“According to songwriter Brian Wilson, "Rhonda" was not based on a real person” (https://en.wikipedia.org/
This quote from Wikipedia is not true. Rhonda was indeed a real person. Brian Wilson, however, is not lying. He just never knew who she was. And that is because he never asked me who she was. But now, after all these years, I am going to reveal her.
Rhonda was a girl that I had a crush on when I was in high school in California in the 1960s. (I never knew her last name.) One school day, while I was gazing at her admiringly, I came up with an idea for a song about her. And within a week, I had finished the song and had titled it simply “Rhonda.”
I came from a Country Music background, and had decided to be a songwriter. But this time I wanted specifically to write a rock-and-roll tune for the Beach Boys, whose music I really liked. Thinking that Rhonda might be that song, I planned to submit it to the them someday—although I never did. (Rhonda herself never heard it either.)
After graduating from high school, in 1963, I briefly pursued a career as a songwriter. (I lived in Los Angeles, and Hollywood was not too far away.) For a while, I wrote for a band called “The Emerals” (that is not a misspelling), who later changed their name to “The Palace Guard.” I taught the Emerals my song Rhonda, which they included in their repertoire.
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| You can read more about the Emerals (The Palace Guard) at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_ |
One day, when I saw the Emerals at a practice, they told me that they had met Brian Wilson, while they were at a recording studio, and that they had taken the opportunity to sing Rhonda to him. Then, a month or two later, I heard Help Me, Rhonda for the first time on American Bandstand, and its “kinship” to my “Rhonda” was unmistakable—particularly in its hook.
A hook is defined as "a musical idea, often a short riff, passage, or phrase, that is used in popular music to make a song appealing and to 'catch the ear of the listener'." In practice, such a riff is usually a delightfully correlated combination of music and lyrics. In the Beatles’ classic, “She Loves You,” for example, the hook is “She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah.” In my song Rhonda, the hook was the phrase, "Uh oh, Rhonda . . . I am growing fond of ya," with the background singers chanting: "Rhonda . . . Rhonda . . . Rhonda . . . Rhonda."
In the Beach Boy song, my fragment "Uh oh, Rhonda," became "Help me, Rhonda," with the exact same four-note melody--and "I am growing fond of ya" became "Help, help me Rhonda," with a slight modification in the melody, to adjust to the syllabic cadence shift in the new lyrics. And that adjustment--as slight as it was--proved to be a stroke of genius, which transformed a riff that had been very ordinary into one that was quite extraordinary. Wilson had then gone on the expand that revised hook into a truly superb creative work.
I am not accusing Wilson of stealing my song, because he did not take enough of it to legally constitute plagiarism. Copyright law does not protect songwriters from such small and in-exact appropriations by other songwriters. Thus, I make no claim to any share of his royalties. Nor do I bear any hard feelings toward him. To be honest, Help Me Rhonda is immensely superior to the trite lyrics and bland melody of my rookie-like composition Rhonda.
But this was a heart-breaking fate for a vulnerable, starry-eyed, teenage aspiring songwriter. It felt as though something that was a deep part of me had been ripped out. And this memory has haunted me for over 5 decades. Millions of people have known—and loved—Help Me Rhonda. In addition to the Beach Boys multiple versions of the song, there were cover renditions by such popular artists as Johnny Rivers, Roy Orbison, Jan and Dean, T. Graham Brown and Pastor Troy—as well as Ricky Martin’s great delivery at the Brian Wilson Tribute. Yet no one has been aware that I am a co-creator of its iconic hook. In other words, if it were not for my Rhonda, there would be no Help Me Rhonda.
As time went by, I kept this story mostly to myself, because it was painful to even think about, and I couldn’t expect anyone to really believe me. Wilson was a famous and accomplished super-songwriter. But I, on the other hand felt like a complete nobody, who had no credibility whatsoever. Nevertheless, I had indispensably contributed to one of the most popular songs in Rock ‘n Roll history.
Although I never stopped writing music, I eventually turned my focus of attention to my first creative love—and became a professional artist.
But I am an old man now. And I have determined that I will not take my secret with me to my grave.
Now you know who Rhonda, in “Help Me Rhonda,” was.
And I now know the wonderfully sweet feeling of closure—after all these years.
© Butch Krieger 2017
