Where is Your Beach Tonight?: An examination on the parallels between Fall Out Boy, The Beach Boys, and what they represent to their respective generations.
I am willing to admit that I am a flawed individual. One of those flaws include stating opinions before having evidence to back up my beliefs. Another, is that I am always right. When posed with the question, who are The Beach Boys of my generation, I quickly, and without reasoning, suggested that the answer was obviously Fall Out Boy. Now here I am, writing an essay to prove why I am right. Hi. Am I more than you bargained for yet?
We’re all asking ourselves the same question: “what does it even mean to be The Beach Boys of a generation,” right? Does it mean to have one main song writer, one lead singer, and some other members that people have a hard time remembering the names of? Does it mean to have a hot genius that’s a bit of a mess as the most famous member of the band? No, I don’t think it does, but if it did, Fall Out Boy would still be a great contender for being The Beach Boys of our generation.
To be The Beach Boys of a generation clearly means to be the voice of young suburban America. To sing of their ideals and dreams. To represent the feelings and beliefs of young folks from similar backgrounds and experiences that are coming of age with the music itself.
The Beach Boys began releasing their music in the early 60s. A time when the suburbs in America were growing rapidly, WWII had recently ended and the economy was booming. The American dream felt within reach to most and Americans were hopeful about the future. Their childhoods were troubled but you probably wouldn’t know it from their music. It sounded bright and harmonious and carefree. Listening to it is an escape to the warm beaches of Southern California. It’s almost like The Beach Boys were cut out of a page of Better Homes and Gardens and pasted into reality. There’s no doubt in my mind that teens across the U.S. were driving around with their windows down singing along at the tops of their lungs to “Surfin’ USA.” I’d do it.
The Beach Boys grew up in Hawthorne, California, a beautiful and idyllic suburb of Los Angeles. The Hawthorne Chamber of Commerce once put out an ad describing the town’s location as: “ideal for fostering and promoting the home loving, home owning community spirt.” It isn’t as often mentioned that it was a sundown town - that if you were a black person you were probably not going to “foster a home loving, home owning community spirit” in Hawthorne because you were legally barred from living there and likely to be arrested or worse if you were caught in town after dark. These practices weren’t officially outlawed until 1968, long after The Beach Boys had started singing about surfing, cars, and girls. Promoting optimism, no matter the cost.
Of course The Beach Boys were the voice of suburban America at that time, they were born into it and they perpetuated the ideals of it. They were the epitome of it. Their music is a beautiful representation of a generation of white folks that prioritize politeness and good feelings in order to avoid conflict at all cost. A generation that sweeps problems under the rug and pretends they don’t exist until there is no other option but to face them. To listen to The Beach Boys is to escape from reality. Brian Wilson didn’t write songs about the abuse he endured during his childhood, he didn’t write about the civil rights movement, he was too busy picking up ~good vibrations~.
And so, what about Fall Out Boy? Their music is not a beautiful and carefree escape to California. It sounds more like the feeling of smoking a cigarette in January in an alley in a landlocked state. It isn’t speaking about important issues or showcasing optimism. It is loud and self absorbed and heartbroken. They are songs about failure, vengeance, loss, & fame. The voice of suburban American youths.
Fall Out Boy came from an affluent suburb north of Chicago called Wilmette that sits at the edge of a beach on Lake Michigan. They began releasing music in the early 2000s, when the economy was falling into a depression and the country was reeling from 9/11. Suburban kids coming of age felt trapped in their winding neighborhoods. Raised by a generation of repressed parents that were incapable of effectively communicating their emotions or acknowledging their problems. They were full big feelings and didn’t know how to talk about it.
In his essay Fall Out Boy Forever, Hanif Abdurraqib describes Fall Out Boy as: “the mouthpiece for all of our most confessional moments.” People from our generation need a mouthpiece fairly often. We know we are upset, but we are still learning how to talk about it. We use music as another tool to experience our feelings in a way that distances ourselves from them. Fall Out Boy lyrics will not help you escape to a beach in your mind, but it will help you escape your feelings by allowing someone else to dictate them. They themselves distance themselves from the honesty in their writing by hiding it behind disjunct lyrics and vague song titles. But I am still driving around singing “Of All The Gin Joints in All Of The World,” and I am not the only one.
This is me when I was probably 16 and probably listening to Fall Out Boy.
My beach is at Shawnee Mission Park Lake in Kansas and “I used to waste my time dreaming of being alive but now I only waste it dreaming of you.”