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Come the ‘80’s, The Beach Boys had one more No. 1 hit up their sleeve

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11 Jan 2022
5 min read
Question: in "kokomo," the beach boys dream of first heading to...

One of the most commercially-successful bands in American history had one more chart-topper to wax on their ‘boards come the 1980’s.

The Beach Boys -- with over 100 million album sales to their credit, coupled with 35 top-40 hits (led by three songs which reached No. 1 on Billboard) – enjoyed one more big wave in 1988 with “Kokomo.”  The song, written specifically for the Tom Cruise movie, Cocktail, gave the group their 36th top-40 tune, and, moreover, their fourth No. 1 hit and first since “Good Vibrations” in 1966.

Though written and produced sans founding member Brian Wilson, the song was nonetheless penned by an all-star cast of Terry Melcher, John Phillips (of The Mamas & the Papas fame), Scott McKenzie (“San Francisco”) and Beach Boy Mike Love. Said the latter of “Kokomo” in an interview with Songfacts:

"Terry was in the studio doing a track with a demo, because we were asked to do the song for the soundtrack of the movie Cocktail, featuring Tom Cruise. So we were asked by the director to come up with a song for this part of the movie where Tom Cruise goes from a bartender in New York to Jamaica. So that's where I came up with the 'Aruba, Jamaica' idea, that part.”

Idyllically Beach Boy-beachy, fun, ethereal and harmonic, “Kokomo” achieves both rhyme and rhythm from the song’s tropical locales, which range from the Florida Keys to Jamaica to Martinique to Port au Prince and beyond; as the chorus sings:  

Down in Kokomo
Aruba, Jamaica, ooh I wanna take you to
Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama
Key Largo Montego,
Baby why don't we go

While Cocktail received generally bum reviews from critics (an anomaly for Cruise at the time), audiences still soaked in the movie; with a global take of over $170, the film poured its way to No. 8 on that year’s worldwide gross list.

As for the sounds, the movie’s soundtrack was also a cash machine; pairing “Kokomo” with Bobby McFerrin’s fellow No. 1 hit, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” the album sold over four million copes by the middle of ’89.

The Beach Boys also enjoyed more than rebound audience traction for the song, as “Kokomo” was nominated for both a Grammy and a Golden Globe.