A Sucker for a Beach Boys Summer

When I graduated from high school way back in 1969 what I wanted more than anything was to be a beach boy for the entire summer. Southern California would have been a great place to do that and I used to daydream about working in a surfboard store and surfing and having this beach bunny girlfriend and the whole nine yards.

What I got instead was a few weeks in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, a job as a bus boy and dishwasher and a fickle girlfriend who liked older guys who had flashy cars, money to burn and more interesting jobs. But at least I had my big dreams and my favorite beach boy music.

I've been way too old for wanting to be a beach boy for more years than I care to remember but, when I think of the great summer sounds of The Beach Boys, I still think about the Summer of '69 and how it could have been.

Here are 14 of my favorite songs by The Beach Boys.
The red numbers indicate my six favorites:

California Girls

Dance, Dance, Dance 2

Don't Worry Baby 1

Do You Wanna Dance?

Fun, Fun, Fun 6

Hawaii

Help Me, Rhonda

I Get Around 4

Little Deuce Coupe

Sloop John B

Surfer Girl 3

Surfin' USA

Wouldn't It Be Nice

Your Summer Dream 5

A Sucker for a Summer Song

It's been 40 years since I walked barefoot in the warm sands of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, but my most memorable stroll on the sand was around midnight the following year. That was the night I kissed a beautiful girl my own age under the moonlight on the beach at Stone Harbor, New Jersey. We were both 19.

She had long, thick, black hair that fell nearly to her waist and her favorite breakfast food was plain white bread without the crust and black coffee. She'd locked herself out of her motel room earlier that evening and, while I stood on the shoulders of a friend, I removed the window screen, squeezed in through the open window and unlocked her door.

What I got for my effort was only a kiss that night. But it was a kiss on the beach in the summer moonlight. A kiss I'd never forget.

There was no music when I enjoyed my first romantic kiss with the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen. Just the soft rush of the incoming tide and the gentle flapping of the cool ocean breeze against us. But, if there had been music playing, it would have been in my head and it might have been one of these four songs. Or all of them.

1. Theme Song from A Summer Place (the 1960 instrumental version by The Percy Faith Orchestra)
2. Telstar (the 1962 song by The Tornados)
3. Surfer Girl (from the Beach Boy's 1963 Surfer Girl Album -- a vinyl album I still own)
4. Your Summer Dream (Surfer Girl album)

Even today, I'm still a sucker for a beautiful, romantic, summer song.