"4th of July" is a song written by Dennis Wilson and Jack Rieley for the American rock band The Beach Boys. It was recorded for the band's 1971 album Surf's Up but was not released until 1993, on the box set Good Vibrations: Thirty Years of The Beach Boys.
The song was written in 1970 as a veiled comment on the alleged suppression of the NY Times by the US government. Originally intended for the 1971 Surf's Up album, it was pulled by Dennis after an argument with brother Carl over sequencing the album.
Famous quotes containing the words july, beach and/or boys:
“Children are as destined biologically to break away as we are, emotionally, to hold on and protect. But thinking independently comes of acting independently. It begins with a two-year-old doggedly pulling on flannel pajamas during a July heat wave and with parents accepting that the impulse is a good one. When we let go of these small tasks without anger or sorrow but with pleasure and pride we give each act of independence our blessing.”
—Cathy Rindner Tempelsman (20th century)
“From the beach the child holding the hand of her father,
Those burial clouds that lower victorious soon to devour all,
Watching, silently weeps.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“She makes the willow shiver in the sun
For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze
Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet.
She causes boys to pile new plums and pears
On disregarded plate. The maidens taste
And stray impassioned in the littering leaves.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)