Jan and Dean – Dead Man’s Curve

December 1st so let’s get some surf music in.

When I was a senior in High School…1985… for some unknown reason I really got into surf music at the beginning of the year. I listened to Jan and Dean, the Beach Boys, Dick Dale, Link Wray,  and The Ventures. I loved those songs then and now. Plus the bass and drums in these songs are crazy good.

Surf music is about fun… The Beach Boys expanded surf music and then left it for a while with Pet Sounds. By that time Surf purists didn’t like it. They wanted the old formula songs… I wasn’t a purist…I like them all.

This song peaked at #8 on the Billboard 100 and #39 in Canada. The song was written by Brian Wilson, Jan Berry, Artie Kornfeld, and Roger Christian. The song is about a real stretch of road in Los Angeles. It is on Sunset Boulevard near the UCLA campus.

Jan and Dean were William Jan Berry, and Dean Ormsby Torrence, who formed in Los Angeles and 1958. They helped to shape the California Sound and vocal surf music. Jan and Dean had over 20 charting songs and going strong until Jan Berry was in a horrendous car crash that left him permanently brain-damaged and severely handicapped for the rest of his life in 1966.

After numerous brain operations, Jan spent six weeks in a coma and awoke severely brain damaged, unable to speak, and completely paralyzed on his right side. He fought back and was able…although tremendously handicapped to return to the recording studio the next year (1967) to work on material for an unreleased Jan & Dean project that was not to be released until 2010 called Carnival of Sound.  He still could not sing well enough to perform.

Jan kept working at it and finally, he was able to sing again in the early seventies again. He didn’t do any live performances until the late 70s with Dean. At first, Jan lipsynced but he was able to sing after a while.

Dean would go on to be a graphic artist and make album covers for  Harry Nilsson, Steve Martin, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Dennis Wilson, Bruce Johnston, the Beach Boys, Diana Ross and the Supremes, Linda Ronstadt, Canned Heat and more.

Jan and Dean performed again in 1976…10 years after the accident. Jan and Dean continued to tour through the 80’s to the 2000’s. Jan passed away in 2004.

Here is a long quote from one of the songwriters…Artie Kornfeld: One day, Brian and I were chilling and trying out this tiny Honda that the company had sent him as a thank you for writing the Hondells “Little Honda.” (the song was not yet released, but Wilson had already written it for a Honda commercial) We were cruisin’ about three miles from his ex-wife, Marilyn’s mom’s house. Brian, as he was known to do, was pushing two hundred pounds way over what a 60 cc Honda could handle. I said Bry you should slow down, as in Santa Monica there is a lot of sand on the streets. We went over and the bike and were torn apart. We carried half a Honda each three miles, bleeding like crazy, to an open door in an empty house. We noticed a piece of blank paper on the piano and Bry sat down and I pulled up a chair and, I guess because of recent events I wrote down the words, “Dead Mans Curve.”

Brian started a two four piano rhythm but I don’t have any idea for the lyric… except I always envied Jan’s Corvette, sang to Brian’s chords” I was crusin’ in my Sting Ray late one night and an XKE pulled upon the right…” Bran repeated what I wrote down with the melody and I almost finished the lyric in about 30 minutes with me writing the words, some with Brian, as being a New Yorker after I put us on Sunset Blvd.
I had no idea what landmarks we would pass to that curve after Doheny where it turns right and heads into Beverly Hills.

We were laughing and Brian said, lets hear what we have, laughing at the whole trip and tripping on our wipeout still. I jumped up and said Brian stop, “I think we need an accident here.” He responded, “You are nuts Artie,” but stopped and hit a chord, for some reason at that moment I thought of Robert Frost Poem about two roads in the woods and went metaphoric putting in an accident.

In my mind symbolic with the point we make those decisions that may change or end our lives. I wrote something like it says on the record and Brian Started a Kick Ass chorus. In walks the ever great loving talented Jan Berry who with Bry and a little me worked out the complete song. As Jan tightened up the song for a Jan and Dean Record, he was already hearing a finished product. Jan sat down at a table, hardly touched the piano, except to find the changes and as only Jan with Brian there could do…wrote out the entire arrangement, that as I remember, and was not a note off when we went in with it to play for Lou Adler. It just seems like moments but it was really days later when we went in and recorded it. The reason we had to put DJ Roger Christians name on the song, Lou Adler would know more than I.

