Little Deuce Coupe

Sure glad some of your listened to the Beach Boys during the snowstorm. Now let me add some musical knowledge to your day so you understand the words to Little Deuce Coupe. Maybe you can return the favor if I ever want (unlikely) or need to understand the lyrics to some rap song.

The Beach Boys 1963 song, Little Deuce Coupe, was released in July of 1963, a few months after Cuckoo's Nest was published and four months before Kennedy's assassination. In other words, the Ike Era had given way to the even more idyllic Camelot Era. Teenagers were still wearing crew cuts, canvas sneakers, and getting ready for the British invasion, you know, the downfall of Western civilization.

The song pays tribute to the 1932 Ford Model B roadster that became a popular "hot rod" in the 40s and 50s. American Graffiti, a 1973 film by Star Wars creator George Lucas, featured a yellow deuce coupe in some key drag racing scenes. Graffiti was a huge hit that successfully re-introduced the days of old-time rock and roll and hot rods to those youths who didn't buy into the whacked-out music and lifestyles of the early 70s. The film's credits rolled to another Beach Boys endless summer anthem, All Summer Long. A TV show inspired by Graffiti in 1974 proved that Happy Days were here again.

It's amazing what you can find on the web. I actually found a message board that explains the technical lyrics to the song (much of what follows is copied verbatim).You can first check out the song's lyrics at this web site to see the words you've probably only been humming.

First some easy lingo. "Get[ting] rubber in all four gears" is spinning your wheels by hitting the accelerator in neutral and then shifting quickly in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th gears in an manual transmission (fortunately, with today's sophisticated transmissions, this isn't possible anymore on street legal cars). This might cause your tires, as they spin, to literally "burn" rubber. A "competition clutch" is a clutch designed "engage aggressively" for racing competitions.

A "flat head" is a Ford-made V-8 engine, one in which the valves are not on top, but on the side, hence the flat top. "Milled" means that the valves and moving parts have been worked to a very fine tolerance to increase power and efficiency.

These are all ways of machining an engine to increase its power. "Ported and relieved" is a way of letting extra air into an exhaust port to reduce back pressure on a piston chamber. "Stroked and bored" means that the piston chambers have been bored out to increase the size of the engine displacement, making it bigger than originally manufactured.

"Lake pipes" are a type of exhaust pipe that goes outside of the body of the car, instead of underneath the chassis. Lake was originally the name of the manufacturer.

As the song goes, "There's one thing / I got the pink slip, daddy." This was the vehicle's title certificate, and its color was pink, at least in California during the 60s.

Phew. Who ever thought the Beach Boys were so complex?