This week's Throwback Thursday jam celebrated its 50th birthday last month but thankfully there's no expiry date on its breezy surfer groove and intoxicating four-part harmonies.
The work of long-running jazz vocal group The Four Freshmen, Nowhere to Go is the kind of atmospheric track that will whisk you away to a parallel universe where it's not January, George Michael is alive and touring, and Donald Trump is not president elect of the United States.
If you're sensing a bit of a Beach Boys vibe, you'll be validated to hear that the Indiana group were Brian Wilson's biggest influence as a teen.
"I got so goddamn into the Freshmen that I almost became the Freshmen," he told the BBC in 2012. "I could identify Bob Flanigan's high voice and I could sing along with it, and he taught me how to sing high. I kept singing, for a whole year, a year I spent working with the Freshmen on my hifi, and I'll be goddamned if I didn't learn every song they did."
By the time Nowhere to Go hit the airwaves in December 1966, Wilson was already 11 albums into his Beach Boys career and the Freshmen were struggling to stay relevant while still hanging onto their classic sound.
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Written by then-member Bill Comstock, the single was the only record to come out of the Freshmen's deal with Decca, which marked a decline in the group's popularity, but not in the quality of their songwriting.
Lyrically, Nowhere to Go is a bit of a downer, but something about its woozy melody has us longing for a beach, a palm tree and a coconut with a straw in it.
The Freshman have since been sampled by hip hop legend J Dilla, and electronic maestro Jamie XX, proving that their impact on pop music stretches beyond Wilson's back catalogue.
You may be waiting to hear about the jazz outfit's tragic ending, but I'm happy to report that the group simply doesn't have one. Tenor Bob Flanigan retired in the '90s but went on to manage a new incarnation of the Freshmen, made up of remaining and new members, which is still performing today.
And when Flanigan died in 2011, Brian Wilson was naturally first in line to deliver a tribute.
"Bob Flanigan and the Four Freshmen were my harmonic education," he said. "I saw them at the Cocoanut Grove in Hollywood in 1958. My dad and I went backstage and met the Freshmen. I was nervous because they were my idols. They were so nice to me. I was just 15 years old. I'll forever miss his friendship."
