Song of the Day 1/6: The Beach Boys, “Do It Again”

We all know Kevin McCarthy isn’t the brightest bulb on the GOP Christmas tree — to be fair, a lot of those lights don’t work at all — so I’m guessing he’s never heard about Sisyphus. If he had he might not keep doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different outcome.

In 1968 the Beach Boys wanted to do it again — “it” being singing songs about cars, girls and surfing, not necessarily in that order — and why not? That had gotten them to the summit of American pop music in the early ’60s. Then the British Invasion reordered the Top 40 landscape, and though Brian Wilson responded with the classic “Pet Sounds” in 1966, by 1968 the band was seen as irrelevant to the psychedelic scene then in vogue.

They also had money problems, so they badly needed a hit. This tune came together at a group practice session in June, with Mike Love’s lyrics prompted by a visit to the beach with old friends. They had just released their “Friends” LP, but it had no hit single, so Brian quickly mixed “Do It Again” and had it on the market two weeks later.

It only reached No. 20 in the US but became the band’s second No. 1 hit in the UK. The first? That pioneering psychedelic song “Good Vibrations.” It finally appeared on an album the next February with the release of “20/20.”