The Beach Boys song Brian Wilson called “our best ballad achievement”
Towards the mid-1960s, Brian Wilson was on the cusp of something unprecedented. Outside of his early work with The Beach Boys, the album Pet Sounds would restructure what rock and roll meant to the general public, moving outside the confines of traditional harmony and bringing in lavish instrumentation unlike anything listeners had heard before. For Wilson’s money, though, one of their most sentimental songs came just before the waves crashed into the beach.
Throughout the first few years of Wilson’s career, the band followed a reasonably simple formula. After getting their foot in the door by writing songs about the wonders of surfing, their next batch of singles fluctuated between the wonders of life on the beach as well as the feeling of getting in a car and revving up the engine as far as it will go on songs like ‘Little Deuce Coupe’.
Although songs like ‘Surfin USA’ may have been perfect for the pop audience, Wilson did want to write the same uptempo music for the rest of his life. Between working on the cut-and-paste jobs of his early work, ‘Surfer Girl’ became one of the first hits from The Beach Boys to be pretty lowkey.
Featuring a classic waltz tempo, Wilson’s lyrics are the peak of childhood innocence, wondering if this girl who loves to surf every day would love someone like him. Although the band would develop much further on future projects, Wilson thought that ‘Surfer Girl’ suited his style of music the best.
When asked about his favourite Beach Boys songs, Wilson picked his first attempt at a slower song among his favourites, saying, “Well, my personal two favourite Beach Boys songs are ‘California Girls’ and ‘Surfer Girl’. That’s my personal taste in our music. And the reason that would be is that ‘Surfer Girl’ was our best ballad achievement”.
As evidenced by the sound of ‘California Girls’, though, Wilson was already looking to expand his horizons beyond the traditional pop structure. Before the song starts, the instrumental provides a subtle overture before going into the traditional shuffle rhythm to set up Mike Love’s vocals.
Although Wilson may have had his work cut out as a human jukebox, ‘Surfer Girl’ quickly got overshadowed by where The Beatles were going on albums like Rubber Soul. Looking to capture the same spirit that the Fab Four had, Wilson would lob the ball back with Pet Sounds, featuring a selection of songs with advanced approaches to harmony that no one had ever tried.
Immediately inspired, The Beatles were inspired by Pet Sounds to expand on their vision even more, creating Sgt Pepper the following year, which would become pivotal for the psychedelic movement that was just getting started around the same time. Although Wilson would try taking his band further, the next few years saw him spiralling into addiction, becoming more desensitised to the music on future albums.
Even with the legend of ‘God Only Knows’ and ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’ looming large over his legacy, Wilson still seems to see ‘Surfer Girl’ as the moment he first began to branch out. Later ballads may have had a more sophisticated structure, but no songwriter ever forgets their first.
