What was the first song you heard from the Beach Boys? (the first you remember!)

[GoofyJeff]

I'm sure I've recounted this story before, but here we go again.

Summer 1986. My parents take me and my brother to see the Disney movie "Flight of the Navigator" as part of my birthday gift. There's a scene where the kid is flying around in the spaceship and scanning the radio before landing on "I Get Around". I was hooked!  The next day I took some of my birthday money and bought "Endless Summer" on cassette. The rest, as they say, is history.

[MaxL]

The Wipeout rap From my brother's record collection when I was young (sometime between the ages of 6 and 9, probably), even as such a youngster I didn't really care for rap and never thought anything more of it.

I know people tend to look through rose-tinted specs at these kinds of things so permit me to do so:

Fast forward about 10 years and I hear WIBN on "50 First Dates", leave to stew for another year or two then, on a sunny summer's afternoon no less, I decide to listen to WIBN and some of their other tunes - like many people here at that point I realised I'd been a fan of the BB's longer than I knew - "Fun x3", "I Get Around" and "Kokomo" had all been lingering in my memory for awhile and I never put 2 and 2 together. All this while I was downstairs listening to Bob Dylan's Biograph on my mum and dad's hi-fi while they were out. Later on my friends came over and we went and played outside. Bliss.

[Newguy562]

the time i realized i was a hardcore bb fan when i actually bought wild honey and said f*** it it's different but i can give it a few listens and it might just sink in lol

[Nicole]

I think I heard Kokomo and Barbara Ann when I was really young, but the first song I remember hearing that made a big impact was God Only Knows. I was six and the Pet Sounds Sessions had just been released; my stepdad was (is) a huge fan, so of course he went out and bought it and started playing it religiously. One day he brought out the CD player and was like, "Hey, listen to this," and he played God Only Knows, and then right after that he played the backing track, and I thought he had performed some sort of wizardry to take the words out.

I remember it so vivdly, too...I sat on the kitchen counter listening to it and I asked him what it meant when he said, "I may not always love you," and then I got a long explanation of what the song meant. Good memories!

[Quzi]

Born in 85, heard the standard stuff as a youngun - "Fun Fun Fun", "Kokomo", "Surfin' USA", "Little Deuce Coupe", wasn't particularly into any of them or found them annoying. I will say I remember "Santa's Beard" being on one of my mom's endless True Value Christmas cassettes when I was about 3 and really enjoying it, although it'd be about 20 more years later until I'd realize it was the Beach Boys.

In 2008, I'd heard about the Beach Boys endlessly and, thinking back to the previously named songs, was baffled when folks would go on about the "genius" of the Beach Boys. I saw an interview with Rivers Cuomo of Weezer praising "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times", gave it a shot, and after repeated listens I really liked it. At *the fucking world's* recommendation, I followed up by listening to the rest of Pet Sounds, because that's the best place to start always no exceptions it's the best album ever it will hook you immediately. Wasn't much into it sans "Wouldn't It Be Nice?" (which I knew I heard before, too), "God Only Knows" (which I'd strangely never heard before), and "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times".

After this, I downloaded a few Smile bootlegs and got really into it from there. "Heroes And Villains" in particular was the first of those batch of songs that stood out to me and I found would not get out of my head not matter how hard I tried. Also should note here that I'm fairly certain I never heard "Good Vibrations" before 2008, either. From there, Smiley Smile (which I loved and took to immediately), a few other stray songs that I read about that sounded interesting, bought Pet Sounds and after repeated listens loved it, too, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

I still find the love Rivers gave The Beach Boys in '02 insanely strange. I just can't picture the Fred Durst loving, Only In Dreams bashing, Maladroit creating Cuomo praising IJWMFTT. It'd be more in sync with his erratic and regressive behaviour for him to say that his favourite song was 'Barbara Ann' or 'Kokomo' or something along those lines.

~moving on~

I was born in '94 with both of my parents just falling outside of the era which got to experience The Beach Boys in their glory days and as such, I wasn't exposed to them very much in my youth. I recall singing Surfin' Safari and a Beach Boys arrangement of Do You Wanna Dance? in my choir when I was around six or seven. I enjoyed the songs, but didn't give a lot of thought to the people behind the music.

I became a pretty big Weezer fan in 2010 and grew to love band dramas, 'what if' scenarios and shy, awkward rock stars venting their frustrations through stellar melodies. I guess you could say it was pretty easy for me to become a Beach Boys fan!

