#10: Little Deuce Coupe by the Beach Boys

City: Hamilton, ON
Radio Station: CKOC
Peak Month: September 1963
Peak Position in Hamilton ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #15
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #15
YouTube: “Little Deuce Coupe”
Lyrics: “Little Deuce Coupe”

Brian Wilson was born in Inglewood, California, in 1942. In biographer Peter Ames Carlin’s book, Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, he relates that when Brian Wilson first heard George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” it had a huge emotional impact on him. As a youngster, Wilson learned to play a toy accordion and sang in children’s choirs. In his teens he started a group with his cousin, Mike Love and his brother, Carl. Mike was born in Los Angeles in 1941 and Carl was born in 1946 in Hawthorne, California. Brian Wilson named the group Carl and the Passions in order to convince his brother to join. They had a performance in the fall of 1960 at Hawthorne High School, where they attended. Their set included some songs by Dion and the Belmonts. Among the people in the audience was Al Jardine, another classmate. Jardine was born in Hawthorne in 1942. He was so impressed with the performance that he let the group know. Jardine would later be enlisted, along with Dennis Wilson to form the Pendletones in 1961. Dennis was born in Inglewood in 1944.

The first song Brian Wilson wrote would become “Surfer Girl.” A demo of the tune was made in February 1962 and would go on to be a Top Ten hit when it was released a year later in 1963. However, their first recording was a doo-wop-surf tune called “Surfin’” in October 1961. It was released in November ’61 on the Candix Enterprises Inc. label. The surprise for the group was that the record label had changed the group’s name from the Pendletones to the Beach Boys. Consequently, as each time the record was played by a DJ in America, radio listeners were being introduced to the Beach Boys. The name Pendletones was now history.

In 1962, neighbor David Marks joined the group for their first wave of hits with Capitol Records, leaving in late 1963. In 1965, Bruce Johnston joined the band when Brian Wilson retired from touring to focus on writing and producing for the group. The Beach Boys signed with Capitol Records in July 1962 and released their first album, Surfin’ Safari, later that year. The album spent 37 weeks on the Billboard album chart, launching the young group known for its shimmering vocal harmonies and relaxed California style into international stardom. The Wilson/Love collaboration resulted in many huge international chart hits. Under Brian Wilson’s musical leadership, the band’s initial surf-rock focus was soon broadened to include many other themes, helping make The Beach Boys one of America’s most successful bands of the 1960’s.

The Beach Boys charted 13 Top Ten hits into the Billboard Hot 100 in the ’60’s. This began with “Surfin’ USA” in 1963. The only American pop group in the 1960’s who had more songs chart into the Top Ten on the Billboard Hot 100 was The Supremes, who had 18 singles reach that threshold.

After “Surfing’ USA”, the Beach Boys released “Surfer Girl”. The B-side was “Little Deuce Coupe”.

“Little Deuce Coupe” was written by Brian Wilson and Christian. Born in Buffalo, New York, in 1934, Out of high school, Roger Christian was hired as a DJ in Rochester, New York, at WSAY. In the mid-50s he was working as a lifeguard and saved a radio executive’s wife from drowning. He subsequently got hired at a radio station in Buffalo. In 1958 he moved to San Bernardino, California, to work at KFXM. Later he worked at Los Angeles radio stations KFWB, KRLA, KBLA and others. Brian Wilson’s dad, Murray, was impressed with Christian as a DJ and a poet of the airwaves. He sent Brian Wilson to meet Roger Christian. The result was a number of songs Brian Wilson and Roger Christian penned. These include “Shut Down” and “Don’t Worry Baby”.

Roger Christian also wrote songs for Jan & Dean, including “Dead Man’s Curve”, “The Little Old Lady From Pasadena”, “Honolulu Lulu” and “Drag City”. At the age of 57, Christian died of complications from kidney and liver failure in 1991.

The car referred to in the song is the 1932 Ford Model 18 (deuce being for the year, ‘32).

There were a number of Ford Model 18 editions in 1932.

