Get your kicks

(This is the first of two posts following the same idea, which is; wow, I can’t believe the guy who wrote this song also wrote that song which is so different from this song. Got it? Okay, here goes)

The guy who wrote this song, “Their Hearts Were Full of Spring,” performed here on the Andy Williams Show by the Beach Boys in 1965,

also wrote this song, which he performs here;

Bobby Troup. And btw, he played a doctor on TV in the 1970s drama Emergency.

Bet you didn’t see that coming; anyway, I didn’t when I started looking into this.

The Beach Boys first recorded “Their Hearts Were Full of Spring” for their 1963 album Little Deuce Coupe, under the title “A Young Man Is Gone” with lyrics by Mike Love. Love ditched the love story in the original lyrics and cranked out an ode to James Dean in keeping with the “concept” of the album, cars and crashes. Love’s lyrics aren’t very good and kudos to Brian Wilson and the boys for reverting to the original a couple of years later for their TV performance.

“Their Hearts Were Full of Spring” was recorded in 1960 by The Four Freshmen, a group often cited by Brian Wilson as a key influence. Here it is;

After listening to this rendition, which is superior to the Beach Boys versions, you might want to learn a little more about The Four Freshmen. You should, because they along with the Mills Brothers were the innovators of vocal harmony for the age. I recommend this 40-odd minute compilation as a starting place. Tip: Brian Wilson modeled his falsetto on Bob Flanigan. He’s the tall skinny guy with the trombone in the video’s first song.