[37!ws]

OMG, I love telling this story...

I was born in the mid-70s. My dad used to play the hell out of Glen Campbell's I Remember Hank Williams album; heck, he'd probably STILL play the hell out of it if my parents' old console record player weren't being used to prop up one of my mother's decorative statues...anyway...it had the orange Capitol label with the gold text on the bottom. I remember it well.

Sometimes when my parents and brother weren't home I'd be dropped off at the neighbor's house to be baby-sat while her husband was working and her kids were in school. I remember once when I was over there, I was maybe three years old, she pulled out a record, and I saw the orange Capitol label. Now....being a three-year-old, I didn't know that different records could have the same label design, so I thought, "Oh, wow, Mrs. Merillat has dad's Glen Campbell record!" So she put it on the turntable, and instead of hearing the smooth sound of Glen Campbell's voice singing "I Could Never Be Ashamed Of You," I heard...

"Round, round, geeeeit around...."

And I absolutely HATED IT. The sound of that whiny voice got on my little nerves. And in fact, to this day I absolutely cannot stand "I Get Around." (It's been said -- possibly by someone on this board -- that every BB/BW fan has a song that s/he hates that everybody else loves. My wife's is "Marcella." Mine is "I Get Around.")

So how did I become a fan? Well, over the years, I heard other radio-friendly Beach Boys stuff that grew on me, especially because I always loved vocal harmony. Once before I became a fan I heard "We Three Kings" on the oldies station and it blew my mind....but anyway, in 1986, I overdosed on Monkees. After that overdose I decided it was time to move on, so I tried The Beatles in 1987 (partly as an attempt to drive my brother insane -- MTV was constantly showing the cartoon "Twist And Shout" clip, driving my brother to the brink of blowing his head off, so of course I made it a point to get a Beatles album that had "Twist And Shout" from the library) and got hooked (and, sorry to upset you all, but to this day the Beatles are my favorite....by far). So after OD'ing on Beatles for a couple of years, I decided it was once again time to expand my horizons...I figured heck, I never turn off the Beach Boys when I hear 'em on the radio (except for "I Get Around"), so why not? I went to the library, got a few Beach Boys albums, dropped the needle on Best of the Beach Boys Vol. 2 and was instantly blown off the face of the earth by the opening harmonies of "Don't Worry, Baby."

[Waspinators]

The first two CDs I ever heard at 3 years old (besides the best of Barney  ) were Still' Cruisin' and Made In U.S.A. I have vague memories of shaking my skinny toddler ass to Surfin' Safari in my living room, listening to Somewhere Near Japan and Make It Big on repeat in front of my Aiwa boombox, listening to God Only Knows thinking it was a gospel tune, and singing Help Me Rhonda to a 4th grade crush in the school cafeteria. Great soundtrack for a little kid!

Just coasted on those two CDs til I rented the Sunflower/Surf's Up and Today!/Summer Days two-fers from the library in 10th or 11th grade, around the same time I began to respect music a tad more due to a certain dried flower. Rented Pet Sounds soon after and bought up the rest of the albums; been a full-blown BB-head ever since!

[Beach Boy]

"I Get Around" in "Look Who's Talking".

[Gdraft]

Don't know what the first one I ever heard was but remember sitting in my dad's car watching him competing in a surfing contest in the late eighties whilst listening to a home made mix tape of BB songs, the one I remember most on it was 'Livin' With A Heartache'. That was enough for me, birthday came soon and went out and bought Summer Dreams compliation. The rest is history!

[Slow In Brain]

Cottonfields, they made us little kids sing it in class  Think it was number one or something at the time

[Lookit]

It's my earliest musical memory. I heard 'I Get Around' come over the PA at a school play my sister was in. I was very, very little, but it just sounded crazy to me (in a good way).

Several years later, '20 Golden Greats' led me to Heroes and Villains. From there I hit Pet Sounds (which honestly took a few listens to sink in...but boy, did it ever). Sessions box then sent me to the edge before Smile boots piledrived me into the madness forever. 

[Landlocked]

Ah, I wish I knew! They've surrounded me since before I was conscious, as they were always in heavy rotation on the radio station my parents used to put on when we were in the car. Most likely the big, old hits, like "California Girls," or "Surfin' USA." I'd say their first song that really caught my ear and made me think that they were really something special was "Wouldn't It Be Nice."