Ford Model 18 Standard Tudor 2-door sedan

1932 Ford V8 Model Standard Tudor Model 18 with optional color-keyed wheels,
white wall tires and side mounts.

AND

Clarence “Chili” Catallo owned a Ford Model 18. He bought the car in 1956 for $75 in Michigan when he was 15 years old. He chopped and channelled the car to lower the top by 6 inches then replaced the stock Ford flathead V8 (as related in the song) with a newer, more powerful OHV Oldsmobile Rocket V8. Much of the original customizing work, including the stacked headlights (from a later 1960 Chrysler 300H), side trim, and grille. Catallo moved to southern California and his car was featured in Hot Rod magazine in the early sixties. The photo appeared on the cover of the 1963 Beach Boys album Little Deuce Coupe.

The lyrics in “Little Deuce Coupe” brag:

Just a little deuce coupe with a flathead mill,
But she’ll walk a Thunderbird like she’s standing still.
She’s ported and relieved and she’s stroked and bored,
She’ll do a hundred and forty with the top end floored.

The lyrics refer to several terms related to customizing a car.

1) Mill: Milling the head refers to the process of removing a very thin layer of material from the side of the cylinder head that seals with the cylinder. This process slightly decreases the volume above the piston at TDC and increases the compression of the engine.

2) Ported: Cylinder head porting refers to the process of modifying the intake and exhaust ports of an internal combustion engine to improve the quality and quantity of the air flow. Cylinder heads, as manufactured, are usually suboptimal due to design and manufacturing constraints. Porting the heads provides the finely detailed attention required to bring the engine to the highest level of efficiency. More than any other single factor, the porting process is responsible for the high power output of modern engines.

3) Relieved: removing material from the top of the block between the valves and the cylinders.

4) Stroked: When you stroke an engine, you are increasing the distance the piston travels from TDC to BDC. In other words you need a crankshaft with an increased stroke.

5) Bored: Boring an engine is to machine the cylinders out to a larger size.

6) Top End: The top end is the maximum revolutions per minute (RPM) of an engine.

7) Floored: “Floored” is when the drive presses the accelerator pedal (gas pedal) to the floor of the car, providing the maximum level of fuel flow and therefore the maximum level of power.

Elsewhere in the song, the Beach Boys sing about “Four on the floor.” Four on the floor: This refers to a 4 speed transmission with the shifter on the floor (as opposed to the dash or the steering column). The ‘32 Ford coupe came stock with a 3 speed transmission, and the car the Beach Boys sang about was customized for a 4 speed transmission.

The lyrics elsewhere tell that the Little Deuce Coupe makes “the lake pipes roar.” Lake pipes are a type of aftermarket performance exhaust added by performance enthusiasts. The exhaust is routed from the exhaust manifold and routed along or beside the bottom of the car body beneath the doors. They were usually chrome plated. Usually they also offered a performance boost as they had less back pressure than conventional exhaust.

In the song, the driver of the Little Deuce Coupe has got a “pink slip.” This is not a reference to being given a pink slip, denoting being fired from your job. In “Little Deuce Coupe”, the name “pink slip” is a reference to California’s certificate of title before 1988, when they were pink. Many illegal street races of the 1950s, glorified in movies, featured racing for vehicle titles, henceforth the popularity of the term “racing for pink slips.” When the pink slip is mentioned here, it is a challenge to anyone who wants to race the Little Deuce Coupe.

As well, the Beach Boys sing, “and coming off the line when the light turns green.” What does this mean? In drag racing, the “line” is the starting line where the competing car lines up. The “Christmas Tree” at a drag strip counts down from red to yellow to a green light for a start signal.

In the 40’s and 50’s, the ‘32 Ford became an ideal hot rod. Rodders would strip weight off this readily available car and hop up the engine. They came in two body styles, the more common 5-window and rarer suicide door 3-window.

