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"California Girls" is a song
Song

A song is a musical musical composition which contains vocal parts that are performed, 'sung,' and feature words , commonly accompanied by musical instruments ....
 written by Brian Wilson
Brian Wilson

Brian Douglas Wilson is a Grammy Award-winning United States musician best known as a member of the American rock and roll band, the Beach Boys....
 and Mike Love
Mike Love

Michael Edward "Mike" Love is an United States singer/songwriter with The Beach Boys. He formed the band along with his cousins Brian Wilson, Carl Wilson, and Dennis Wilson, and their friend Al Jardine....
 and recorded by The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys

The Beach Boys are an American rock band. Formed in 1961, the group gained popularity for its close harmony and lyrics reflecting a California youth culture of cars and surfing....
 in 1965. It features contrasting verse-chorus form. The song was released as a single
Single (music)

In the record industry, a single is a song usually used from a current or upcoming album to promote the album. Singles are distributed through a number of ways; originally, they were packaged as "single" records with one or two other songs and sold before the release of the album....
, reaching #3 on the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100

The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard Single popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on airplay and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday; while the airplay tracking-week runs from Wednesday to Tuesday....
. It also appeared on the album Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!)
Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!)

Summer Days is the eighth studio album by The Beach Boys and their second overall in 1965. As a follow-up to The Beach Boys Today!, the successor certainly had its progressive moments, but it was also weighed down by its adherence to the tried and true "formula" of sun, summer and fun....
.

Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone is a United States-based magazine devoted to music, politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J....
 ranked it #71 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

music for the song came from Brian Wilson's first LSD
LSD

Lysergic acid diethylamide, LSD, LSD-25, or acid, is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family. Its unusual psychological effects, which include visuals of colored patterns behind the eyes in the mind, a sense of time distorting, and crawling geometric patterns, have made it one of the most widely known psyched...
 experience.

According to Brian Wilson himself, shortly after taking LSD, he ran up to a bedroom and hid under a pillow, shouting "I'm afraid of my mom, I'm afraid of my dad." Randomly, he got up, said "That's enough of that" and went to a piano.






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Encyclopedia


"California Girls" is a song
Song

A song is a musical musical composition which contains vocal parts that are performed, 'sung,' and feature words , commonly accompanied by musical instruments ....
 written by Brian Wilson
Brian Wilson

Brian Douglas Wilson is a Grammy Award-winning United States musician best known as a member of the American rock and roll band, the Beach Boys....
 and Mike Love
Mike Love

Michael Edward "Mike" Love is an United States singer/songwriter with The Beach Boys. He formed the band along with his cousins Brian Wilson, Carl Wilson, and Dennis Wilson, and their friend Al Jardine....
 and recorded by The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys

The Beach Boys are an American rock band. Formed in 1961, the group gained popularity for its close harmony and lyrics reflecting a California youth culture of cars and surfing....
 in 1965. It features contrasting verse-chorus form. The song was released as a single
Single (music)

In the record industry, a single is a song usually used from a current or upcoming album to promote the album. Singles are distributed through a number of ways; originally, they were packaged as "single" records with one or two other songs and sold before the release of the album....
, reaching #3 on the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100

The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard Single popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on airplay and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday; while the airplay tracking-week runs from Wednesday to Tuesday....
. It also appeared on the album Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!)
Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!)

Summer Days is the eighth studio album by The Beach Boys and their second overall in 1965. As a follow-up to The Beach Boys Today!, the successor certainly had its progressive moments, but it was also weighed down by its adherence to the tried and true "formula" of sun, summer and fun....
.

Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone is a United States-based magazine devoted to music, politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J....
 ranked it #71 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Recording

The music for the song came from Brian Wilson's first LSD
LSD

Lysergic acid diethylamide, LSD, LSD-25, or acid, is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family. Its unusual psychological effects, which include visuals of colored patterns behind the eyes in the mind, a sense of time distorting, and crawling geometric patterns, have made it one of the most widely known psyched...
 experience.

According to Brian Wilson himself, shortly after taking LSD, he ran up to a bedroom and hid under a pillow, shouting "I'm afraid of my mom, I'm afraid of my dad." Randomly, he got up, said "That's enough of that" and went to a piano. He started playing in the bass the B-F#-G# pattern over and over, and then added in the right hand after a few minutes a B chord, moving to an A chord. Within a half hour, he had come up with the "well east-coast girls are hip, I really dig the styles they wear" part of the song. The next day, he and Mike Love supposedly finished off the remainder of the song.

