The 1950s and ’60s ushered in the “California-cation” of pop music, with bright, optimistic tunes like the Mamas and the Papas’ “California Dreamin’” ruling the airwaves. Perhaps none made a larger cultural imprint than the Beach Boys’ “California Girls”, released on this day (July 12) in 1965. Hailed by lead singer Brian Wilson as a “hymn of youth”, the song extols the virtues of the Golden State’s girls and asserts their superiority to ladies from quite literally anywhere else. Climbing to number three on the all-genre U.S. Billboard Hot 100, “California Girls” ranks among the Beach Boys’ most successful songs worldwide.
How an LSD Trip Inspired This Beach Boys Smash Hit
According to official Beach Boys lore, the concept for “California Girls” came to Brian Wilson during his first-ever LSD trip.
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Inspired by the music from cowboy films that were prevalent onscreen at the time, Wilson sat down at his piano and “started playing it, bum-buhdeeda, bum-buhdeeda.”
“I did that for about an hour,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 2007. “I got these chords going. Then I got this melody, it came pretty fast after that.”
The next day, Wilson finished “California Girls” with his co-founder and cousin, Mike Love. In April 1965, he recorded the backing track with a slew of session musicians at Hollywood’s Western Studio.
They needed 44 takes before Wilson was satisfied, and the session carried on well after midnight.
Additionally, “California Girls” was the first Beach Boys track to feature vocals from Bruce Johnston, who joined the band in April 1965 to substitute for Wilson on concert tours.
“I came home from The Beach Boys’ tour [on June 1] and they said, ‘Why don’t you come and sing on our next album?’” Johnston recalled, according to a 2004 biography of the band written by Keith Badman.
“The first song I sang on was ‘California Girls’. At this point I still wasn’t a proper member of the group.”
The Wave of California Songs That Came After
Debuting at number 28 on the Billboard Top 40, “California Girls” quickly climbed the charts. By the end of August, it had reached number three, trailing only the Beatles’ “Help!” and Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone”. (Name a stronger top three; we’ll wait.)
Three years later, the Beatles would record “Back in the U.S.S.R.”, which parodied both Chuck Berry’s “Back in the U.S.A.” and the Beach Boys’ “California Girls”. (Wilson found it “really adorable” at first, before someone pointed out to him that it was poking fun at their song.)
“California Girls” would go on to inspire scores of songs with the same title, including recordings by Katy Perry and Snoop Dogg.
In 1984, Van Halen’s David Lee Roth recorded a cover of “California Girls” that also peaked at number three.
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