First Class – "Beach Baby" (1974)

Beach baby, beach baby

Give me your hand

Give me somethin’ that I can remember!

Unlike most Cape Cod visitors, I don’t spend much time on the beach.

But when I do have a hankering to collect sea shells or just feel some sand between my toes, I eschew the busy public beaches where the day trippers and other hoi polloi hang out, and walk down the stairs that lead from our belvedere to the quiet strand below. 

Our beach – from the belvedere

The last time I visited Mayflower Beach, which is only a mile or so to the west of our house, it was to rescue my clueless  son, who had driven the family Toyota Camry on to the beach one Saturday night and gotten stuck in the loose sand.

Did I mention that the tide was coming in?  

I’ll never forget how he described his situation when he called from the Mayflower Beach parking lot: “Dad, I’m in a bit of a bind.”

*     *     *     *     *

I suppose I should be grateful that none of my kids ever called me from a Cape Cod jail.

Four sets of parents did receive such a call when their teenagers were arrested for “acting inappropriately in the water” at about 1:30 pm this past Fourth of July.

I’d give you three guesses as to what that inappropriate behavior was, but do really need three?  Isn’t one guess plenty? 

British newspapers do a much better job reporting on this kind of things than American journalists, so I’m going to quote from the account on the Daily Mail’s website: 

Four teenagers were arrested for allegedly having sex in the sea in full view of a large crowd of beachgoers in Cape Cod during July Fourth celebrations.

(“Large crowd” is no overstatement.  This was 1:30 pm on the Fourth of July at a popular public beach.  It was sunny and about 80 degrees at the time.  You best believe that was one crowded beach.)

Mayflower Beach (Dennis, MA)

According to the police report, a lifeguard first approached a local detective at about 1:30 pm on Independence Day.

The lifeguard informed the detective that he was told that a number of people were having sex in the water. . . .

[Detective Matthew] Turner wrote in his police report that he saw four individuals “embraced with one another” as they swam 100 feet from shore.

(I doubt that the teenagers were actually swimming.  The water is very shallow in that part of Massachusetts Bay – it was probably only waist-high or at most chest-high a hundred feet out.)

“I could not observe exactly what was going on, however both couple[s] were extremely closely embraced,” the detective wrote in his report.

“Each embraced couple were at a minimum kissing and stumbling about in the waves.”

I admire Detective Turner’s delicate prose – “extremely closely embraced” is a very tasteful way to describe the situation.

At the same time, Turner noted there were about 30 people in the water who witnessed the event up close and were cheering on the participants.

Police arresting the extremely
closely embraced teens

“This is disgusting, why is this allowed to go on here,” one angry beachgoer was heard saying.

(Every party has a pooper – that’s why we invited you!)

Turner then started to yell at the teens several times, but they did not respond.

A lifeguard then began to blow a whistle repeatedly, but to no avail, as the teens kept on “embracing and kissing.”

It was only after a second lifeguard entered the water and swam toward them that the youths began to make their approach to shore.

Turner said that as he was in the process of detaining the four teens, he detected a strong smell of alcohol and slurred speech from the entire group.

(That comes as no surprise.)

As the detective was taking the teens into custody, a crowd of about 300 people gathered to watch.

The four made efforts to shield their faces from the public after they walked out of court on Wednesday.

Here’s a photo showing them hiding their faces:

  Did they really think that was going to do any good?  The Daily Mail found about a zillion pictures of the kids on Facebook and Instagram, and posted them on its website.  You can click here to see those photos if you must, but don’t expect to them see on 2 or 3 lines – I despise such exploitative journalism!

The judge agreed to their request to postpone their arraignments while they take part in a program for youth offenders.

I assume that this “program for youth offenders” relates to underage drinking, not “extremely close embracing.”  

*     *     *     *     *

I’ve saved the best detail for last.

Here’s a video that went viral almost immediately after this incident.  In a scene somewhat reminiscent of the legendary American upset of the Russian hockey team at the 1980 Olympics, the crowd is chanting “U – S – A!  U – S – A!” as the hormone-and-alcohol-crazed teenagers extremely closely embrace:

*     *     *     *     *

“Beach Baby” has many of the same characteristics of some of the greatest Beach Boys songs.  But anyone who hears “Beach Baby” and thinks he or she is listening to a Beach Boys record knows nothing about music.

That’s not to say “Beach Baby” isn’t a great pop song, because it is.

That’s not a surprise given that it was co-written by John Carter, who also co-wrote “Can’t You Hear My Heartbeat” (a #2 hit for Herman’s Hermits), “Little Bit O’ Soul” (a #2 hit for the Music Explosion), and the truly great “My World Fell Down” (which should have been a huge hit for Sagittarius, but inexplicably flopped).   

Carter was one of the founders of the Ivy League, a British trio that had a couple of top ten singles in the UK in 1965. 

Carter was also a successful studio singer – he did backup vocals for the Who’s “I Can’t Explain” and Tom Jones’s “It’s Not Unusual,” and sang lead on “Winchester Cathedral,” a nostalgic oddity that made it to #1 on the Billboard “Hot 100” in 1966.

But Carter didn’t sing lead on “Beach Baby.”  He hired Tony Burrows – who had replaced Carter in the Ivy League when Carter got tired of touring – to record that song.

In addition to handling the lead vocal on “Beach Baby” for the First Class, Burrows was also the singer for four different one-hit-wonder group whose sole hits were all released in the first four months of 1970: Edison Lighthouse (“Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes”), White Plains (“My Baby Loves Lovin’”), The Brotherhood of Man (“United We Stand”), and the one and only Pipkins (“Gimme Dat Ding”).

