"When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)" is a song by American rock band the Beach Boys from their 1965 album The Beach Boys Today!. Written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love, it was first issued as a single on August 24, 1964, paired with the B-side "She Knows Me Too Well". It peaked at number 9 in the U.S., number 27 in the UK, and number 1 in Canada.
The lyrics describe a boy who is feeling anxious about his own future when he will no longer be a teenager, pondering such questions as "Will I love my wife for the rest of my life?" It is possibly the earliest U.S. top 40 song to contain the expression "turn on", and is one of the earliest rock songs to cover the topic of impending adulthood. Musically, the song has been highlighted for its jazz influence and unique arrangement and harmonic structure.
Background and inspiration
"When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)" was composed by Brian Wilson with lyrics by both him and his cousin and frequent writing partner Mike Love. At the time, Brian told the Birmingham Post, "When I was younger, I used to worry about turning into an old square over the years. I don't think I will now, and that is what inspired 'When I Grow Up'." In a 2011 interview, he commented that when he wrote the song, he had a dismal view of his future, saying "'When I Grow Up (To Be A Man)’ was inspired about what it was gonna be like to grow up. Will I like the things then as I did now? I wrote that in my early twenties. As I look back on that I am happy with my life now and I didn’t think I would be.” In his 2016 memoir, Love wrote that the song was "probably influenced" by Murry Wilson, who constantly challenged Brian's manhood.
Lyrics
"When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)" is one of the first rock songs to discuss impending adulthood. It is also possibly the earliest U.S. top 40 song to contain the expression "turn on" (from the lyric "will I dig the same things that turned me on as a kid?").
The lyrics describe a boy who is anxious of when he stops being a teenager. To this effect, the narrator poses such question as "Will I love my wife for the rest of my life?" That line in particular marked the first instance of a Beach Boys song discussing falling out of love with someone, as opposed to just being in or out of a relationship. Academic Jody O'Regan interpreted the line as Wilson admitting that he had had doubts about his marriage. Journalist Alice Bolin commented, "'When I Grow Up to Be a Man' is about envisioning the past. It was written by a 23-year-old who imagined a 13-year-old imagining what it was like to be 23."
Composition
"When I Grow Up" features multiple key changes, a hook based on a dissonant, functionally ambiguous chord, tempo stretches, and a long pause as a climax. Music historian Charles Granata wrote that the song "best exemplifies the [band's] musical growth" through its "effective combination of odd sounds" and its "full and round" vocal harmonies. O'Regan brought special attention to the drum pattern for avoiding a traditional backbeat rhythm common to rock and roll songs of this era. Instead, it "effectively plays 'around' the vocals with interesting fills adding texture and drama to the passing of time in the lyrics. Each part of the drum kit works independently from each other, horizontally as four separate parts, rather than a whole set working together."
A prominent element of the song's composition is its use of jazz harmony. The chord that opens the song and repeats each chorus is traditionally notated as an A♭7#5 chord. In his book Inside the Music of Brian Wilson, Lambert writes that this unusual chord "grabs our attention immediately." and interprets that it represents the "swirl of complications arising from the growth into adulthood described in the song’s lyric". According to Lambert, "As the song progresses, we realize that Brian is associating the dissonance of the initial chord, along with the vocal counterpoint at the end of the verse and the advanced chord progression of the wordless bridge, with a more “mature” attitude and life perspective."