When the girl tells him, "When you race today just take along my love with you," she means her love is something palpable that will protect him like a great pink airbag. This fits into the Beach Boys paradise theme: in paradise, love protects you from harm.

"Help Me Rhonda" (1965) is another plaintive song, but the music is so cheerful that the singer knows with certainty that Rhonda will indeed lend a hand, and probably a gland. The singer is cheerful because he believes he knows the answer before he asks the question, a question that confirms what is already known through eye contact, body language and "vibrations," in this case "good."

We love to ask questions to which we already know the answers, and ask favors we know will be granted: these confirm our perception of ourselves as perceptive individuals.

"California Girls" (1965) is another production and melodic master work, with great good humor and a dose of ribaldry that even David Lee Roth could appreciate. Now the worldly sophisticates, the Boys detail the amenities of girls from the far corners of the USA. None compare to California girls.

Brian Wilson was insightful in his recognition of the power of environment to transform people. For example: many new arrivals to Southern California immediately a) get a tan b) lighten their hair c) lose weight. The first two are functions of the beach and the weather, the 3rd a function of the "California lifestyle," which basically says that if you are going to go to the beach and engage in the year-round outdoor activities, you better not look like a big fat toad or you are not going to fit in, babe (unless you don't care - in which case, why move to Southern California in the first place? - it's expensive and crowded, so stay home).

Sure, the "East Coast girls are hip" and the southern girls have a beguiling way of speaking. Certainly, the midwest girls have learned a few things watching the farm animals, and the northern girls, having nothing better to do and having extra padding, know how to keep a guy warm. But if you could move them all to Southern California you'd see a transformation! Darker, lighter and lighter is the way it ought to be, the way it's got to be! The Beach Boys don't travel to the babes, the babes come to them. (David Lee Roth found this image hilarious: we'll transform this nation! In his version of the song, the vocals rise to a crecendo of hometown boosterism and visions of endless miles of streamlined, color-coordinated nymphettes, forever young, forever nubile.)

Don't take the Boys wrong, though. They know that it's all a joke. You can hear them smiling as they sing. It's a nice fantasy though, like a Budlight commercial.