Song Lyric Sunday: Surf’s Up

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Continuing the sequence of Song Lyric Sunday themes which have meaning for American music followers but very little for the rest of us, today’s is surf music. Jim tells us about it in his post Catch A Wave. I had an idea what this was, as there is one very obvious choice of band for it and another secondary one, so I went in search of more information. Wikipedia has an interesting piece about the genre, together with a list of musicians identified with it – both originally, in the early to mid 60s, and in subsequent revivals. But the article and the list confirmed my view – I was largely ignorant of the vast majority of the names mentioned, virtually all of whom had done the square root of diddly squat in the British charts. So I’m falling back on my first thought for today, sticking with what I know and like. Just a thought, though: one sentence in the article caught my eye in particular. It was this: “Like all other rock subgenres of this period, the surf music craze, along with the careers of nearly all surf acts, was effectively ended by the British Invasion beginning in early 1964.” Now that seems a good idea for redressing the balance towards the rest of the world, I think – how about it, Jim? If we were that influential then that would be a great theme for a future week.

So, based on almost zero knowledge of the genre, I give you today’s choice:

And as this is Song Lyric Sunday, here are the words:

If everybody had an ocean
Across the U.S.A.
Then everybody’d be surfin’
Like Californi-a
You’d seem ’em wearing their baggies
Huarache sandals too
A bushy bushy blonde hairdo
Surfin’ U.S.A.

You’d catch ’em surfin’ at Del Mar
Ventura County line
Santa Cruz and Trestle
Australia’s Narrabeen
All over Manhattan
And down Doheny Way

Everybody’s gone surfin’
Surfin’ U.S.A.

We’ll all be planning that route
We’re gonna take real soon
We’re waxing down our surfboards
We can’t wait for June
We’ll all be gone for the summer
We’re on surfari to stay
Tell the teacher we’re surfin’
Surfin’ U.S.A.

Haggerties and Swamies
Pacific Palisades
San Onofre and Sunset
Redondo Beach L.A.
All over La Jolla
At Wa’imea Bay

Everybody’s gone surfin’
Surfin’ U.S.A.

Everybody’s gone surfin’
Surfin’ U.S.A.

Everybody’s gone surfin’
Surfin’ U.S.A.

Source: AZLyrics.com

Writers: Chuck Berry, Brian Wilson, Chun Keung Richard Lam (they used the tune of Chuck Berry’s Sweet Little Sixteen)

Copyright: Entertainment One US

Looking at those lyrics rather proves my point about my ignorance – in places, that feels like a foreign language from another world! The song was the Beach Boys’ third single to feature the word surfin’ in its title, after Surfin’ in 1961 and Surfin’ Safari in 1962. It came out in March 1963, reaching #3 in the US and also giving them their first UK hit, peaking here at #34. None of their three other singles with variations on surf in their title were hits here: I guess the culture was alien to most of us at the time, except maybe in Newquay. All of these songs did become very familiar to us, though, thanks to compilation albums and radio airplay, particularly on the pirate radio stations that we used to listen to a lot, as the fuddy duddy old BBC didn’t really cater for teenagers. I loved the band then, and still do.

I said I knew of two acts that came under the surf rock banner, and though this is probably another obvious choice I’m going to play one by them anyway, just to show off my knowledge:

Surf City was co-written by Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys and, to be honest, if you didn’t know it before and were just hearing it for the first time you might well think it was them on this record. It was released as a single in May 1963 and was the first surf song to get to #1 in the US. It also got to #26 in the UK, their second (of two) top thirty hits here. I won’t overload this post with more lyrics but there is a nice little footnote to this song. Dean Torrence (the ‘Dean” half of these guys) moved to Huntington Beach in California in 1991 and persuaded local officials to rename the place as Surf City. The name stuck, and has been used by many local businesses since then to identify their location. That has to be one of the oddest uses of a song title that I’ve come across though it makes perfect sense when you think about it.

I’m off to see what others are playing for this, in the hope that I don’t see either of these too many times and actually get to hear some of that multitude of acts that are unknown to me. Have a good day, and I’ll see you again for Tuesday Tunes 🎶

35 thoughts on “Song Lyric Sunday: Surf’s Up”

  1. Pingback: March March | Take It Easy

  3. Both great song choices, Clive.., like you many of these genres are lost on me its the same with films I came across something on a post I read today and didn’t know what it was but reading the post it was self-explanatory I just like what I like its either music or film no fancy genre..But I like the idea of a British invasion 🙂 xx

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  11. Surfin’ songs were such an odd sub-genre that only so many could relate to, they really had to depend on their ‘catchiness’ and some great production. But they seem so very much of their time and so clean cut and inoffensive now. Fun to watch though.

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  12. I loved the surf music craze. Coming from the prairies this was an exciting, exotic world to me. We saw the Beach Boys perform in Calgary Alberta in the ’90s. They were the Beach Grandpas by then and of course, Dennis was gone, but they still sounded pretty good. Loved both of your picks. (and yes, the British invasion changed everything in the music world, but all for the good!)

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    • It was exotic to us too. Glad you got to see them, even if they were past their youth by then. I’m hoping Jim will pick up on my suggestion to include the British Invasion as a future theme for this.

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      • The lyrics do make the places sound exotic and sun-drenched; La Jola, Sunset, Pacific Palisades sounds far more romantic than Porthcawl, Folkestone, Saltburn or Skegness.
        Nice to see Chuck Berry gets a name-check as a writer too.

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      • And don’t forget Grimsby! I think some English place names should be in song titles: Pratt’s Bottom Blues has a ring to it (pun accidental, but I’m keeping it!). Having ‘borrowed’ his tune I think they had to give Chuck a credit 😊

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