![]() To this day, when I hear the first slightly-off-key tones of the song, this is what comes into my head. ![]() Sadly, I can’t remember any more of the lines. ![]() It’s where you wanna go to get away from Fitz Hall….”Ī few boozy lines later (“about… to make… that Crazy Rock mistake”) and we had our own hit. One night for whatever reason – alcohol may have been a factor – we started working up lyrics to “Kokomo” to make it about “Joliet.” The meter of the town names worked, so it was a start. Since I was also doing double-duty in my last days at WLRA, the group of us from the college who worked together/drank together/got in trouble together hung out and amused ourselves often, and music was frequently a part of that. So, pap like “Kokomo” got onto the air a lot. At the end of that year the station was running without a program director (which is likely how I kept getting airshifts), and the music was selected by a nice man who had less than zero sense of adventure. In the late fall of 1988 I had just started my storied overnight gig at WJTW, best described as a soft version of a soft adult contemporary station. So why does it not send me to fits of revulsion any more? Reworked lyrics. How is that even possible? I mean, “God Only Knows,” possibly the greatest three minutes ever put on vinyl, no matter who does it, managed a measly #39 showing, and… this thing? The Beach Boys’ body of work is massive, and yet they only hit the #1 position on the charts four times: “Help Me, Rhonda,” “I Get Around,” “ Good Vibrations,” and – this thing. No matter what level of genius you achieve, the buying public sometimes misses the point. This song also illustrates my point that sometimes, the pop charts are not fair. Eventually, though, I came to actually appreciate the thing – but that story will take us down a winding path to get there. That’s why the revulsion I felt when I first heard “Kokomo” was so troubling. If I haven’t made it clear enough in earlier posts or by dropping lyrics into text sans citation, I like the Beach Boys. (Above: Which is the guiltier pleasure – the song or the movie?)
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