The musicians on the date included Glen Campbell, then a tough T-shirted ass kicker on guitar, and Leon Russell (wearing a suit). Then there was Earl Palmer and Hal Blaine, the only drummers you could put together, and it came out great. Of course being about 19 or 20 I could not help but notice Lou’s Fiancée Shelly Faberes, in a very tight sweater. Dean did not show. I did stand behind Bry to get a falsetto sound that was a little different.

When the record came out it was the B-side to “New Girl in School.” I guess I did my first promotion as for reasons so few know I reversed the Charts and “New Girl in School” stopped shooting up the charts and “DEAD MANS CURVE” RULED! Brian, Jan and I all lived “Dead Mans Curve” in our separate lives.

Dead Man’s Curve

I was cruisin’ in my Stingray late one night
When an XKE pulled up on the right
He rolled down the window of his shiny new Jag
And challenged me then and there to a drag

I said “You’re on buddy, my mill’s running fine
Let’s come off the line now at Sunset and Vine
But I’ll go you one better, if you’ve got the nerve
Let’s race all the way to Dead Man’s Curve”

(Dead Man’s Curve) is no place to play
(Dead Man’s Curve) you’d best keep away
(Dead Man’s Curve) I can hear ’em say
Won’t come back from Dead Man’s Curve

The street was deserted late Friday night
We were buggin’ each other while we sat out the light
We both popped the clutch when the light turned green
You should’ve heard the whine from my screamin’ machine

I flew past La Brea, Schwab’s and Crescent Heights
And all the Jag could see were my six tail lights
He passed me at Doheny then I started to swerve
But I pulled her out and there we were at Dead Man’s Curve

(Dead Man’s Curve) is no place to play
Dead Man’s Curve

“Well, the last thing I remember, Doc
I started to swerve
And then I saw the Jag slide into the curve
I know I’ll never forget that horrible sight
I guess I found out for myself that everyone was right”

Won’t come back from Dead Man’s Curve

(Dead Man’s Curve) is no place to play
(Dead Man’s Curve) you’d best keep away
(Dead Man’s Curve) I can hear ’em say
Won’t come back from Dead Man’s Curve

(Dead Man’s Curve) is no place to play
(Dead Man’s Curve) you’d best keep away
(Dead Man’s Curve) I can hear ’em say
Won’t come back from Dead Man’s Curve

(Dead Man’s Curve) is no place to play
(Dead Man’s Curve) you’d best keep away
(Dead Man’s Curve) I can hear ’em say
Won’t come back from Dead Man’s Curve

(Dead Man’s Curve) is no place to play
(Dead Man’s Curve) you’d best keep away
(Dead Man’s Curve) I can hear ’em say
Won’t come back from Dead Man’s Curve

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

47 thoughts on “Jan and Dean – Dead Man’s Curve”

    1. They had so many Dodges of Death songs in the early 60s. Didn’t Twinkle have a car crash song back then too, or am I getting my Brit memories mixed up? The Yanks did do it better- there’s nothing remotely romantic about a song about rolling over in your Morris Minor Van or sliding down the High Street and handily fetching up outside Boots the Chemist on a BSA Bantam. Minor v Stingray, BSA Bantam v Harley Sportser? It just doesn’t translate well from the USA to the UK.

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      1. Yep, Twinkle had the song “Terry”, also in 1964. I didn’t mention it because I didn’t know if anyone had heard of it. (I didn’t back then.) I never rolled my Morris Minor, though someone did want to drag race me for pink slips (titles) once. I declined, as I was in need of a new clutch at the time.

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    2. Good call- a slipping clutch guarantees a lost pink slip. I never tried dragging anyone or anything since my first ride was a rusty 100E Prefect. See about the car names? Prefect??? The States have T-Birds and Firebirds, Boss Mustangs and Barracudas and in the Commonwealth we make do with tosh like Bug eyed Sprites.