In “Little Deuce Coupe”, the band sings about what happens to the driver once the drag race starts: “I get pushed out of shape and its hard to steer, when I get rubber in all four gears.” They are describing jumping off the line at the start of a drag race, being pressed against the driver’s seat by the increased G force. During rapid acceleration it becomes difficult to even raise your hands to the steering wheel. Simply keeping the car driving in a straight line is a physical challenge. “Getting rubber” means “burning” or “peeling out” the tires which produces a squealing noise and smoke. Pre-race it essential to burn out your tires a bit, softening the outermost layer of rubber and increasing traction for the ride, though burnout should be minimized on take off so no time is wasted. “All four gears” is a brag on the torque produced at his axle. Any car can “get rubber” from a standstill, but to bark the tires at 70+ MPH when you dump the clutch into 4th gear takes a truly powerful engine. That’s what the Little Deuce Coupe possesses.

No wonder the Little Deuce Coupe is faster than a Ford Thunderbird, despite that car being a favorite of many drivers at a drag race.

Ford began producing the Thunderbird, a 2-seat convertible, in 1955.

Though not sold as a sports car, many drivers liked to enter their Ford Thunderbird in drag races.
A 1961 Ford Thunderbird was the Indianapolis 500 pace car.

In the song, the Beach Boys sing that when people see the Little Deuce Coupe, it is enough to make them ‘flipping their lid.’ ‘Flip your lid’ is an American idiom from the 1940s, meaning to react with strong emotion (anger, surprise), similar to a lid being pushed off a boiling pot. A common cartoon image shows the hat popping off of surprised or angry people.

Brian Wilson commented on the song in the liner notes of the 1990 CD re-release of the original Surfer Girl album: “We loved doing ‘Little Deuce Coupe’. It was a good ‘shuffle’ rhythm, which was not like most of the rhythms of the records on the radio in those days. It had a bouncy feel to it. Like most of our records, it had a competitive lyric. This record was my favorite Beach Boys car song.”

According to author Jon Stebbins in his book The Lost Beach Boy, while the group was on tour in July 1963 Mike Love hit on the idea to use short instrumental segments of the song in the Beach Boys’ live set as a way to introduce the bandmates to the audience, starting with Dennis Wilson on drums, then adding David Marks (and later Al Jardine) on rhythm guitar, Carl Wilson on lead guitar, and finally Brian on the bass, before launching the song from the top.

“Little Deuce Coupe” peaked at #1 in Hamilton (ON), Denver, San Bernardino (CA), El Cajon (CA), Seattle, Cincinnati (OH), Louisville (KY), Boston, Springfield (MA), San Jose (CA), San Francisco, Bakersfield (CA), Monterey (CA), Johnstown (PA), and Pittsburgh, #2 in St. Louis, Washington DC, Phoenix, Davenport (IA), Dayton (OH), Los Angeles, Toronto, Buffalo, Fresno (CA), Indianapolis (IN), and Erie (PA), #3 in Miami, Hartford (CT), Omaha (NE), and Sacramento (CA), #4 in Milwaukee, Columbus (OH), Casper (WY), Montreal, and Philadelphia, #5 in Fort Worth (TX), Wilmington (DL), Newport News (VA), and Winnipeg (MB), #6 in Detroit, #7 in San Antonio (TX), Chicago, and Akron (OH), #8 in Reading (PA), #9 in Endicott (NY), Tupelo (MS), and Peterborough (ON), and #10 in Tampa (FL) and El Paso (TX).

Late in 1963, the Beach Boys released “In My Room”. It was the B-side to “Be True To Your School”.

In 1964 the Beach Boys hits included “She Knows Me Too Well”, “Wendy”, “Fun, Fun, Fun”, “Dance, Dance, Dance”,  “Little Honda“, “Don’t Worry Baby” and “I Get Around” – a double-sided #3 hit in Vancouver (BC). In 1965 the Beach Boys had hits with “Help Me Rhonda”, “The Warmth Of The Sun“, “California Girls” and “The Little Girl I Once Knew“.

