A very silly post but true.
It is hard to believe my youngest son will be entering High School next August. High School was a crazy and sleepy time for me. I know it will be much better for him. The dumbest thing I ever did then was for an English class. We were studying lyrics.
1974 was a turning point for music. I spent a lot of time listening to my sibling’s LPs lying around such as Cream, Donovan, the Seeds, the Beatles, and the Beach Boys. I did not have a car yet, and I couldn’t get around much.
My friends and I would go to the beach when we could during the summer. I was not a surfer girl, but I often dreamed of being one just like Gidget.
We watched the reruns! I was two years old when she hit the big screen. My friends and I thought she was cool, independent, and got to hang out with some ridiculously cute guys. This is why at 16 I fell in love with the Beach Boys, if only their voices.
In class we were required to pick a song and write about the lyrics. We brought the vinyl record to class, and it was played before the class on the English/drama sound system.
I played “Surfer Girl.” I don’t think many of the students knew the song. It was not played much on the radio at the time. Unless the other students had older siblings like I did. It was a different generational type of song. It seemed like a clever idea at the time, wrong.!!! After the song played several guys mocked a silent, “Score Four” to me with their nasty teenager mouths. It was humiliating.
Now I look back and see an extremely sweet, vulnerable young woman. It was OK. I influenced my friends to buy old Beach Boy LPs. In the San Fernando Valley where the Beach Boys became girly hip songs to play at local pot parties of the mid-seventies,
It was not as popular as progressive, or underground seventies rock. To us innocent girls it was better and much more romantic!
We were very enthusiastic about The Beach Boys!!
