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TL;DR:

  • The Beach Boys’ “Fun, Fun, Fun” was inspired by an anecdote members of the band heard.
  • The woman who inspired “Fun, Fun, Fun” didn’t learn about her connection to it initially.
  • “Fun, Fun, Fun” and its parent album became hits in the United States.
The Beach Boys at the Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Beach Boys | Bettmann / Contributor

The Beach Boys‘ “Fun, Fun, Fun” is one of the group’s most famous early songs. A woman said her experiences driving inspired the track. In addition, she revealed she didn’t know she inspired “Fun, Fun, Fun” until years later.

The Beach Boys used to give interviews while the daughter of a radio station owner watched them

During a 2022 interview with ABC, Utah native Shirley England said she inspired “Fun, Fun, Fun.” Her father owned a radio station called KNAK radio. At that radio station, The Beach Boys used to give interviews. England recalled watching the interviews in person.

In addition, England said she regularly used her father’s T-bird. “One day I went down to the station and I was driving my little Ford Falcon, not the T-bird,” she said. “Word got around that the night before I had supposedly gone to the library with my friends.

“Instead of going to the library, we hitched up and went to a local drive-in that had some really great food and kids,” she added. “I got in trouble, so I didn’t get the car that day.”

How Shirley England learned she inspired The Beach Boys’ ‘Fun, Fun, Fun’

According to England, people at her father’s radio station learned she was grounded. This anecdote made its way to The Beach Boys. However, she was unaware until years later that she inspired “Fun, Fun, Fun.”

“The last interview I had I actually mentioned that I had not been told by the band themselves that they had written that song for me,” she shared. “The interviewer actually said ‘Well Shirley, let me tell you, I was with Mike Love yesterday and he said that one of the guys in the band thought they wrote it on a plane.

“Mike said ‘No, we wrote it about a Salt Lake City girl,'” England added. “He confirmed it for me, so now I’m going to take it.”

Related

Brian Wilson Said Three Dog Night Rejected a Song That Became a Hit for The Beach Boys

How ‘Fun, Fun, Fun’ and its parent album performed on the charts in the United States

“Fun, Fun, Fun” became a hit in the United States. The song reached No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. The track stayed on the chart for 11 weeks in total.

The Beach Boys released the song on the album Shut Down Volume 2. The album peaked at No. 13 on the Billboard 200, staying on the chart for 38 weeks.

“Fun, Fun, Fun” was a hit — and it had an interesting connection to actual events.

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