Beach Boys

Brian Wilson, the former Beach Boy, recalls his anguish in a new memoir

A new book explores the magic and the myth of the songs as the band turns 50

The Beach Boy talks about the band, his new life and ‘Rhapsody in Blue’

Here’s an obscure TV theme song that I just found on YouTube (a pretty good one) that brings up a question: how often do TV shows have theme songs that actually reflect current trends in pop music? This show was called “Karen,” a one-season flop from 1964 starring Debbie Watson as a spunky, flighty teenager. It was one of several shows from the mid-’60s that were about teenaged girls, but this one had something resembling a rock n’ roll theme song, sung by the Beach Boys. It wasn’t exactly up-to-date for the fall of 1964, but it was closer than most teen shows of its era; The Patty Duke Show and Gidget were about teenagers, but had (terrific) theme songs in an old-fashioned big-band style that no teenaged girl of the time would have been listening to.