Child/Adult (Part 1 of 2)
A comment on the Beach Boys' "When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)" and some other people's songs about growing up.
This addition to the Appendix section of A Book of Brian Wilson will be posted in two parts.
First part:
Parts 23, 24 & 25 of A History of Brian focused on the Beach Boys’ “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” 45-rpm single of August 1964. These posts praised the song for various reasons—its thematic sophistication, insight, subtlety, honesty, etc. Also for the way Brian Wilson steered the Beach Boys away from repetition and commercial expectations. While noting the childlike sound of the record, those posts underlined the point that it wasn’t childish. Although “When I Grow Up” was surely meant to be heard as unambiguously and specifically “teenage,” its theme and purpose signified a move toward maturity for the Beach Boys.
History of Brian Part 25 (“Me and Them”) claimed that “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” “differed from just about everything else in the field of teenage pop music.” I added the qualifying term just about because I’m not certain that nobody else has written and recorded something like “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man),” a song characterized by all of the following:
(1) deals with the transition from childhood/adolescence to adulthood;
(2) sung from the perspective of the child/adolescent;
(3) sung in the first-person;
(4) asks questions about an unknown future adulthood;
(5) provides no answers to those questions; no words of advice or worldly wisdom to guide the youth (or the listener);
(6) incorporates the element of the passing of the years.
While preparing to publish the posts on “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man),” I tried to remember other songs that dealt with the childhood-adulthood transition. I thought doing this might clarify what it is about “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” that has always made it sound (at least to me) unusual, if not outright strange.
For my purposes, only a certain type of song qualified for the comparison. It had to be reasonably well-known, written or performed by a reasonably well-established popular artist. Preferably, the song would date from the “rock ‘n’ roll era” (which is commonly thought to have been rooted in the 1950s, then begun in full force with the Beatles in 1964, ending at some point in the mid- or late-1990s); even better if it came from the 1960s years when Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys were at their peak.
Also, the song couldn’t just be about childhood or children generally, nor could it be one of those tunes in which a songwriter is remembering his or her own childhood. It would have to be a song about childhood as a concept or state of being, and it would have to deal in some way with the transition from childhood (or adolescence) to adulthood and/or the distinction between the qualities of childhood and adulthood.
It’s possible I overlooked a lot of songs, or maybe there’s not very many meeting these specifications. Anyway, I came up with fewer titles than I would have expected before getting into this.
The following is a list of songs, along with some semi-organized commentary. The second part of this comment (link below) tries to clarify the purpose of this exercise.
“Walk Like a Man” (Bob Gaudio - Bob Crewe) / The Four Seasons, 1963
See mention of this tune and how it differs from “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” in History of Brian Part 23.
“Que Sera, Sera” (Jay Livingston - Ray Evans) / Doris Day, 1956
Also mentioned in Part 23, as evidence that a song about the uncertainty of growing up could be a pop hit. It’s similar to “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” in the shared phrase, what will I be? In both songs a youth is asking questions about his/her future, but among the two, only this one has the added element of the adult perspective. Here, the singer is an adult who is only remembering what she used to ask when she was a little girl. And the recollection is that the pearl of wisdom—que sera, sera, the future’s not ours to see—comes from the singer’s mother. With Brian and the Beach Boys, this adult perspective and reassurance is absent.
“Sixteen Going on Seventeen” (Rodgers & Hammerstein) / The Sound of Music—musical, 1959; movie, 1965
A musical number, in which the singers sing in character, in furtherance of a story. Not sure this qualifies as dealing with childhood-to-adulthood in the same way as “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man).” This one seems to have a strong sexual undercurrent. (?) The theme of a young girl’s transition to womanhood (if that’s really what this song is about—in the movie, it’s more about a courtship ritual, and it seems that the boy is the one who needs to grow up, while the girl is waiting for him to catch up to her) is a recurring theme in Brian Wilson’s songs.