Here’s a video of five musicians who had nothing to do with the recording of “Beach Baby” lip-synching to that record on a TV show.  (The two First Class albums – “Beach Baby” was on the first one – were recorded by a group of studio musicians that Carter put together.  When the song became a hit, he hired five other musicians to perform live as the First Class.)

Click below to buy “Beach Baby” from Amazon:  

Edison Lighthouse -- "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)" (1970)

She's really got a magical spell

And it's working so well

That I can't get away

If you read the previous 2 or 3 lines, you already know Tony Burrows was an English pop singer who had four almost simultaneous top 40 hits under four different band names in 1970 -- "Gimme Dat Ding" (the Pipkins), "My Baby Loves Lovin'" (White Plains), "United We Stand" (Brotherhood of Man), and our featured song, "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes" (Edison Lighthouse).  

And you already know that I recently visited New York City, where I stayed at the Edison Hotel.

And you also already know that Edison Lighthouse was not named for "The Wizard of Menlo Park," Thomas Edison, but for the Eddystone Lighthouse, which stands on the Eddystone Rocks several miles south of Cornwall, the southwestern-most English county.

"Pray tell," you might be saying to yourself, "Is there going to be anything in this post that we don't already know?  Or is this going to be just another phone-it-in 2 or 3 lines full of recycled blabbing, with no original content of any value?"

Hey -- watch it, Mr. Smart Mouth.  I will slap that silly grin off your face, bub!  And here's another clue for all y'all: the 100% original 2 or 3 lines posts rarely have any content of value either, so you're not missing that much when I just cut and paste.  

To paraphrase the Who:

Meet the new 2 or 3 lines!

Same as the old 2 or 3 lines!

This may come as a surprise to some of you, but 2 or 3 lines is not my whole life -- not by a long shot, no siree bob!  I have a lot a balls in the air, and I'm trying to keep them there (rather than letting them drop to the ground and roll away down the street, willy-nilly)!

And I'm not talking about my thriving legal career, and the critically-praised novel I'm currently reading, and other crap like that. 

I'm talking about my busy and glamorous social life -- not to mention my even busier and more glamorous fantasy social life. 

Recently I have had a lot going on -- and when I'm not out and about, hitting the hotspots in this toddling' town we like to call "Your Nation's Capital," I'm planning for my next night out, or talking about my latest exploits with my fellow  exploitees.

You know the old saying, "It's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it!"?  What I'm talking about is not a dirty job . . . and I don't really have to do it.  But I think you catch my drift . . . and I've always liked that old saying.  Plus it gets me a few lines closer to the end of this very low-calorie post.

I have had some serious demands on my time recently, which has significantly reduced my ability to crank out new 2 or 3 lines posts.  Consequently, like a British old maid who has been dipping into the principal of her late bachelor uncle's bequest rather than living on the interest, I'm coming very close to running on empty when it comes to the number of ready-for-publication posts in the 2 or 3 lines content vault.

I need to gin up some new posts to deposit in my checking account, ready for immediate withdrawal when they are needed.  (I also need to clean all these unused photos off my Blackberry -- which, by the way, is the Official Cellphone Camera of 2 or 3 Lines™.)

In case you haven't noticed, I do three posts a week, 52 weeks a year.  They don't write themselves, and I don't see you doing diddly-squat to help.  If you're not going to pick up a laboring oar and commence to row, row, row the 2 or 3 lines boat, I really need you to lead, follow, or get out of the way.

And while you're at it, would you please get the eff out of the kitchen so the rest of us can get on with the cooking?  (Please?  Pretty please?  Pretty please with sugar on it?)

Now that I think of it, I do three posts a week 48 weeks a year.  In February, I do a post every day, an act of hubris that would make the ancient Greeks tremble in fear of the wrath of Zeus reigning down upon their heads.  (The wrath of Khan as well.) 

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr. Big Shot!  (Who do you think you are?)

In closing, watch this space for more news about the non-2 or 3 lines-related goings on in my wild and crazy life.  Which is not to say that there will be any such news.  Maybe yes, maybe no . . . maybe rain, maybe snow.  And don't call us, we'll call you.

(To tell the truth, we won't call you.  We don't even have your number, so how the hell can we call you even if we wanted to?  AND WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU THINK WE DO WANT TO CALL YOU?  JUST EXACTLY WHAT IS SO DAMN SPECIAL ABOUT YOU?)

Whether there is or isn't such news is something you have no control over.  Therefore, there's really no point worrying about it -- you have no control over it, so why worry?

Of course, if it were under your control -- which it's not, as I just made clear (assuming you were listening, which risks making an ass out of u and me) -- then there's really no point worrying about it -- you've got it under control, so why worry?

In other words, there's never any reason to worry, and I hope you take that lesson to heart.  I certainly have -- well, maybe not all the time.  But some of the time.  (Certainly not none of the time -- more of the time than that for sure.)

Yes, I am a man of mystery.  Yes, you desperately want to know more.  (And you desperately want to know why I am posting picture after picture of One Worldwide Plaza, an office building on Eighth Avenue.  That is for me to know and you to find out, mes amis.)  

But what you don't know won't hurt you.  (You may think it will, but it won't.  Trust me on that, boys and girls.)

(Surely that's enough for this post.)

Here's "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)":

Click below to buy the song from Amazon: