Take Five: The Beach Boys’ ‘Endless Summer’

The music of the Beach Boys is a cultural icon. Songs about surfing, cars, girls defined an era. Before the Beatles led the charge of the British Invasion, the group from Hawthorne, California reigned supreme. Rather than surrender to the British, songwriter Brian Wilson upped his game and embarked upon creative endeavors that ended up inspiring the Beatles themselves to greater heights. The Beach Boys’ mid sixties output – most notably Pet Sounds and the long-unreleased SMiLE – were groundbreaking and highly influential masterworks.

And while the group continued to do interesting work in the years when Brian Wilson’s involvement couldn’t be reliably counted upon, by the early ‘70s the group had fallen out of fashion. But in a marketing masterstroke, Capitol Records compiled a bunch of songs from a decade earlier, from those simpler, pre-experimental days. Putting them all together in a brightly colored gatefold sleeve that doubled down on the group’s surf-and-sun character, Endless Summer was a blockbuster hit. The album’s success was a two-edged sword: it put the Beach Boys back on the chart and made them a popular concert draw once again, but it had the (perhaps unintended) effect of capturing them in metaphorical amber: from 1974 onward, the Beach Boys would be thought of primarily as a nostalgia act.

But what nostalgia! Even in their early days, the Beach Boys created some timeless music. On the 50th anniversary of the release of that landmark oldies collection, here are five standout tracks from the Beach Boys’ Endless Summer. (Note: original member Mike Love leads a lineup of latter-day Beach Boys – most of whom weren’t even born when the songs charted – on a tour this summer, celebrating (what else) the 1974 Endless Summer double LP.

“Surfin’ U.S.A.” (originally from Surfin’ U.S.A., 1963)
The second Beach Boys album is almost a conceptual work: nearly all of its twelve songs are about the beach. (The remainder are mostly about cars.) The melody of “Surfin’ U.S.A.” is a direct lift of Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen,” so beginning in 1966 Berry received a co-writing credit on the Brian Wilson song. The single was Billboard’s #1-ranked song for 1963.

“Surfer Girl” (originally from Surfer Girl, 1963)
The seamless harmonies of the three Wilson brothers (Brian, Carl and Dennis) plus Love and then-new member Al Jardine characterize this classic. With a melody inspired by “When You Wish Upon a Star,” the song captured the romance and grandeur of love songs, coupled with a surfing theme. The so-called Wrecking Crew played on the album sessions, and Surfer Girl was the first Beach Boys album on which Brian Wilson was credited as producer.

“The Warmth of the Sun” (originally from Shut Down, Volume 2, 1964)
Even amid the ubiquitous cars, girls and surfing themes on early Beach Boys records, careful listeners could tell that there was more going on. An exemplar of subtlety and sophistication, “The Warmth of the Sun” is meditative in its beauty. The recording sessions for the song took on a deeply emotional character, as President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated a few weeks before.

“All Summer Long” (originally from All Summer Long, 1964)
Even though it’s a cheery song with a bright, bouncy arrangement, there’s a whiff of melancholy, of end-of-the-season regret, an acknowledgment that the good times have to end. It’s a remarkably mature composition from then-22 year old songwriter Brian Wilson.

“Let Him Run Wild” (originally from Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!), 1965)
Greater things were soon to come form the Beach Boys: Brian Wilson would leave the road band, staying in Los Angeles to create ambitious, heavily orchestrated mini-masterpieces with the assemblage of top musicians often called the Wrecking Crew. “Let Him Run Wild” hints at the coming new direction; composer Burt Bacharach is an oft-cited inspiration for the tune, one that’s compositionally light years ahead of what the Beach Boys had done even a year before.