Marcella

"Marcella" is a song by the American rock band the Beach Boys from their 1972 album Carl and the Passions – "So Tough". Written by Brian Wilson, Jack Rieley, and Tandyn Almer, the lyrics were inspired by Wilson's fixation with a local massage therapist. It is the last song to feature Bruce Johnston during his original tenure in the band. Background The verse melody of "Marcella" branched from an earlier track entitled "I Just Got My Pay" (recorded during sessions for Sunflower) which itself branched from another discarded song called "All Dressed Up for School" (recorded during the making of The Beach Boys Today!). Both songs were released on the 1993 box set Good Vibrations: Thirty Years of The Beach Boys. "Marcella" was written about a real woman that Wilson knew. Music journalist Nick Kent explains that she "worked at a parlour just off the strip called Circus Maximus" and had allowed Wilson to "stay and talk to her even though she was aware most of what he said was crazy bullshit." According to Jack Rieley: Wilson later said that one of the lead guitar parts was inspired by George Harrison's playing, namely, Harrison's solo on "Let It Be" (1970). On another occasion, Wilson said that the song "represents one of the first times we tried to emulate The Rolling Stones. In my mind, it was dedicated to the Stones, but I never told them that. It's one of the rockingest songs I ever wrote."