409 by The Beach Boys

409

1962

The Beach Boys

I'm sitting here, looking at the calendar, and realizing two things. 1) we're well into the 'wind-down' phase of the Summer of 2014, and 2) I haven't mentioned a certain little group from SoCal known as 'The Beach Boys'.

I covered their first three Top 20 hits...all surfing songs...last summer, so I'll touch on yet another category of tunes they were known for in this sextet of classics...car songs. Now, all three of the Beach Boys first Top 20 hits were surfing songs, and all three had an interesting trait in common. The 'B' sides of all three were car songs...and the first of those 'B' side car tunes was actually supposed to be their first single, and therefore, was supposed to be the 'A' side. But it didn't work out that way.

409 was the Beach Boys first single that, well, wasn't their first single. It was on the demo tape that got farmed around to various labels (Dot and Liberty Records earned the dubious title of 'The Labels That Turned Down The Beach Boys') and Capitol heard it, liked it, and summarily signed them to a seven year contract. And when I say that the suits in charge at Capitol Records heard and liked '409', I mean that they they wanted it to be the first single, with a little tune called Surfin' Safari as the B-side.

And that's how it was originally released...technically, 409 actually was The Beach Boys first single. Of course, when D.J.s heard the two tunes they fell head over heels for 'Surfin' Safari', flipped the record, and played the 'B' side instead, and Surfin Safari actually became the Beach Boys' first single...and first hit. (And created a rare relic worth several pockets full of change while they were at it. Surfin Safari became the single's 'A' side, and that's how the great majority of the singles were pressed. Very few singles with 409 listed as the 'A' side were pressed, and if you have one in good shape, hang on to it for dear life. It could be worth a few Benjamins, it could!)

Because of this '409' actually wasn't a huge hit for them...While it cracked the Billboard Hot 100, it only made it to #76 and only stayed there for a single week. This happened in October of 1962, and most songs that stay on the upper end of the Hot 100 sort of fade into obscurity by the time 52 years have passed, but '409' seemed to have struck a happy-nerve with a lot of people who were teens a half century and change back. The then and still legitimately awesome ride the song was written as a tribute to may have something to do with that.

That ride would be the 1961 Chevy Bel Aire Sports Coupe with a massive 409 cubic inch V-8 residing under the hood. This was in the days of sub-40 cents-per-gallon gas, so the fact that you could all but watch the needle on the gas gauge move towards that big 'E' when you mashed the 'Go' pedal was of little concern. The car was meant to be fast, and indeed, was, with timed quarter mile runs of 12.22 seconds at 115 MPH. Thats stock, BTW. That particular mill churned out 360 HP in it's stock version. Let a hot rodder skilled in the fine art of engine tuning play around with it, and it could flirt with a HP per cubic inch or better.

Supposedly. Brian Wilson and good friend and talented music scribe Gary Usher were cruising around looking for a part for Usher's ride (Depending on the version of the story you hear, it was either one of the titular 409s, or a '58 Chevy with a 348 under the hood). The two of them started talking about writing a car song, and the aforementioned already legendary Chevy engine came up as the subject of said song (It was during this convo that the 'Giddy-yup Giggy-yup 409' chorus was created).

The engine sound at the beginning of and throughout the song was also finalized during this rolling discussion. Thing is, when they went to record the engine sound, they didn't have a 409...instead they used Usher's 348, with open headers. (A fact that leads me to lean very strongly towards a Chevy with a 348 as the site of the aforementioned discussion). Brian had a Wollensack reel-to-reel tape recorder, and they slipped the mike beneath the car as it sat in the Wilson's driveway, fired her up, and recorded the sweet sound of open headers.

Supposedly, this occurred at the deeply Oh-Dark-Hundred hour of 3AM. The neighbors were not amused, nor did they care that a legend was in the process of being created. That being the case, the cops got involved in the song-writing process, sort of. The engine sounds were gotten in a single take.

'409' may have only made it to 76 on the Hot 100, and may have been demoted to 'B' side of The Beach Boys' first single, but it's still managed to hang on in the hearts and minds of the masses. Listen to any Oldies station for a week or so, and I can just about guarantee you you'll hear it.

Hey, It's The Beach Boys...their songs'll still be around after all of us are long gone!

So enjoy!! '409' by The Beach Boys!


And as a bonus...Back in '96., legitimately awesome Country crooner Junior Brown covered '409 , playing his unique Guit-Steel guitar, with The Beach Boys holding down both Harmony and Backing Vocal duties. Sounded awesome! (And was included on The Beach Boys '96 album,  'Stars and Stripes Vol 1')