Huntington Beach a decade ago beat out Santa Cruz for the trademark to “Surf City USA.”
“I wrote that song with Huntington Beach in mind,” Dean Torrence of the duo Jan & Dean told me in an interview when I wrote about the dispute.
Dean, who co-wrote “Surf City” with Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys, eventually donated the song to support the city’s tourism.
Growing up as a teenage surfer in Hawaii, I can say the No. 1 hit caught surfing’s fun spirit. I asked Dean whether that famous line—two girls for every boy—was accurate about Surf City.
“Nah,” he said. “We wrote that line wishing it was!”
—Peter J. Brennan
