how The beach boys gave my queer teen heart hope
Since The Beach Boys released their seminal album Pet Sounds almost 55 years ago, the work has taken on the same hallowed sovereignty as The Beatles Sgt. Pepper or Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited. For many, the most enduring track is “God Only Knows,” wherein the perfectly layered harmonies and sincere lyrics lift the song into heavenly heights. It is a showstopper of a song, elevating The Beach Boys from their “Fun, Fun, Fun” past into their tenure as a serious band to contend with (mostly due to Brian Wilson and co-writer Tony Asher).
Yet the first track on the album, “Wouldn’t it Be Nice,” is often overlooked as simply another foray into sunshine pop. In fact, behind the “run-run-re-ooohs” and surf guitar, the wistful lyrics present something much more meaningful. It opens an album dedicated entirely to teen angst, and at first glance the story seems pretty simple: wouldn’t it be nice if this teen couple were older, so they could hang out together all time and not have to worry about rules and parents, man! But when I started getting into The Beach Boys circa high school, the song spoke to me in ways beyond perhaps what Wilson and Asher even intended.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we were older?
Then we wouldn’t have to wait so long
And wouldn’t it be nice to live together
In the kind of world where we belong
The song isn’t just talking about a random teen couple; or at least it wasn’t to my ears. The song is the It Gets Better campaign put to music. It dreams of a world better than the one we currently live in, a world where people can love who they love and not have to feel afraid. To my young gay heart, struggling to come to terms with my truth in Bush Era suburban Texas, the song felt like a whispered wish, a musical prayer, a beacon bop of hope.
Maybe if we think and wish and hope and pray
It might come true
Baby, then there wouldn’t be a single thing we couldn’t do
Oh, we could be married
And then we’d be happy
Oh, wouldn’t it be nice?
The legalization of gay marriage was well over ten years away. It was a time when then-President Bush was running for reelection on the promise of creating a Constitutional Amendment banning same sex marriage. It was a time when I had to carefully explain away the Nicole Kidman posters and collages on my bedroom wall. But when I heard The Beach Boys sing about a world that looked much different than my own, a world where “happy times together we’d be spending,” I knew somewhere deep in my heart that this was a real possibility. It was entirely possible to be a grown up lady that loved other ladies and didn’t hide it away in a shoebox under her bed (like the magazine cutouts I had at the time). It was possible to be, well, happy.
You know the more we talk about it
It only makes it worse to live without it
But let’s talk about it
Wouldn’t it be nice?
The song gave me something to believe in when there wasn’t much I trusted. And I hope that when every queer kid out there hears this song, they feel a little more comforted, too. I’m happy to say, I grew up and I was right-- it did get better. A lot better. Wouldn’t it be nice? Oh, it is. It really is.