"Little Deuce Coupe"

While reading The Beach Boys yester-day, I ran across the phrase "Deuce Coupe" (on page 287, Dennis mentions a ballet with this name, inspired by the Beach Boys' music).  In thinking about the song "Little Deuce Coupe" afterwards, I realized that the second half of the line "Well, I'm not braggin', babe, so don't put me down" is sung to a descending melody ("so don't put me down" is sung to the notes Db C Ab Ab Ab), so while the expression is used more metaphorically and is negated, there's a musical sense of "put[ting]... down."

"Little Deuce Coupe"

A couple days ago, I listened to the two-albums-on-one-CD re-issue of Little Deuce Coupe and All Summer Long, and later I realized that there's a somewhat significant contrast in "Little Deuce Coupe," specifically in the line "But she'll walk a Thunderbird like it's standin' still."  The narrator's affection towards his car is such that he's anthropomorphized it to some degree, using a feminine pronoun to refer to it throughout the song ("She's my little deuce coupe," "She'll do a hundred and forty...," "She's got a competition clutch...," and so on), but a competitor's Thunderbird is still just an object and is referred to with the neuter "it."

"Little Deuce Coupe"

This morning, I listened to the two-albums-on-one-CD reissue of Beach Boys' Party! and Stack-o-Tracks.  For the first time, I noticed that near the end of the version of "Little Deuce Coupe" on Beach Boys' Party!, at ~3:02, Mike Love sings, "She comes on like a rose," which is the first line of "Poison Ivy" by the Coasters.

Little Deuce Coupe

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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Two weeks ago, I listened to the Little Deuce Coupe/All Summer Long re-release, and I noticed something interesting about the Little Deuce Coupe album.  "Little Deuce Coupe" - the song that starts the album - begins with what I can describe only as a drum shuffle.  That same drum phrase (or at least a very similar one) is also in "Cherry, Cherry Coupe" and "Custom Machine."  In "Cherry, Cherry Coupe," it's after the line "It's the sharpest in the town and the envy of my group," and in "Custom Machine," it's after "Step on the gas, she go…."  That particular drum part might be in a few other places in the songs too, but those are the ones I could find quickly.

Having that same part (or similar parts) within those three songs provides even more consistency (it also helps that all of the songs are about cars and two are specifically coupes).