“When I’m Sixty-Four” (Paul McCartney, c. 1956) / The Beatles, 1967
If you can imagine this as sung by a teenager (Paul McCartney wrote this while in his teens), it qualifies as song in which a young kid is singing in the first-person, asking questions about his long-term future. As heard in its recorded version on the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s, it comes off as a light, old-fashioned tune sung by somebody in his twenties, with the original teenage context removed. “When I’m Sixty-Four” seems less tied to McCartney’s actual life situation than “When I Grow Up” was to Brian Wilson’s, but you never know. It certainly sounds less anxious (and in the end, less interesting) than “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man),” which is more solitary and internal, raising questions that seem more substantial than those Paul is asking. “When I Grow Up” doesn’t have the dry, whimsical humor of “When I’m Sixty-Four,” though as noted in this post, Brian may have made a conscious effort to make his tune sound “fun,” if not exactly funny.
“Leaves That Are Green” (Paul Simon, c. 1964-65) / Simon & Garfunkel, 1966
“Sugar Mountain” (Neil Young, 1964 or 1965) / released as B-side, 1969
“The Circle Game” (Joni Mitchell, 1966) / released as album track, 1970
These are all written from the p.o.v. of someone who has already crossed over from adolescence to (young) adulthood. “Leaves That Are Green” (featuring prominent harpsichord) has the time-is-passing element, but the voice is that of a young man instead of a teen (which is made plain in the opening line). The song really isn’t about growing up per se (though it’s implicit).
“Sugar Mountain” might be the most immediate of this group, as Neil Young wrote it either after turning 19 in 1964, or 20 in 1965.1 Although he is singing about his own thoughts, he doesn’t use the “I” of the first-person: he says “you can’t be twenty on Sugar Mountain,” meaning that nobody who has reached 20 years old can remain in childhood. Like “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man),” the song is apprehensive: “. . . though you’re thinkin’ that you’re leaving there too soon.” However, unlike Brian Wilson, Neil Young shields himself as a writer, allowing for a little buffer between himself and the song. He’s not going to admit openly in the song that he himself is the one who is thinking that he’s growing up too fast. In August of 1964, Brian may not have been willing to admit that he was writing about himself either, but he probably was. (See History of Brian Part 25 for some commentary on this.)
Apparently believing “Sugar Mountain” to be too pessimistic about the prospect of getting older, Joni Mitchell wrote “The Circle Game” in response. It deals with both growing up and the passing of years, but the lyrics provide the wisdom about how everybody is “captive on the carousel of time.” In a way, the chorus is a variation on the sing-along refrain of “Que Sera, Sera.” It remains unclear how “The Circle Game” is more hopeful or optimistic than “Sugar Mountain.”
“You’re a Big Boy Now” (John Sebastian, 1966) / album track, 1970
“Working Class Hero” (John Lennon, 1970)
Here are two perspectives on growing up from 1970, both of which again take the adult viewpoint. John Sebastian’s “You’re a Big Boy Now” was written to fit with the plot of a movie, but if taken separately, the tune gently celebrates a boy’s coming-of-age. John Lennon, meanwhile, is not in a celebratory mood. The fourth verse of “Working Class Hero” is probably the most famous. The third verse is the one that specifically addresses the transition into adulthood, and the second verse concisely and accurately describes what happens to people like Brian Wilson.
“Working Class Hero” is far removed from the innocence and teenage naivete of “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)”—Lennon, now around 30 years old (ancient by the rock/pop standards of the time), sounds world-weary and disgusted, but he’s not without hope. Like it or not, this is a significant song. Years later, Brian would write his own “Working Class Hero”-type song, one equally important, but with the added plus that it’s easier to listen to.
“My Generation” (Pete Townshend) / The Who, 1965
“I Don’t Wanna Grow Up” (Tom Waits - Kathleen Brennan) / Tom Waits, 1992; The Ramones, 1995
If Lennon was an angry old man in 1970, in 1965 Pete Townshend was an angry young man looking ahead in time, and not liking what he sees. The previous year, “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” recognized the uncertainty of the future: who knows what’s going to happen? Townshend’s song (which alternates from the first-person singular to the more tribal first-person plural) differs because the singer professes to already know what’s in store for him. Whatever it is, it’s so awful that he hopes he dies before he gets old. The Beach Boys accept that adulthood (becoming a man) will occur one way or another, while “My Generation” objects to the entire idea of adulthood, as a matter of principle.
“My Generation” is like Tom Waits’s “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up,” which also presumes to know what happens as we grow older. Yet it seems to be written (and delivered) with less anger and more humor than “My Generation.” It’s possible Waits is singing in the voice of an adolescent, but it’s more likely that his character is a crusty, middle-aged contrarian who’s fed up with the responsibilities, compromises, and indignities of adulthood. If (as suggested in Part 23) “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” is an old man’s song intended for teenage boys, “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up” (as originally recorded by Tom Waits) might be thought of as a young person’s song written for old people.
