Songfacts®:

• Al Jardine and Mike Love were feeling homesick whilst recording Holland in The Netherlands. This three-part song cycle is an ode to their home state of California. Mike Love recalled to Mojo: "The trilogy starts with a poem I wrote inspired by the Big Sur.... driving from northern California through San Francisco searching for an alternate place to call home. I stopped in Big Sur and was completely blown away. I had to write about it. Ironically, Alan Jardine purchased the Big Sur ranch I'd considered."
  
  "The second part of the trilogy, 'The Beaks Of Eagles'" he continued, "was written by Alan and Lynda Jardine (and) inspired by a Robinson Jeffers poem."
  
  "That was like the homesick blues for us," concurred Al Jardine. "It kinda came out of my soul. But then the uplifting part, Brian (Wilson) brought that home beautifully. I said, Brian, can you put your part on this? He just walked right in, I don't think he even heard the track more than once, and he started singing 'On my way to sunny Californ-i-a.'"
  
  "That was supposed to be the single but Warner Brothers didn't hear it," Jardine added. "So when we came home (we) recorded 'Sail On Sailor.'"
• John Robinson Jeffers (1887 – 1962) was an American poet, known for his work about the central California coast. His poem "The Beaks of Eagles" set in the Californian wilderness, was written by him in 1936.