Gary Lewis & the Playboys – "She's Just My Style" (1965)

I would say what’s on my mind

But the words are hard to find

There are those that say that 2 or 3 lines has lost a step . . . that 2 or 3 lines can’t bring it the way it used to . . . that 2 or 3 lines just plain doesn’t have it any more.

I say that 2 or 3 lines does still have it.  But I don’t expect you to simply take my word for it.  All I ask is that you read this post, and then decide for yourself.

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Yesterday evening, I was driving grandsons #4 and #7 home when today’s featured song came on the SiriusXM 60s Gold channel.

I sing along to the records I hear on my car radio pretty much regardless of who is riding with me.  

A 1962 Chevrolet station wagon

I do that despite the traumatic experience I had when I was about 12 years old and singing along to the car radio while driving with my parents and sister to visit my great-grandparents in Goshen, Arkansas.  My father put an end to my singing that day by suddenly turning the radio in our 1962 Chevy Biscayne station wagon off.  “We can listen to the radio, or we can listen to you,” he said.  Sensing that hell would freeze over before I persuaded him to change his mind, I sat in silence for the rest of the trip.

But now I’m the one driving the car, and you can best believe when it comes to my singing along to my car radio, YOU’LL SUCK ON IT AND YOU’LL LIKE IT.

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The 60s Gold channel DJ was dealing out some really boss tunes on today’s drive.  “California Sun” by the Rivieras (“The girls are frisky in old ’Frisco”) was followed by the Electric Prunes doing “I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night.”  

Next came “Go All the Way” by the Raspberries.  Pop music doesn’t get any better than that little masterpiece.

Unless the next record is Meat Loaf’s “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” – which it was last night.

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“She’s Just My Style” may not be in quite the same class as those records.  But it was good enough to make it all the way to #3 on the Billboard “Hot 100” singles chart.  (Gary Lewis & the Playboys never got much respect from the critics, but each and every one of the first seven singles they released was a top ten hit.  You can count the other sixties’ groups that accomplished that feat on one hand – even if you got careless with firecrackers back in the day and are missing a digit or two.)

Gary Lewis & the Playboys

I’ve heard “She’s Just My Style” many, many times since it was released in 1965, but I had never noticed until today how much it sounded like a Beach Boys record of that era.  

Listen to it and tell me I’m wrong.  Everything about the song and its arrangement is reminiscent of what Brian Wilson was doing back then.  

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When I got back to my office at 2 or 3 Lines World Headquarters after depositing my grandsons at their home, I fired up the ol’ Google machine to see if anyone else had commented on the Beach Boys-like sound of “She’s Just My Style.”

Lo and behold, I learned from Wikipedia that Gary Lewis himself told an interviewer in 2013 that the group “sought to emulate the style of The Beach Boys” when they recorded “She’s Just My Style”:

That’s exactly what we were going for.  Even before we started writing it we said, “Let’s go for The Beach Boys thing; a little rock and roll with a lot of harmony” and I was really happy with the way we pulled it off.

I guess I nailed that one, didn’t I?  Take that, all you people who say that 2 or 3 lines has lost a step . . . or that 2 or 3 lines can’t still bring it the way it used to! 

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To be perfectly truthful, no one has said that 2 or 3 lines doesn’t have it any more.  But I thought starting this post off with something provocative might rev up reader engagement a bit.  (Like the Will Farrell character in Blades of Glory, I’m big believer in being provocative – it gets the people going!)

Click here to listen to “She’s Just My Style.”

Click here to buy that record from Amazon.