Who was the girl that stole her daddy’s T-bird in The Beach Boys song ‘Fun, Fun, Fun’?
The Beach Boys were just beginning to transition away from their surf and summer fun image in 1964. That year saw the release of songs like ‘When I Grow Up to Be a Man’ and ‘I Get Around’, two tracks where Brian Wilson began to search beyond the more basic structure that he and the band had established as their signature sound. But 1964 still saw The Beach Boys have some fun in the sun, as evidenced by the hit song ‘Fun, Fun, Fun’.
Following their formula of singing about cars and girls, ‘Fun, Fun, Fun’ was as typical a Beach Boys song as there ever was. However, this track took on a new narrative form, following a girl who steals her father’s T-Bird car in order to cruise to the hamburger stand. It’s the kind of incredibly naive mythmaking that The Beach Boys had been peddling for years, and it was eaten up by American radio listeners.
“I suggested that we write a song about a girl who borrows her dad’s car and goes cruising, rather than to the library, ‘like she told her old man, now,'” Mike Love explained. “So I came up with the concept and the lyrics, and Brian went in and recorded the track. And I even told him, ‘It’s got to start like a Chuck Berry song with a guitar lead intro’, which Carl Wilson supplied. And so that’s how that came to pass.”
Almost as soon as the song was released, questions began to crop up as to whether the song’s story was based on a real event. Possible identities of the girl ranged from an old girlfriend of Dennis Wilson to the daughter of Salt Lake City radio station KNAK manager Bill Hesterman. According to Love, however, the song never had any basis in reality.
“As far as I knew, there was no particular person that was the inspiration for that song,” Love added. “It was more generic. Because, what kid, when they get their driver’s license, doesn’t want to borrow the family car and they go cruisin’ through the hamburger stand, or they say they need to go to the library, but who knows? [Laughing] Sometimes other thoughts become more attractive.”
Check out ‘Fun, Fun, Fun’ down below.
