Every Summer Day (LP version) / .Slave Driver (Bomp 126) - 1979

Where the songs came from

by Joe Nolte

EVERY SUMMER DAY (lyrics) Listen to a clip of this song: (MP3) Listen to a clip of the single version of this song: (Real Audio)

(written August 1976) This girl I knew (who shall be identified as "L" a little later) was a few years older than I, and had gone to see the Beach Boys play at the grand opening of Wallach's Music City in Torrance in late 1963. The Beach Boys at that time were poised to become the biggest group in the country, and 1964 looked promising. Then the damn Beatles hit. Now, for me and many others, the Beatles were a necessary diversion after the horror of the JFK assassination. All this girl could think about, however, was "Oh shit - this is gonna destroy the Beach Boys". Which, relatively speaking, it did. Judging by recent interviews, Brian is still stewing over it. So I started with that, and used the "last summer" of '63 as a general allegory for the folly of thinking that youth will last forever. Some 20 years later I don't feel as if I've quite become an adult yet, but I'm quite sure it's coming. Anyway, it's a tragedy, a very sad song in the guise of a simplistic summertime homage. We almost got Brian Wilson and Dean Torrence to sing backup vocals on the album version, but schedule conflicts got in the way. Pity.

SLAVEDRIVER (lyrics) Listen to a clip of this song: (MP3)

(written February 1978) Basically a tongue in cheek homage to all bosses. I started out pissed off against my current boss, but was unable to keep the song serious, for obvious reasons. There is an obvious "oh shit" just before the instrumental, so it was rather bizarre when KROQ started playing the thing in the fall of '79. Wow, swear words on the radio. This was evidently a favorite of the early fledgling O.C. punk rock kids, who used to chant it while skateboarding.