‘Fun, Fun, Fun’
Beach Boys team up with the Royal Philharmonic
LONDON—Summer is coming and the season in Britain is being marked by a return to the airwaves of the Beach Boys’ “Fun, Fun, Fun” with a new version featuring the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
The raucous teenage classic has been reborn with a classical twist, one of 16 Beach Boys tunes given a new lease on life on a CD recorded at Abbey Road, a London landmark forever associated with another great ’ 60s band, the Beatles.
Beach Boys singer Mike Love seems somewhat mystified by the continuing appeal of tunes he helped pen with cousin and fellow Beach Boy Brian Wilson more than five decades ago.
“They’re playing ‘Fun, Fun, Fun’ on the radio these days, which is great,” says Love, who was in Britain for days of live performances. “Brian and I wrote that years and years ago. I said, Brian, ‘ we ought to do a song about a girl who borrows her dad’s car and goes cruising (in) it rather than to the library.’”
The slightly preposterous song (romance develops after the girl’s father takes her Thunderbird away) had a first life as a hit, a second spell as a nostalgic encore at hundreds of Beach Boys concerts, and now a third incarnation that combines the band’s early sound with a premier orchestra.
“They’ve done a great job of honoring the original vocal performances and complementing them with the orchestrations,” said Love. The album, released last week, is already the Beach Boys highest charting album in Britain in 28 years.
Watch: https://youtu.be/-iKrF5AlI4s