Beach Boys – "The Girl from New York City" (1965)

L.A. boys all heard the noise

About that girl from New York City

The previous 2 or 3 lines featured the Ad Libs’ 1965 hit, “The Boy from New York City.”  (If you missed it, scroll down to the bottom of this post and you’ll find it.)

A few months later, the Beach Boys released an answer song to “The Boy from New York City” that was titled – somewhat unimaginatively – “The Girl from New York City.”

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Answer songs usually attempt to capitalize on the popularity of a big hit record.  

If the original song is sung by a male singer, the answer song is likely to be sung by a female singer.  For example, after Jim Reeves had a #1 hit with “He’ll Have to Go” in 1959, Jeanne Black released an answer song called “He’ll Have to Stay.”  

The singer in the Reeves song is in a bar, calling a woman who is entertaining another man in her home.  The implication of the song is that the singer is in love with the woman, and tired of sharing her with other men – if she’s not ready to commit herself exclusively to the singer and tell the other man he’ll have to go, he’s going to walk away from her:

Though love is blind, make up your mind

I’ve got to know

Should I hang up, or will you tell him

He’ll have to go?

But it’s a different story in the answer song.  As the singer in the Jeanne Black record tells it, the man calling her from a bar – she hears the jukebox playing in the background – has stood her up and is out with another woman.  She once loved him, but he’s broken her heart, and she’s ready to move on with another man who’s love is more steadfast:

My love was blind, I’m not your kind

That’s all I’ll say

So you can hang up, I’m in his arms

He’ll have to stay

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Some answer songs were political rather than personal in nature.  

Barry McGuire had a hit with the angry, pessimistic “Eve of Destruction” in 1965:

Don’t you understand what I’m trying to say?

And can’t you feel the fears I’m feeling today?

If the button is pushed, there’s no running away

There’ll be no one to save with the world in a grave

And you tell me

Over and over and over again, my friend

Ah, you don’t believe

We’re on the eve of destruction

The Spokesmen responded with an optimistic answer song titled “Dawn of Correction” that spun the nuclear arsenals of the U.S. and U.S.S.R. as a good thing:

There are buttons to push in two mighty nations

But who’s crazy enough to risk annihilation?

The buttons are there to ensure negotiation

So don’t be afraid, boy, it’s our only salvation

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True answer songs are sort of mirror images of the originals that inspired them.  The title of “The Girl from New York City” was clearly inspired by “The Boy from New York City,” but a true answer song would be sung by the boy in the first song and would be about the girl who originally sang about him.

But the Beach Boys’ song is essentially unrelated to the song the Ad Libs recorded.  The original paints a very specific and detailed picture of a particular boy that the female singer is enamored of – but the “answer” is a fairly generic Beach Boys song about a hot babe who moves to L.A. from the Big Apple and catches the attention of all the surfer dudes who see her hanging around the beach.

Click here to listen to “The Girl from New York City.”

And click on the link below to buy the record from Amazon: