KC Column: Better Place
by KC Carlson
“There’s a place where I can go…”
These are the opening lyrics to the Beach Boys’ In My Room. Gary Usher wrote those words and Brian Wilson wrote the music in 1963, and it quickly became an anthem for the sensitive and introspective. Brian always claims it was just about the bedroom that he and his brothers shared — and where the Beach Boys’ harmony “sound” was first forged. But raise your hands if you think the song is actually about more than that.
Oddly, a few months before, John Lennon wrote a song called “There’s a Place”, which appeared on the first U.K. Beatles album Please Please Me. On the surface, it appears to be a Motown-influenced song about romance (The Beatles’ stock-in-trade at this point), but as with most things Lennon, if you peel the onion back, you discover that the place the singer (Lennon) wants to go when he feels low and blue is actually in his own mind.