"Beach Baby" is a song by the British band

The First Class The First Class were a British pop music studio-based group, put together by songwriter and record producer John Carter. They are best known for their hit song "Beach Baby," a top 20 hit in both the US and UK. Career The First Class was the ...

. Written by John Carter and his wife, Gillian (Jill) Shakespeare, the song became the band's only substantial hit. The subject of the lyrics is not holiday love, but a broken love relationship between two high school students in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...

in the 1950s.

Background

Carter and Shakespeare wrote "Beach Baby" in their home in

East Sheen East Sheen, also known as Sheen, is a suburb in south-west London in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Its long high street has shops, offices, restaurants, cafés, pubs and suburban supermarkets and is also the economic hub for Mortl ...

, South West London. Shortly afterward, Carter hired lead singer

Tony Burrows Anthony Burrows (born 14 April 1942) is an English pop singer and recording artist. As a prolific session musician, Burrows was involved in the production of numerous transatlantic hit singles throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, most of wh ...

and session singer Chas Mills to record it under the band name The First Class. Burrows attempts to sing the tune in an

American accent North American English regional phonology is the study of variations in the pronunciation of spoken North American English (English of the United States and Canada)—what are commonly known simply as "regional accents". Though studies of regional ...

, reflecting the song's

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

setting. Toward the end of the song are two instrumental quotations, both on the

French horn The French horn (since the 1930s known simply as the horn in professional music circles) is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B (technically a variety of German horn) is the horn most ...

: the main theme from the last movement of

Sibelius Jean Sibelius ( ; ; born Johan Julius Christian Sibelius; 8 December 186520 September 1957) was a Finnish composer of the late Romantic and early-modern periods. He is widely regarded as his country's greatest composer, and his music is often ...

's Fifth Symphony, and the tune of the title line from one of Carter's previous compositions, "

Let's Go to San Francisco "Let's Go to San Francisco" is the only UK-charting single by the British pop group The Flower Pot Men. The song was written and produced by John Carter and Ken Lewis, engineered by John Mackswith and released in 1967 on 7" single format. Cart ...

", a 1967 hit for The Flower Pot Men. The estate of Jean Sibelius filed a lawsuit against the song's writers, for infringing on the copyright of the Sibelius piece. The case was settled out of court, with the Sibelius estate receiving half of the song's proceeds. Because the running time was over five minutes, several AM radio stations edited "Beach Baby" by fading it out during the second instrumental bridge. The fade outs took on some importance, helping to avoid further legal implications. In the 31 August 1974 edition of ''

American Top 40 ''American Top 40'' (previously abbreviated to ''AT40'') is an internationally syndicated, independent song countdown radio program created by Casey Kasem, Don Bustany, Tom Rounds, and Ron Jacobs. The program is currently hosted by Ryan Sea ...

'',

Casey Kasem Kemal Amin "Casey" Kasem (April 27, 1932 – June 15, 2014) was an American disc jockey, actor, and radio personality, who created and hosted several radio countdown programs, notably ''American Top 40''. He was the first actor to voice No ...

claimed: The 21 September 1974 edition of the program added the detail that the song was recorded in London on 24 December 1973. An engineer who was involved in the recording session recalls: "The recording was made in February 1974 at Lansdowne Studios, Holland Park, London. Tony Burrows was singing, John Carter producing and & Paul Holland engineering. At the time, I was a house assistant engineer & remember being very impressed with the high level of professionalism and ability of the visiting engineer Paul Holland, who I had never met before. I don't believe that he sat down at any time during the session ! - If my memory serves me right, the recording was completed in one evening session." Although the band went on to release two studio albums and a multitude of singles, they were unable to recreate the success of "Beach Baby".

Legacy

In the

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Freaky Trigger ''Freaky Trigger'' is an Internet publication and e-zine that focuses on popular culture with topics varying from music to cinema. It was founded by the music critic Tom Ewing in 1999 and features Pete Baran and Mark Sinker as editors. From 2000 ...

'', Robin Carmody wrote that the song marked the end of the original wave of British

bubblegum pop Bubblegum (also called bubblegum pop) is pop music in a catchy and upbeat style that is considered disposable, contrived, or marketed for children and adolescents. The term also refers to a rock and pop subgenre, originating in the United States ...

, indicating the transition into a period of

pastiche A pastiche is a work of visual art, literature, theatre, music, or architecture that imitates the style or character of the work of one or more other artists. Unlike parody, pastiche pays homage to the work it imitates, rather than mocking i ...

"and paying tribute to the American pop of a decade or so before, rather than being gloriously unselfconscious and picking up on what was hot at that moment, always a sign that a genre has reached the end of line." He deemed it a "fantastically-produced slice of Californian fantasypop – orchestra, brass, lavish vocal harmonies, already a tribute song to a vanished era at the time." Further including it in a list of the genre's classics, he described it as "Britgum's dying fall: put the fade on repeat play and hear pop, for the first time, become pure period pastiche.

Chart performance

In 1974, the song peaked at #13 in the UK, #4 in the US, and #1 in Canada.

Weekly singles charts

Year-end charts

Covers

*It was subsequently recorded in French by

Sacha Distel Alexandre "Sacha" Distel (29 January 1933 – 22 July 2004) was a French singer, guitarist, songwriter and actor who had hits with a cover version of "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" in 1970, which reached No 10 in the UK Charts, " Scoubidou" ...

under the title "Vite, Chérie, Vite".

References

External links

* {{authority control 1974 songs 1974 debut singles British power pop songs Songs about Los Angeles Songs about nostalgia Songs about teenagers Songs written by John Carter (musician) RPM Top Singles number-one singles Tony Burrows songs UK Records singles Bubblegum pop songs Popular songs based on classical music