Saturday 9: Fun, Fun, Fun

Saturday 9: Fun, Fun, Fun (1964)

On Saturdays I take a break from the heavy stuff and have some fun…

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

1) This song is about a girl who borrows her father's Ford Thunderbird. When is the last time you drove someone else's car?

I can’t remember. Last July someone drove my car. There is a summer party up in Vermont and I drove up but a friend drove my car home.

2) The teen in question is well known for ability to drive "like an ace." If we were to ask your high school classmates what they remember most about you, what do you think they'd say?

Science Club… we weren’t just a bunch of nerds, we did so many pranks. 

3) She told her father she needed the car to go to the library but used it instead to meet friends. Can you recall a time your parents caught you in a fib? 

When I didn’t want to mow the lawn and I oiled the belt.

4) For this girl and her friends, fun centered on cars and fast food. What did you and your friends do for fun during your teen years?

All the gearheads hung out at McDonald’s, we would disappear foe a race on a back road and then head back to McDonald’s.

A bouncer, Joe would come around and say… “Order or leave!”

Many year latter I was the head of an electronic test department, the guy who worked in the equipment cage look familiar but I couldn’t place him.

He saw me looking so one time as he walked by my desk and said “Order or leave!” JOE!!!!!

Sadly, shortly after he retired he has a massive a brain aneurysm and died in mid sentence.

5) Legend has it songwriters Brian Wilson and Mike Love got the idea for this song from a Salt Lake City disc jockey. He told them he'd lent his T-bird to his daughter so she could go to class at the community college but discovered her deception when the car was ticketed in front of a fast food restaurant. Can you think of another song inspired by true events?

Four dead in Ohio!

I heard that song a lot after the two protesters were murdered in Minneapolis.

6) As in the song, the disc jockey punished his daughter by taking her driving privileges away. Were your parents strict when you were growing up?

Not really… there was a lot of rebellion there on my part in my teenage years. One thing that I still rebel at being on time. If the invite said at 7PM… we would be there at 7PM. Not 6:59. Not 7:01PM but at 7PM. Maybe it had something to do with being a Lt. Col. 

7) This song was recorded on January 1, 1964. The Beach Boys had to work on the holiday because they were under pressure to meet a February release date. How did you spend New Year's Day 2026?

Sleeping and reading… I think I stayed up late on New Year’s Eve. I think that I made it up to 9PM.

8) 1964 was a great year for Capitol Records. They had chart-topping hits by the Beach Boys, Barbra Streisand and, most spectacularly, The Beatles. The Capitol Records Building in Los Angeles is considered iconic and it's a stop on tourist bus tours. Have you ever been to Southern California? If yes, what did you do?

Nope, only as far south as San Francisco. I learned a valuable lesson though. Drive up the coast on Rt. 1 not down the coast. Why? Because going down the coast you are on the outside on the way down the coast and some of those places had no guardrails, We joked that they only put up guardrails where they found a car at the bottom of the cliff… “Yup, I guess we need some here!”

 

9) Random question: What's the last compliment you received?

For a summer “Embroidered Top Flowy Floral Shirts Loose Dressy Casual Blouses “ I just bought a couple of weeks ago. But then it got cold again.