While in their forties, the Ramones covered “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up” on their final album, lending force to the idea that this isn’t really a teenage song like “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” but one meant for older people. Or maybe the idea was that the song is teenage; that the Ramones defiantly remained teenage punks to the end.
“My Back Pages” (Bob Dylan, 1964) / The Byrds, 1967
“Goin’ Back” (Gerry Goffin - Carole King, 1966) / Dusty Springfield, 1966; The Byrds, 1968
Both Bob Dylan and Brian Wilson achieved breakthrough success in 1963 by holding fast to the dictates of their respective genres, but within a year or so, each came to realize that labeling and categorization was a career-threatening trap. Brian wanted (and needed) to grow up in music and in life. “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” in August ‘64 indicated a desire to reorient himself—and the Beach Boys, too.
Dating from around the same time, Dylan’s “My Back Pages” reflects his intention to move away from what was classified (and celebrated) as socially-conscious “protest” folk. In “My Back Pages,” Dylan wasn’t talking about growing up, but down—loosening up and getting a little “younger.” (This comes through in the lyrics, not the music, which is sort of plodding.) There’s a youthful outlook in “My Back Pages,” but it’s that of a young person who believes he’s actually “grown up to be a man” too fast, or in the wrong way—meaning, in Dylan’s case, that if he continues on the path he’s on, he won’t become the sort of musician he wants to be.
Like Brian Wilson and Bob Dylan, the songwriting team of Carole King and Gerry Goffin also achieved commercial success in the early 1960s. Like Brian, they wrote for kids and teenagers; like Dylan, they were based in New York City. “Goin’ Back” suggests that Goffin and King also wanted to evolve or “grow up” as songwriters in the mid-1960s. At the same time, it’s conceivable they pinched Dylan’s grow-up-by-getting-younger theme, and that “Goin’ Back” was crafted as a pop version of “My Back Pages.” (They wrote it before the Byrds did their own pop-friendly cover of “My Back Pages” in 1967.)
Dusty Springfield had a hit UK single with “Goin’ Back” in 1966, but Americans first heard the song in early 1968, on the Byrds’ album Notorious Byrd Brothers. With their version, the Byrds were not just covering Goffin & King (a decision possibly driven by commercially-minded producer Gary Usher, who always admired their songwriting), but in effect covering “My Back Pages” for the second time—via the intermediary Dylan-influenced songwriting of Goffin & King.
The Byrds’ version of “Goin’ Back” is wonderful, but because the song is (probably?) derived from “My Back Pages,” it slyly adheres to the then-prevailing folk-rock/Byrds-cover-Dylan formula. Compare, for whatever it’s worth, to “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man),” which cut against the Beach Boys’ market-tested formula. By 1968—and for many years after—it was always the Beach Boys (and therefore their chief songwriter, Brian Wilson) who would wear the scarlet letter of commercialism, shallowness and insincere formula-driven music. Brian was already trying, awkwardly perhaps, to do something different in August 1964. The timing was off.
To continue reading, see the second part of “Child/Adult.” That post tries to further distinguish “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” from these other songs, in order to get a better sense of what Brian Wilson did (or tried to do) as a composer that sets him apart.
Postscript: Before publishing this entry, I entered the phrase, “songs about growing up” into a search engine. A bunch of lists came up, most of which consisted of songs I’m too old to be familiar with. Most of the songs mentioned in this post, including “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man),” were excluded from the lists. Also, for what it’s worth, some other songs I considered but didn’t think warranted further discussion in this post: “Changes” (David Bowie); “Get Older” (Matthew Sweet); “Sixteen Blue” (Paul Westerberg/Replacements); “Thirteen” (Alex Chilton/Big Star); “Rockin’ Stroll” (Evan Dando/Lemonheads). I suspect I’ve unknowingly omitted a lot more songs that would be relevant to this post.
1965 would fit more with the lyric “you can’t be twenty” in the song. There’s a (bootleg?) recording of a February, 1970 Cincinnati performance in which Young introduces “Sugar Mountain” saying, “it was written a long time ago, when I was twenty.” Wikipedia currently says that it was written in 1964.