A Summer Soundtrack

Everyone seems to have their own soundtrack to summer. For instance I have my own separate play list on my iTunes that is strictly dedicated to summer style music. It is loaded with great music from Buffet, Chesney, Marley, and several other artists. Growing up, however, the boys of Lucy took a liking to a certain band that we played over and over again. I'm not sure how we were introduced to it, but the band that set the background to every summer, past and present, is the Beach Boys.

Like I said, I do not know how we started listening to the Beach Boys, but we were absolutely crazy about their music. We would play back-to-back cassettes of Kokomo, Surfin USA, and Surfin Safari. Neither of us had ever been to a beach, but these songs had set our imaginations on a rampage of what it would be like to surf the pipeline, or drive your 409 down the strip with your board hanging out the back.

Once we started getting interested in girls, the songs took on a whole new meaning. Songs like Girls on the Beach, Surfer Girl, God Only Knows, and Barbara Ann seemed to set the standard to what girls would be like when we grew up. What was funny was that we didn't have a clue what to look for, but we did know they had to be tan and a surfer from California. This obviously eliminated all of the Mid-South girls we knew and grew up with in our town.

Stevie's dad played drums in a band back in the day and still had his set. Stevie took a liking to the drums and, for a kid, he played quite well. Of course, I couldn't play anything, so Stevie got on his dad's drum set, and Mike and I jammed guitars with tennis rackets. We would set up our stage on Stevie's back deck, crank the stereo as loud as it would go, and perform Beach Boys music in front of thousands (all in our minds of course). It was jamming to the Beach Boys that birthed a life-long passion of music because Stevie is still a very skilled drummer and I, of course, am doing my thing on the guitar.

The Beach Boys were definitely the Lucy boys' summer soundtrack. It took us to a place that we could only imagine and what we thought summer was all about. To this day, when I listen to the Beach Boys, I am immediately taken back to the days of neon sunglasses, tan surfer girls, and strumming tennis rackets.

- Steve Childress