A great word. Earworm. It’s that song, or even snippet of a song, that is running inside your head for hours, days, even weeks at a time.

Apparently, it comes from the German, and the idea of something crawling inside your ear and doing damage to your brain reminds me of the king’s poisoning in Hamlet. But I digress.

Perhaps like many people, I live in a perpetual state of earworm-ish-ness. A tune of some sort is always running in my head, and I am happy it usually isn’t It’s a Small World.

Often one earworm is defeated only by another supplanting it. In some cases, I actually am happy, for a while, that a certain song is on replay in my brain.

Today? A recently rediscovered song by a one-hit-wonder group called The First Class.

The song’s title? Beach Baby.

A great song with a curious history.

First, play the song.

If you are old enough, you will remember it immediately. If you have not heard it, you have to like it. Fun, upbeat, a bit silly. Hearkening back to a time that probably never existed, even for the Beach Boys — to whom much of the style of this can be attributed.

It came out in 1974, and at the time it was fun to hear a song that wasn’t disco, wasn’t some gloomy thing from the most cynical of decades.

If you followed the link about the song (not the music itself), you may have noticed the song was written by two English people, while in London. And performed by Brits, including a lead singer who 1) is too squishy and plain to be singing this song and 2) and a bass player (and singer) who should not be wearing a T-shirt that tight but, then, Brits are still wearing shirts that are too tight.

The song, however, is about the beaches of greater Los Angeles, and the lyrics recall the great fun a “sun-tanned, crew-cut all-American male” had with his “beach baby” … but is a bit sad, because he asks her to “give me your hand; give me something that I can remember” …

But then it’s cheerful again. It can’t help being cheerful.

It’s a bit more complex than one would expect. The middle eight in a minor key, ending with a chromatic scale. The ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah intro to each of the two halves.

The clear bass singing part. The always fun pop concept of repeating bits of the chorus. “Beach baby, beach baby gimme your hand (gimme your hand) …”

The song also has some high production values. A couple of horns, some strings … this was made by professionals, even if they were unable to duplicate this success again — a concept I always find fascinating and unfathomable. (How can you be so good one time … and never again?)

Also, the wiki entry on the song notes that the lead singer is attempting to sound like he might even be from Southern California, and he is semi-successful. He manages a bit of a SoCal whine, again reminiscent of the Beach Boys.

The lyrics are well done, better than most Beach Boys songs, anyway, especially early Beach Boys, when they would have sung a song like this.

And I was fine with it, the first 100 times.

Something else will replace it, eventually.