The Beach Boys: I Get Around (1964) (My "Remastered Stereo Studio Sound" Re-Edit)

The Beach Boys: I Get Around (1964) (My "Remastered Stereo Studio Sound" Re-Edit)

"I Get Around" is a song by American rock band the Beach Boys and the opening track from their 1964 album All Summer Long. Written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love, the autobiographical lyrics describe the group's reaction to their newfound fame and success, as well as their restlessness concerning the status quo, and their desire to find new places "where the kids are hip". It was released as a single in May 1964, with the B-side "Don't Worry Baby".

One of America's biggest hits since the British Invasion, the single became the Beach Boys' first chart-topping hit in the U.S. and the beginning of an unofficial rivalry between Wilson and the Beatles. The single also topped the Canadian charts and reached the top ten in the UK, New Zealand, and Sweden. In 2017, "I Get Around" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Background

"I Get Around" was written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love. Wilson was originally listed as the sole author of the song. After Love sued Wilson for songwriting credits in the 1990s, he was awarded official co-writing credits on 35 Beach Boys songs, including "I Get Around". Asked about the authorship of "I Get Around" during the court proceedings, Wilson responded, "I [wrote it], with the exception of a possible – possibility that Mike wrote the intro, the 'round 'round.'"

Biographer Jon Stebbins states that the song was one of several that Wilson had based on the life experiences of his brother Dennis. Brian's original lyrics in the first verse had the line "Well there's a million little girls just waitin' around / But there's only so much to do in a little town / I get around from town to town". Love told Wilson that these were "pussy lyrics" and subsequently revised them. He later wrote,

I tinkered with Brian's first verse, which was about this bored kid driving around but was really about our own experiences: how we had this instant fame, some fortune, had traveled all over the country, but did any of that bring us happiness? Maybe we needed to find a different kind of place.

In the first verse, the narrator expresses his boredom with "driving up and down the same old strip" and a need to "find a new place where the kids are hip". He takes notice of his and his "buddies" newfound fame, and the fact that even "bad guys" are familiar with them, although "they leave us alone". The phrase "I get around", declared in the choruses, is an expression that means the equivalent of "I know what's what". In the second and final verse, he boasts that he has the fastest car, and that he and his "buddies" are always successful at picking up women. Biographer Mark Dillon compared the lyrics to "the braggadocio of a modern-day rapper". Producer Daniel Lanois said of the song,

It's what I call a "snapshot song." It's like a Polaroid of a moment or a feeling. I like the way Brian wrote about specifics of a rising culture. He brings the listener in through one philosophical moment – one thought, one emotion – and that is often the most powerful way. You could write a much bigger song, but by writing a small one, you address a big subject. Funnily enough, Brian may not have been personally experiencing all those moments, but he was watching them happen.