosphere in the early 60’s was very machine like – pump out the hits at a breakneck pace and pile up the cash. A band releasing 3 albums in a year would be unheard of in modern times.
Brian was a bonafide producer on this album. The lead single and the album were both successful, each hitting number 7 on the billboard charts.

Tracklist

Thanks Wikipedia.

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Lead vocals	Length
1.	"Surfer Girl"	Brian Wilson	Brian Wilson	2:26
2.	"Catch a Wave"	B. Wilson/Mike Love	Mike Love/B. Wilson	2:07
3.	"The Surfer Moon"	B. Wilson	B. Wilson	2:11
4.	"South Bay Surfer (The Old Folks at Home)"	Stephen Foster (music); B. Wilson/Carl Wilson/Al Jardine (lyrics)	Love/B. Wilson	1:45
5.	"The Rocking Surfer"	trad. arr. B. Wilson	instrumental	2:00
6.	"Little Deuce Coupe"	B. Wilson/Roger Christian	Love	1:38

Side two No. Title Writer(s) Lead Vocals Length 1. "In My Room" B. Wilson/Gary Usher B. Wilson 2:11 2. "Hawaii" B. Wilson/Love Love/B. Wilson 1:59 3. "Surfers Rule" B. Wilson/Love Dennis Wilson/B. Wilson 1:54 4. "Our Car Club" B. Wilson/Love Love/B. Wilson 2:22 5. "Your Summer Dream" B. Wilson/Bob Norberg B. Wilson 2:27 6. "Boogie Woodie" trad. arr. B. Wilson instrumental 1:56

 

Song Analysis

1.     Surfer Girl

The first song Brian Wilson ever wrote. It was famously composed with “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” in mind. It’s a pretty simple arpeggio-driven ballad, but Brian’s lead vocals and the boys’ harmonies are beautiful. The best part of the song is the breakdown, where Brian sings: “We could ride the surf together, while our love could grow,” and there are perfect “aahs” from the boys harmonizing with the melody. This is a wonderful, basic ballad and one of the Beach Boys all-time hits.

2.     Catch a Wave

The best part of this song is Maureen Love’s (Mike Love’s sister) harp. There is a harp glissando before the chorus. This is consistently my favorite part of these early Beach Boys’ catchy hits, the early signs that a more creative instrumentation is coming. Other than that, this is a fine pop song, and a classic Beach Boys track.

3.     Surfer Moon

At the beginning of this song, it seems that we might be in for a repeat of Surfer Girl. Another nice simple ballad. However, Brian mixes this one up with some strings! This is the first string arrangement in the Beach Boys career. The strings give it a more classic pop feel and help to distinguish this from the Beach Boys’ ballads thus far.

4.     South Bay Surfer

This song is bogus. The group takes Stephen Foster’s beautiful and classic song “Old Folks at Home” speeds it up, and adds some bogus lyrics about “South Bay Surfers.” Now granted, Foster’s original has lyrics about slavery that are inappropriate today, but the old music is still lovely. Trivia – the Foster original is the state song of Florida. Long story short: this is a poor take on the original. I have included a video of a recording of the original choral piece for comparison.

5.     The Rocking Surfer

At first glance, this is just a half decent instrumental track. However, there are some strange hidden facts about this track. If you look at the writing credit it says Trad. Arr. Brian Wilson. Hmmm, so what is the traditional song? After some Googling, I discovered it’s an old Czech Folk Song called Stodola Pumpa. I found this buried YouTube video of a children’s chorus performing it. The fact that this song evolved into a mediocre instrumental track on the Beach Boys 3^rd album is a strange occurrence in music history.

6.     Little Deuce Coupe

This song is about as dumb as they come. But the music is fascinating. This song pops along at a snappy 1 minute and 41 seconds. This song is impressive for how tight it is. A B A B C A B. A quick, effective pop song with perfect melody, perfect harmony, an excellent bouncing beat, and dumb as dirt lyrics. It’s the quintessential Beach Boys hot rod song.

7.     In My Room

Here is a shining early Brian Wilson composition. This song is not so different form Surfer Girl. The guitar plays Arpeggios the entire time, the song has the same simple structure as other ballads to this point. However, the technical aspects just do not matter. The vocals are so beautiful that all else fades in support of them. This is the first song that has a personal touch from Brian. It’s not about surfing (which he doesn’t do) or about going to the fair and eating hamburgers, (which he does do but nobody really wants to hear about it) this song is about Brian’s need for personal space. To my ears, this is far and away the best track so far of the Beach Boys career and one of my personal favorites. Here’s a 21-year-old kid writing a gorgeous melody and singing about how meaningful his room is to him. It’s just perfect.

8.     Hawaii

One of the few examples where I do not like Brian’s vocals. I can appreciate the impressive falsetto on “Hawaii! Hawaii! Straight to Hawaii!” that Brian achieves. However, I don’t think it sounds good.  Frankly, it’s annoying. I don’t want to go to Hawaii anymore. I just don’t really get this song.

9.     Surfers Rule

Eh. This song doesn’t do much for me. We get some Dennis vocals but this song just feels kind of phoned in. Brian’s falsetto on this track is great, but it’s surrounded by middling material. Filler track.

10.  Our Car Club

I like the boogie woogie saxophone in this track. I think it makes the track come together. These hot rod songs really don’t do much for me, but this is a technically sound and listenable song about starting a car club with your bros’.

11.  Your Summer Dream

Four Brian Wilson ballads on one record! Hot damn! I’d be going crazy if I was a 16-year-old girl in 1963. OK, I’m still going a little crazy as a 31-year-old man in 2017. This is the slightest of the four ballads on the record, but it has its merits. It’s chord progression is a bit different from the Boys’ ballads so far. I would talk more about it, but I don’t have the music theory knowledge to elaborate. Just listen to the damn thing. You’ll see what I mean.

12.  Boogie Woodie

This is a needless song. The name is disgusting. However, the car it is named after (Woodie) is awesome. Check this sucker out:

This song is the classic Boogie Woogie piano with some junk organ added in. It doesn’t really accomplish much. A decent arrangement by Brian, but it doesn’t add anything to
the album. Lame way to close this good album.

Overall Album Impressions:

            This is a considerable improvement on the first two albums. “Little Deuce Coupe”, “Surfer Girl”, “In My Room”, and “Catch a Wave” are all-time American music classics. There are four beautiful Brian ballads, and, while the filler pop and instrumental tracks still persist, they are lessening in number. The third album contains a lot to love.