Covid Island Discs

Day 443: California Girls, The Beach Boys

Can’t believe it has taken me so long to cite this very old Beach Boys classic and this is the first time they appear in Covid Island Discs. This song brings back a nice memory for me relating to my old St Paul’s youth group. Every year we would go away together for a least one or two house parties and during the weekend’s festivities we would have some form of a campers concert on Saturday night. I used to take popular songs and reword them with silly lyrics and one year I reworded California Girls. Amazingly I still have the tatty bit of paper it was written on in 1985 (36 years ago!).

The first verse and chorus went

It’s Friday night and we’re cruising on the bus down Telford way
Trying to find the turnoff so we don’t end up in Yowie (yes it is a real place) bay
We went down many dirt roads just to see where they would lead
If only we could have seen the signs, if only we could read

Chorus: I wish that I could see where my bed was
I wish that I could unknot my pants
I wish they hadn’t created Seaforth girls

Well it was funny when we were 18 something years old performing lots of silly skits! The other bit of trivia related to this song is of course it inspired the Beatles to write “Back in the USSR” with the classic lines: “Ukraine girls really knock me out, they leave the west behind and Moscow girls make me sing and shout that Jojo’s always on my my my my my mind”