The Beach Boys song Brian Wilson thought couldn’t be topped
At the beginning of the 1960s, rock and roll progressed by leaps and bounds. Although Chuck Berry and Little Richard gave the genre a solid foundation, the sounds of the British Invasion quickly set the stage for a more sophisticated sound on the radio, with The Beatles and The Rolling Stones landing massive hits on the charts. While the sounds of England may have filled the airwaves, Brian Wilson gave them a run for their money with The Beach Boys.
Growing up loving the sounds of rock and roll, Wilson’s vision for the band was to blend the early rock songs with the glorious harmonies he heard from acts like The Four Freshmen. While a track like ‘Surfin’ USA’ may have had its roots firmly planted in the world of Chuck Berry, Wilson would turn it into a mini symphony, working in different counterpoint melodies to make an ordinary pop song sound massive.
As he began working on formulaic pop tunes like ‘Be True To Your School’, Wilson wondered what he could get from the three-minute pop single that wasn’t just generic music. Once he saw The Beatles start experimenting with different musical styles across albums like Rubber Soul, Wilson thought he should also take the next step with his writing.
Before the making of Pet Sounds, ‘California Girls’ was the first time Wilson’s genius was on full display. Rather than have the traditional three-chord pop tune, the intro is highly unconventional, playing an instrumental overture before the rest of the band comes in like a ray of sunshine to introduce Mike Love’s lead vocals.
The song also plays around with the key more than a few times. Although there’s a clear emphasis on the main tempo and groove of the track, Wilson takes notes from neighbouring keys throughout the song, never letting the audience settle on one sound for too long before transitioning to something different.
When talking about the writing of the track, Wilson still thought ‘California Girls’ was a watershed moment for him as a songwriter, recalling to Goldmine, “I came up the introduction first. I’m still really proud of that introduction. It has a classical feel. I wrote the song ‘California Girls’ in the same key as the introduction. It took me some time.”
Trying to simulate a country and western beat, Wilson’s approach became the unofficial anthem for California, with fans enjoying fun in the sun every time they heard the tune on the radio. To this day, Wilson has said that he has yet to top the song as well, telling Rolling Stone, “I sit at the piano and try, but all I want to do is rewrite ‘California Girls’. How am I gonna do something better than that?”
Despite his insecurity about writing a successor to ‘California Girls’, Wilson would go on to reinvent the rock genre on The Beach Boys’ next record. Coming out with Pet Sounds, Wilson offered up the most sophisticated sounds to ever come out of a recording studio at the time, turning the sounds in his head into symphonic bliss on tracks like ‘God Only Knows’. ‘California Girls’ may have been the first taste of Wilson’s genius, but considering what was to come, it might as well have been the calm before the storm.