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      1. One of my brothers had a Sprite (not a bugeye, but a Mark II). My other brother had an Austin Cooper S. I did drag someone in a muscle car with that once (not for pinks). The mini didn’t idle well, so I had to keep blipping the throttle at stoplights to keep it running. The guy took it as a challenge. I got a huge smile and thumbs up when I beat him. (The mini had a bigger engine than wither the Sprite or the Morris.)

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  6. quite a way to get inspiration for a song! I never got why, as Half fast suggests, there was such a craze for dead kids in traffic accidents songs back then… but if you were a songwriter, briefly it was probably a shortcut to success!

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    2. It’s not just back then. I found a list of 182 crash songs from 1956 (the great “Transfusion” by Nervous Norvus) to 2022 (“The 30th” by Billie Eilish). The band Death Cab for Cutie took its name from a 1967 song by England’s Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.

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      2. I don’t understand your question. Are you asking about a link to the list? It was a Wikipedia article. A friend in LA, who had so many records he had to keep culling them to fit in his house, introduced me to the Bonzos. He was a reader of the British music press, so knew bands I’d never heard of.

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  7. Jan and Dean were still going strong during the first British Invasion. As many acts that were knocked off the chart by the Fab Four, J&D really hung in there. Who knows how much different things might have been if Jan hadn’t had his accident…

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  8. I saw a Jan and Dean biopic, oh way back back in the 80s I’d say now, so a while back. Poor Jan came back, got crucified for lip-syncing by the public. Poor guy, he wasn’t trying to be Milli Vanilli, he was just trying to keep the fans happy. Thats the main thing I recall from the flick.
    Great back story on the song writing process.

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    1. Yea I remember that…he wasn’t really trying to pull anything over on anyone…just to get back up there. I’m glad he started back again…it was hard for him just to do normal things.

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    1. The first time I heard of them was that TV movie…I’ve been into them ever since. The album cover designs took me by surprise by Dean. Interesting story…just very sad but it could have been much worse.

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      2. Oh I agree…in fact before I knew about it…I was under the impression they wrote it about the wreck….before I found out

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    1. I know man…and if you really want to hear a ghoulish song…look up “I Want My Baby Back” by Jimmy Cross…
      There will be a pop quiz that follows lol. No but it is the most morbid song ever.

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  13. I remember when I was kid watching the Jan and Dean movie of the week on CBS or another channel. That was the first time I had ever heard of them and remember going back to my KISS records after watching it. lol

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  14. Pingback: Jan and Dean – Dead Man’s Curve – MobsterTiger

  16. This is a terrific post, and awesome tune. What teens anywhere in U.S.A. didn’t have there own legendary DMC? Ours was on the Senator Highway south of Prescott AZ.

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  17. Dead Man’s Curve is a real place. Sunset Blvd. goes from downtown LA to the ocean. The Dead Man’s Curve section is the residential section West of Beverly Hills, ending around the other side of UCLA (or the 405 Freeway). The warnings are serious, even without speeding it is a dangerous piece of road.

    Dean Torrence’s album cover work is phenomenal.

    The first formation of the band we know and love as The Turtles was a surf band called Crossfires. No vocals, but Howie and Mark on saxophone.

    I love the crack about why Roger Christian’s name is part of the writing credits. He was a major DJ in the LA area right before KHJ Boss Radio.

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  18. Dead Man’s Curve is a real place. Sunset Blvd. goes from downtown LA to the ocean. The Dead Man’s Curve section is the residential section West of Beverly Hills, ending around the other side of UCLA (or the 405 Freeway). The warnings are serious, even without speeding it is a dangerous piece of road.

    Dean Torrence’s album cover work is phenomenal.

    The first formation of the band we know and love as The Turtles was a surf band called Crossfires. No vocals, but Howie and Mark on saxophone.

    I love the crack about why Roger Christian’s name is part of the writing credits. He was a major DJ in the LA area right before KHJ Boss Radio.

    Like

    Reply

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