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Posted on 02/04/2026 1:30:42 PM PST by nickcarraway
The Beach Boys ‘Fun, Fun, Fun’ is one of their best-loved numbers, and a highlight of their live shows since it was released.
The Beach Boys’ “Fun, Fun, Fun” is one of their best-loved numbers, and a highlight of their live shows for the past 50 years. Released on February 3, 1964, it entered the Billboard Hot 100 on February 15 at No.69 and on the week of March 21, it climbed to No.5 on the charts. It was kept from climbing any higher by three Beatles singles, “She Loves You,” “I Want To Hold Your Hand,” and “Please Please Me,” with the Four Seasons, “Dawn (Go Away)” holding down the fourth spot. Perhaps most surprising of all, given its popularity, is that “Fun Fun Fun” never made the UK chart.
It’s a great example of the way things were done back in the 60s. The Beach Boys recorded “Fun, Fun, Fun” only six weeks earlier on New Year’s Day 1964. Beginning at shortly after mid-day at Western Recorders in Hollywood, the Beach Boys were all there, along with drummer Hal Blaine, saxophonists, Steve Douglas, Ed Migliori, and bass player Ray Pohlman. As Brian Wilson would later tell Newsweek magazine, “I could go into the studio and cut a record in three hours. I’d say, ‘Hey we’ll make the best record ever tonight.’ I had that kind of spirit – and goddamn if it didn’t work!”
This was the start of The Beach Boys recording their new album, Shut Down Vol.2 and “Fun Fun Fun” was first attempted by the group working on a slower version of the song. Mike Love’s lead vocals were added to the backing track, followed by percussion and guitar parts inserted. There then followed 19 takes of recording the backing vocals that completed work on what is for many a masterpiece of the California sound.
What is it that makes the song work so well? Well, there’s the driving beat and the underpinning of everything by the fabulous bass line and the honking saxes of Douglas and Migliori giving it a fuller sound than many other records at the time. The song is written by Mike Love and Brian Wilson, Love the lyricist, Wilson the music. It is Mike’s brilliant evocation of what people around the world imagined to be the American dream– or the California dream of living in the Sunshine State. To round it all off, there are the great harmony vocals.
Both the stereo and mono versions were done at the New Year’s Day session; the difference between the two is that the stereo mix fades out early, with the instruments fading away before the vocals. The mono mix, on the single release as well as mono copies of Shut Down Vol. 2 features an extended outro.
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The Beach Boys were “peak California.” The 3 Wilson brothers are now all dead, with the legendary Brian passing last year. RIP. Kind of metaphor for the state.
My Ohio born and raised husband reminisces about when he moved to Los Angeles and went to Venice Beach ... and was blown away looking at the girls in bikinis and the surfer guys. It was the Beach Boys songs in living color ...
They were my all time favorite group as surfer Rick is my favorite genre especially instrumentals only. That stuff was even before my time since I was born in the late 60’s. The dragstrip scene would have been my favorite hangout. “409”, “Little Duece Coupe”, and hat tip to Jan & Dean as well.
Rock not Rick
God Only Knows...
https://youtu.be/M0lj3WX_5ps?si=cq9aZR_B-EKBTfOU
Rest in peace Brian Wilson, thank you for so many beautiful songs.
Most Americans cannot recall or will ever experience the joy that was California in 1964. Its gone and won’t be seen again. All you’ll find in California today are drugs, hedonism, decadence and white guilt.
Great song! I don’t hear any saxophone though.
I moved to California ten years after Fun, Fun, Fun and all those Beach Boys songs probably had something to do with it.
Seriously.
Consider.. November 1966... Ronald Reagan is elected Governor of California. And the Beach Boys top the charts worldwide with “Good Vibrations.” The WAS the zenith of the state.
It really was ‘Fun Fun Fun’ ‘til my Daddy took my license away the summer I was 16, LOL!
I deserved it. Late for curfew - AGAIN!
(Why Must I Be)...’A Teenager In Love?’ ;) (Dion & The Belmonts)
I lived in southern CA from 1980-’82. Drought. Water Rationing. Crime. (Saw a guy get stabbed in the street from my kitchen window!) Next stop from where I lived was Tijuana, Mexico!
Yeah - it kinda sucked but I had an apartment ON THE BEACH and a nice swimming pool in the complex. My life at 20 was the envy of many Wisconsinites back home. And, ya know...I was TWENTY and bulletproof. ;)
back when Cali was white...
“Most Americans cannot recall or will ever experience the joy that was California in 1964.”
Never having been there, I still got the feeling there was a legit California Dream at least ‘til the middle 1980’s. Sure the music changed and the state was getting over-run by illegals and just large population increases overall.
But the few people I’ve spoken to who lived there in the 1960’s, 1970’s and part of the 1980’s loved it. Not everyone went to the beach or lived in Brentwood - but it seemed like just a different vibe.
We were in an apartment complex in Palos Verdes at the top of a cliff on the ocean for a year in 1969. Across the flower farm was Marineland and you’d go to sleep hearing Talk to the Animals. Driving to the grocery was a great driving challenge, as long as you ignored the upside down cars on the side of the highway. What a magnificent year. Playing music in a convertible at top volume and racing along the mountain roads. How we lived thru that year I have no idea. Glad we were there. Glad we left.
“Sugar, Sugar” - The Archies
“Honky Tonk Women” - The Rolling Stones
“Everyday People” - Sly & The Family Stone
“Hot Fun in the Summertime” - Sly & The Family Stone
“I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” - Tom Jones
“Crimson and Clover” - Tommy James & The Shondell
“Get Back” - The Beatles with Billy Preston
“In the Year 2525” - Zager & Evans
“Proud Mary” - Creedence Clearwater Revival
“Suspicious Minds” - Elvis Presley
“Come Together” - The Beatles
And we’ll have fun with our guns until the lifeguard takes our ammo away
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-ALnM-R5C8
Check out the KHJ Boss Radio airchecks on the web, they will take you back in time.
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