"California Girls" was the first Beach Boys recording to feature vocals from Bruce Johnston
Bruce Johnston

Bruce Arthur Johnston is a member of The Beach Boys and a Grammy Award-winning songwriter for composing "I Write the Songs." Johnston was not one of the original members of the band....
, who had joined the group to substitute for Brian Wilson on concert tours.

Musicians

  • Hal Blaine
    Hal Blaine

    Hal Blaine is an United States drummer and session musician. He is most known for his work with the The Wrecking Crew in California. Blaine played on numerous hits by popular groups, including Elvis Presley, Simon & Garfunkel, The Carpenters and the Beach Boys....
     - drums
    Drum kit

    A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and sometimes other percussion instruments, such as cowbell s, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single drummer....
  • Frank Capp
    Frank Capp

    Frank Capp is an American jazz drummer.Capp was born August 20 1931 in Worcester, Massachusetts. He played with Stan Kenton starting in 1951 for some time and later joined Neal Hefti's group....
     - vibraphone
    Vibraphone

    The vibraphone, sometimes called the vibraharp or simply the vibes, is a musical instrument in the mallet subfamily of the percussion instrument family....
  • Roy Caton - trumpet
    Trumpet

    The trumpet is a musical instrument with the highest Register in the brass instrument family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BC....
  • Jerry Cole - 12-string guitar
  • Al de Lory - organ
    Organ (music)

    The organ is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard played either Manual or Pedal clavier. The organ is one of the oldest musical instruments in the European classical music....
  • Steve Douglas
    Steve Douglas (saxophonist)

    Steven Douglas Kreisman , better known as Steve Douglas, was an American saxophonist, flautist and clarinetist. Douglas is best known as a Los Angeles session musician, a member of The Wrecking Crew , who worked with Phil Spector, Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys....
     - tenor saxophone
    Tenor saxophone

    The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor, with the Alto saxophone, is the most common size of saxophone....
  • Al Jardine
    Al Jardine

    Alan Charles "Al" Jardine is a founding member of top-selling American music group The Beach Boys, their occasional lead vocalist, and one of their guitarists....
     - vocals
    Singing

    Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the human voice, which is often contrasted with regular speech. A person who sings is called a singer or vocalist....
  • Bruce Johnston
    Bruce Johnston

    Bruce Arthur Johnston is a member of The Beach Boys and a Grammy Award-winning songwriter for composing "I Write the Songs." Johnston was not one of the original members of the band....
     - vocals
  • Carol Kaye
    Carol Kaye

    Carol Kaye is an United States musician, best known as one of the most prolific and widely heard bass guitarists in history, playing on an estimated 10,000 recording sessions....
     - bass guitar
    Bass guitar

    The electric bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a plectrum.The bass guitar is similar in appearance and construction to an electric guitar, but with a larger body, a longer neck and Scale length, and usually four strings tuned to the same pitches as those of the double bass, whic...
  • Mike Love
    Mike Love

    Michael Edward "Mike" Love is an United States singer/songwriter with The Beach Boys. He formed the band along with his cousins Brian Wilson, Carl Wilson, and Dennis Wilson, and their friend Al Jardine....
     - lead vocals
  • Jay Migliori
    Jay Migliori

    Jay Migliori was an American saxophonist, best known as a founding member of Supersax, a tribute band to Charlie Parker.Migliori started playing the saxophone after he received one as a birthday present at the age of twelve....
     - baritone saxophone
    Baritone saxophone

    The baritone saxophone, often called "bari sax" , is one of the larger and lower pitched members of the saxophone family. It was invented by Adolphe Sax....
  • Jack Nimitz
    Jack Nimitz

    Jack Nimitz is an American jazz baritone saxophonist.Nimitz first began playing on clarinet at age 12, and picked up alto sax at 14. He played in local bands in Washington D.C., and after specializing on baritone sax he found work in the territory bands of Willis Connover, Bob Astor, Johnny Bothwell, and Daryl Harpa....
     - bass saxophone
    Bass saxophone

    The bass saxophone is the second largest existing member of the saxophone family . It is similar in design to a baritone saxophone, but it is larger, with a longer loop near the mouthpiece....
  • Lyle Ritz - upright bass
  • Howard Roberts
    Howard Roberts

