Surfin' Safari (October 1962)

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/6gcXDGhzGcCBY4dLzEgNFB

Album History: (Released October 1962)

First up, from Hawthorne, California, the debut: Surfin’ Safari. The boys had a mild hit single with “Surfin’” and Capitol, after talking to Wilson father Murry, decided they could make some money off the Beach Boys sound. They were right.

Tracklist

Thanks Wikipedia.

No.	Title	Lead vocals	Length
1.	"Surfin' Safari" (B. Wilson/Mike Love)	Love	2:05
2.	"County Fair"	Love	2:15
3.	"Ten Little Indians"	Love	1:26
4.	"Chug-A-Lug" (B. Wilson/Usher/Love)	Love	1:59
5.	"Little Girl (You're My Miss America)" (Herb Alpert/Vincent Catalano)	Dennis Wilson	2:04
6.	"409" (B. Wilson/Usher/Love)	Love	1:59

Side two
No.	Title	Lead vocals	Length
1.	"Surfin'" (B. Wilson/Love)	Love	2:10
2.	"Heads You Win–Tails I Lose"	Love	2:17
3.	"Summertime Blues" (Eddie Cochran/Jerry Capehart)	David Marks and Carl Wilson	2:09
4.	"Cuckoo Clock"	B. Wilson	2:08
5.	"Moon Dawg" (Derry Weaver)	instrumental	2:00
6.	"The Shift" (B. Wilson/Love)	Love	1:52

Song Analysis

      1.  Surfin’ Safari

Let’s go Surfin now! Everybody’s learning how! Come on a Safari with me! Man, those lyrics are lame. This is a good, simple, catchy pop song. I’m not sure where the whining Mike Love lyrical styles come from, but it’s a little annoying. The percussion in this song is pretty great.

      2.     County Fair

What a beautiful story. Our protagonist invites the specialest girl he knows to the fair. He packs a lunch and drives off with this nice young lady down the dirt road. He realizes he must win a stuffed doggy, or his date will end her day broken-hearted. Our young lovers wander over to the high striker game. (I had to google that) Our hero proves inept. (of course he is, whiny Mike Love is not going to win a prize) Lo and behold, a strong young man comes and easily hits the bell, winning the prize and taking the girl. The song ends with Love whining on repeat: “The big strong guy knocked the bell in the sky, he took my girl and my doggy away!”

This song gets points for being ridiculous. It is a cookie cutter early Beach Boys pop song, good harmonies, simple production. Mike Love is still too whiny.

      3.   Ten Little Indians

This song was actually released as a single. The harmonies sound nice, but this song is completely mediocre. I’m not sure why it was a single. Totally disposable.

      4.   Chug-a-Lug

Gimme Some Root Beer! Gimme Some Root Beer! Here a mug, there mug, everybody chug a lug! WTF. Harmonies are still good, but the words immediately let you know this is a mediocre pop song. There is some nonsense about Dennis liking cars and Mike loving root beer. Oh, California innocence.

      5.  Little Girl (You’re My Miss America)

After listening to Mike Love whine for four songs, we have the beautiful treat of Dennis Wilson vocals. I become empathetic with those empty-headed screaming young girls at Beach Boys concerts in the early 60’s. I want to be Dennis’s Miss America. This is a nice cover of a doo-wop song.

      6.  409

A Beach Boys classic car song. Good swinging rhythm guitar and percussion. Add in some car revving in the production, you’ve got yourself a hit! The lyrics are idiotic, of course, but this is a pretty great pop song.

      7.   Surfin’

This is the first song the Beach Boys ever recorded. Quite a historical moment in pop music. The whole song we are treated to the ridiculous “Bob, bob dip da dip”. Real deep lyrics here. We’re gonna have a good time surfin. Well, the lyrics aren’t important. It has a reasonable structure, and as always, the harmonies are great.

      8.   Heads You Win – Tails I Lose

This is a filler song. At this point in the album, I am getting tired of Mike Love’s whining, tired of the same percussion, tired of the same guitar.

      9.  Summertime Blues

This is a decent cover. David Marks does some vocal work on this one. That’s funny.

      10.  Cuckoo Clock

Finally, we get to hear Brian on lead vocals. I wonder what he will serenade us with? Oh--- it’s a song about a godamn Cuckoo. Brian doing the Cuckoo call is very telling for where he is headed. There’s a pretty clutch junk organ solo in this song for some reason.

      11.  Moon Dawg

This is a cover of a Gamblers instrumental song. The Gamblers were a surf rock band, a member of which was Bruce Johnston, who winded up joining the Beach Boys several years later. This a pretty cool song, but it’s a very close cover, and it feels a little uninspired to cover a contemporary surf rock song, when you are a contemporary surf rock band.

      12.  The Shift

I was worried we wouldn’t get creepy before this album was over. This is a song where the entire purpose is to talk about how a certain type of woman’s dress in the 60’s really turns the Boys on. It’s pretty skeevy. It’s a decent pop song, but the harmonies of “wearing a shift” “wearing a shift” just sound silly.

Overall Album Impressions:

            This is very obviously an early album with a few filler tracks. That being said, there is nothing unlistenable on this album. “409”, “Surfin’”, and “Surfin’ Safari” are legitimate Beach Boys classics. For a career that will span many decades, that’s pretty impressive for a first record. This is not an album I really listen to much, but I did have fun analyzing it and listening to some of these dumb ass lyrics on “County Fair”, “The Shift”, and “Chug-a-Lug”.