Sing A Song Of Drive-Ins

Did The Boys Know A Place Even Better Than The Beach?

Shawn Nagy's Super Oldies is where I set my online dial each morning. They choose beyond rigid playlists of Sirius and whatever radio still plays way-back hits. The Beach Boys came up this week with a 1964 tune called Drive-In, which I don't recall as a single, and barely, if ever, heard anywhere before. Drive-In was written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love. There were plenty of pop songs about moviegoing culture and drive-ins in particular, but few spelled out why young people preferred under-stars viewing, though as Drive-In tells it, "viewing" was a least of reasons to attend. I listened closely to the lyrics and tried plugging my own drive-in concept to the what the Beach Boys knew. We differed first and most decidedly on climate and when those outdoor screens were lit. California screenings could go year round, and did. Our drive-ins had a busy season (late spring, through summer), had to take winter months off but for brave sites that offered heaters and sometimes free coffee to patrons willing to brave the cold. Others just closed and took lumps of months without the cash flow. I'd not ventured a drive-in outside of summer before taking a date one January to a banged-up print of Thunderball, and that proved a mistake for myriad of reasons. North Carolina under-stars during winter was scarcely what the Beach Boys knew in the Golden State.

"Every time I have a date, there's only one place to go. That's to the drive-in," begins the song. Families sought drive-ins for a cheap night-out, grill meals for all, with kids within reach and likely to fall asleep. Teens conversely went to be with other teens, loose from constriction that was home, and assured privacy that was closed cars. To take a date was reason aplenty for going. "It's such a groovy place to talk and maybe watch a show," maybe being operative word, for did it ever matter what was on the bill? (exceptions, yes, like NC lure that was Thunder Road) The drive-in was about community and freedom to move about, socialize, enjoy perks like playgrounds, train rides, full-service food, that hardtops couldn't supply. Theatre seats were confining, and management didn't like us jumping in/out of them, except to go buy concessions. To talk at an indoor site meant disturbing others, never an issue in open air that was drive-ins. "Forget about the plot," say the Beach Boys, and indeed, who took time to divine that, with so much else to distract us? Drive-ins saw their height in tandem with television's rise at home. Both used movies more/less for wallpaper, or white noise at best. Concentration patrons applied from bolted-down seats was no more. People who went to drive-ins for the film were figured to need their heads examined.

"Don't sneak your buddies in the trunk, 'cause they might get caught ..." was the BB's bid for social responsibility, and makes me wonder if anyone ever suffocated for sake of free admission. And what's a record for how many sneaks could fit in a trunk? Maybe this is part-why so many venues charged by the carload. "If you say you watch the movie, you're a couple o' liars, and remember, only you can prevent forest fires" was saucy wink the band didn't generally go in for, but everyone knew the purpose drive-ins served for youth, which is why parents saw less comfort in offspring viewing outdoors rather that in. Much eventuality traced back nine months to stolen time at the Starlight. For myself, our own Starlight was site for oldies and second-runs not likely to play again within four walls. But for the Starlight, there would have been no Brides Of Dracula or The Curse Of Frankenstein in my young life, but short of a driving license (rare among those age 11), who could see such treasure long discarded by downtown first-runners? Drive-ins would go away for a most part ... demise was once explained to me as result of the 70's gas crisis. Was that it, or did folks just get bored with the habit? Where then, do young people go to gather, or do they gather at all, other than online? For modern relevancy, the Beach Boys song could as readily be celebration for spinning bees, barn raisings, or vaudeville. Nothing renders a lyric so quaint as mention of drive-in way of living so long past.