Songfacts®:

• In 1985, 20 years after The Beach Boys released "California Girls," David Lee Roth issued a cover as his first single.
  
  There's quite a contrast between the wholesome Beach Boys and the libidinous David Lee Roth, but somehow this song worked for both of them. Roth didn't change the lyric, keeping it PG and leaving in the '60s slang "hip." It came off as fun and fresh, and it was a hit, climbing to #3 in the US. It's the only cover of the song that has charted.
• Roth was still a member of Van Halen when he released this song, but he was on his way out. Early in 1984, Van Halen released their most successful album, 1984. After wrapping up their tour, Roth went to work on his own music and issued "California Girls" that December. His EP Crazy From The Heat came out a month later.
  
  "California Girls" rose to #3 in March 1985, proving that Roth could make it on his own. He left Van Halen on April 1 and issued his first album, Eat 'Em And Smile, in 1986, the same year his former group put out 5150, their first album with new lead singer Sammy Hagar.
• Carl Wilson of The Beach Boys sang backup on this version, imbuing it with some of those familiar harmonies from the original. Christopher Cross ("Sailing," "Ride Like The Wind") also sang backup.
• Pete Angelus, who directed Roth in the Van Halen videos for "Jump" and "Hot For Teacher," helmed the "California Girls" video, which was immensely popular on MTV. It's unabashedly filled with babes, starring Roth as a tour guide who takes a tram full of tourists to "the sunlight zone," a beach populated by beautiful women.
• The Confederate flag in the Southern Girls section of the video didn't age well, but that's where you'll see David Lee Roth's sweet 1951 Mercury convertible, which he named the "California Girl." He drives it in Van Halen's "Panama" video.
• The video opens with a place card quoting Maurice Chevalier:
  
  Thank heaven for little girls
  
  Followed by a quote attributed to Roth and his director, Pete Angelus:
  
  And some of the other sizes too
  
  We then get the opening skit, which is a spoof of The Twilight Zone, using a fish-eye lens to show all the odd characters about to start their journey. These introductory skits were popular on MTV at the time, particularly Twisted Sister's "I Wanna Rock" and Van Halen's "Hot For Teacher."
• The West Coast girl in the video is Becky LeBeau, who is the hot tub girl in the 1986 Rodney Dangerfield movie Back To School. The bodybuilder is Kay Baxter, who was a top competitor. She died in a car accident in 1988 at 42.
• His duties with Van Halen didn't leave Roth enough time to write original songs, which is why he needed a cover as his first single. His next single was a medley of two songs from an earlier era: "Just A Gigolo / I Ain't Got Nobody." Thanks to MTV, it was also a hit, climbing to #12 in the US.
  
  Roth's first original song as a solo artist was "Yankee Rose" from his debut album, Eat 'Em And Smile.
• The song was produced by Van Halen's longtime producer Ted Templeman, who also produced Sammy Hagar's 1984 solo album VOA. Edgar Winter, known for his hit "Frankenstein," played synthesizer on the track.