Other hits by the Beach Boys in 1966 were “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” (#1), “Good Vibrations” (#1) . The B-side to “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”, “God Only Knows,” peaked at #5 on CFUN. The Beach Boys were at the top of their popularity into the mid-60’s. They released their hit album, Pet Sounds, in May 1966, with  the hits “God Only Knows,” “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” and “Sloop John B” all doing well on the pop charts, especially in Vancouver. It was their ninth of ten successive albums that made the Top Ten in the Billboard 200 Album charts. 1966 was also the year The Beach Boys had their #1 hit, “Good Vibrations,” which was their third #1 hit in three years. Among their few Top 20 hits in the late 1960s was a single titled “Do It Again”.

Among their notable hits in the 1970s were “Rock And Roll Music” and in 1979 “Good Timin’“. Another single, “Sail On Sailor”, climbed to #12 on CKLG in May 1975. After “Good Timin'”, the Beach Boys had several more Top 20 hits. The first was titled “The Beach Boys Medley” which was a #12 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 in the fall of 1981. The medley included a mix of the Beach Boys hit singles “Good Vibrations”, “Help Me Rhonda”, “I Get Around”, “Shut Down”, “Surfin’ Safari”, “Barbara Ann”, “Surfin’ U.S.A” and “Fun, Fun, Fun”. In January 1982 the Beach Boys had their cover of the 1957 Del-Vikings hit “Come Go With Me” climb to #18 on the Hot 100.

Tragedy struck when Dennis Wilson, plagued with alcohol and drug addiction, drowned after he came out of rehab in December 1983. He was 39 years old. In 1986 the Beach Boys covered the Mamas & the Papas 1966 hit “California Dreamin’“, taking it to #9 in Vancouver (BC). On September 12, 1986, the Beach Boys gave a concert at the World Expo in Vancouver. Bookending this concert, the Beach Boys appeared in concert on August 21, 1985, and again on August 23, 1987, at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver. In 1988, “Kokomo”, a song penned by John Philips (formerly of The Mamas & the Papas), Scott McKenzie (who had a #1 hit in Vancouver (BC) in June 1967 titled “San Francisco”), and the Beach Boys Mike Love, climbed to number one on the Billboard Hot 100. The Beach Boys achievement ended a 22-year drought in the number one spot for the group.

The Beach Boys have had four singles – “Good Vibrations”, “California Girls”, “In My Room” and “I Get Around” – and one album, Pet Sounds, inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame between 1994 and 2017. On August 2, 1993, the Beach Boys appeared in concert in the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby at Deer Lake Park. In 1997, Carl Wilson was diagnosed with lung and brain cancer. While on tour, and receiving chemotherapy, he sat on a stool while performing the Beach Boys hits. Carl Wilson died at the age of 51 in February 1998.

In 2016 Mike Love published Good Vibrations: My Life As A Beach Boy, while Brian Wilson published his memoir, I Am Brian Wilson. 

August 2, 2024
Ray McGinnis

References:
The Beach Boys – About, The Beach Boys.com
Jeff Slate, How Brian Wilson Found Inspiration in the Artists Working Beside Him, Esquire, New York, October 11, 2016
Tony Asher Interview, Surfer Moon.com April 4, 1996
Wilson, Brian with Greenman, Ben. I Am Brian Wilson: A Memoir. DeCapo Press. Boson, MA, 2016
Lambert, Philip. Inside the Music of Brian Wilson: The Songs, Sounds, and Influences of the Beach Boys’ Founding Genius. Continuum International Publishing, New York, 2007.
The Beach Boys Concert Dates, The Beach Boys.com.
Cathy Nelson Price, “Second-generation Beach Boy Christian Love Shares the Stage with Dad Mike,” Midland Daily News, Midland, Michigan, July 30, 2010.
“Roger Christian: Disc Jockey, Songwriter,” Los Angeles Times, July 18, 1991.
“Beach Boys concerts Canada,” Setlist.fm.

CKOC 1150-AM Hamilton (ON) Top Ten | September 27, 1963