    Howard Roberts was an American jazz guitarist, educator and session musician....
     - guitar
  • Leon Russell
    Leon Russell

    Leon Russell is a singer, songwriter, pianist, and guitarist. Russell attended Will Rogers High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma.First known mostly as a session musician, Russell has played with artists as varied as Jerry Lee Lewis, Phil Spector, Joe Cocker, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Elton John, BB King, Freddie King, Eric Clapton, Bill Wyman...
     - piano
  • Billy Strange
    Billy Strange

    William E. Strange is an United States singer, songwriter, guitarist and actor.Billy Strange teamed up with Mac Davis to write several hit songs for Elvis Presley including A Little Less Conversation, the theme from Charro! and Memories ....
     - tambourine
    Tambourine

    The tambourine or Marine is a musical instrument of the Percussion instrument family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zils"....
  • Brian Wilson
    Brian Wilson

    Brian Douglas Wilson is a Grammy Award-winning United States musician best known as a member of the American rock and roll band, the Beach Boys....
     - vocals
  • Carl Wilson
    Carl Wilson

    Carl Dean Wilson was an United States rock and roll singer and guitarist, best known as a founding member, lead guitarist and sometime lead vocalist of The Beach Boys....
     - 12-string guitar, vocals
  • Dennis Wilson
    Dennis Wilson

    Dennis Carl Wilson was an United States rock and roll musician best known as a founding member and the drum kit of The Beach Boys. He was a member of the group from its formation until his death in 1983, though in keeping with recording studio practices of the time un credited session musicians would be used....
     - vocals


David Lee Roth cover


"California Girls" was covered
Cover version

In popular music, a cover version, or simply cover, is a new rendition of a previously recorded, commercially released song.In its current use, it can sometimes have a pejorative meaning — implying that the original recording should be regarded as the definitive version, usually in the sense of an "authentic" rendition, and all...
 by Van Halen
Van Halen

Van Halen is a hard rock band formed in in 1972. They enjoyed success from the release of their Van Halen in 1978. As of 2007 Van Halen has sold more than 80 million albums worldwide and have had the most number one hits on the Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart....
 lead singer David Lee Roth
David Lee Roth

David Lee Roth is an United States Rock and roll vocalist, songwriter, actor, author, and former radio personality, best known as the lead singer of Van Halen....
 on his 1985
1985 in music

Sorry, no overview for this topic
 EP
Extended play

An extended play is a vinyl record, Compact disc, or music download which contains more music than a Single , but is too short to qualify as an LP album....
 Crazy from the Heat (with background vocals contributed by Beach Boy Carl Wilson
Carl Wilson

Carl Dean Wilson was an United States rock and roll singer and guitarist, best known as a founding member, lead guitarist and sometime lead vocalist of The Beach Boys....
 along with Christopher Cross
Christopher Cross

Christopher Cross is an United States singer-songwriter from San Antonio, Texas, Texas. His debut album earned him all of the "Big Four" Grammy Awards in one year, a feat that is yet to be equalled....
), and like the original it topped at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Music video

The iconic music video
Music video

A music video is a short film or video that accompanies a complete piece of music, most commonly a pop music or rock music song with lyrics. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings....
 for the cover, directed by Pete Angelus and David Lee Roth, was released in February, 1985. Roth stars as a tour guide, showing tourists the beach and the obligatory swimsuit models. The scenes follow the lyrics with bikini
Bikini

File:Girl with red flowered bikini.jpgA bikini or two piece is a women's swimsuit with two parts, one covering the breasts , the other the groin , leaving an uncovered area between the two ....
-clad women from all regions of the United States. An often imitated scene has Roth dancing down a sidewalk bordered by models frozen in mannequin
Mannequin

A mannequin is an often articulated life-sized doll used by artists, tailors, dressmakers, and others especially to display or fit clothing. During the 1950s, mannequins were also used in nuclear tests to help illustrate the effects of nuclear weapons on human beings....
 poses. It was nominated for several 1985 MTV Video Music Awards
1985 MTV Video Music Awards

The 1985 MTV Video Music Awards aired live on September 13, 1985, honoring the best music videos from May 2, 1984 to May 1, 1985. The show was hosted by Eddie Murphy at the Radio City Music Hall in New York City....
.

See also

  • List of songs by The Beach Boys
    List of songs by The Beach Boys

    This list is an attempt to document every song released by The Beach Boys. It does not include songs released only separately by the individual members....