Ironic Uses of the Beach Boys

May 3, 2007

Once a body of work is before the public there is no way to control the meaning that will be assigned to it. The music of the Beach Boys is a case in point. Their music has acquired an ironic resonance.. at least for anyone who does not buy into the nostalgia trip.

In Michael Moore's Roger and Me there is a scene in which we see a laid-off worker playing basketball to the accompaniment of "Wouldn't It Be Nice". When you think about it, the lyrics are meaningless for the situation. The song is effective here because it relies on our sense of irony.. our ability to feel the contrast between the narrow hope of the laid-off worker and the expansive hope of the song. And that is my argument: when we reach for something to express our naive versions of the world, we often land on the Beach Boys.

This ironic use of the Beach Boys began early. The Beatles' "Back in the USSR" is a send-up of "California Girls".. remember the lyrics: "Well the Ukraine girls really knock me out/ They leave the rest behind/ Moscow Girls make me scream and shout.." The geographic tour of the girls of the USA is replaced by an ironic tour of the USSR. I don't hear in the song any praise for the Soviet Union.. just a willingness to stand pop expectations on their head. It is unfair, but by means of such uses the work of the Beach Boys is transformed into the sound of the naive past.

A second option for appropriating the sound of the Beach Boys is the route taken by Van Halen in their literal re-appropriation of "California Girls".. which becomes in their hands a lustful paean to girls. But this gets us nowhere.. and only makes the work of the Beach Boys seem more available for ironic use. Needless to say, the contemporary appreciation of the Beach Boys depends upon being able ot set aside the cultural resonance that has accrued to their music..