SURF CITY
TWO GIRLS FOR EVERY BOY!
Can you even say that anymore? Is it considered sexist? They weren't really selling the ratio so much as the California dream.
But it's a Jan & Dean song!
No, it started out as a Brian Wilson song that Jan Berry finished and Jan & Dean made into a #1 record, the first of the surf era!
"You know we're goin' to Surf City, 'cause it's two to one
You know we're goin' to Surf City, gonna have some fun now"
If you listen to this and don't immediately smile, dream of a happy future, you hate the sun and you should STAY AWAY FROM CALIFORNIA!
GIRL DON'T TELL ME
Carl may have sung it, but Brian wrote it, and the wistful feeling is all Brian, all "In My Room."
This is now my favorite Beach Boys song.
"Hi little girl, it's me, don't you know who I am?
I met you last summer when I came up to stay with my grand
I'm the guy-uy-uy who left you with tears in his eyes
You didn't answer my letters so I figured it was just lie"
Summer means new love. And when you'd part you promised to write. They always did, but it always stopped, sometime before Christmas, but they're still emblazoned on your brain, at least they are in mine!
CALIFORNIA GIRLS
It's that intro. I'd be riding my Raleigh with the transistor dangling from the handlebars, just waiting for that anticipatory instrumental intro, I can vividly remember riding the corner up by Fairfield Woods and having it come on. The single was not yet out, I needed to hear it. And the day the album came out I rode down to Topps discount store and purchased it, it's still my favorite Beach Boys album.
For a long time "California Girls" was my favorite, but I can own "Girl Don't Tell Me," no one else does.
AMUSEMENT PARKS U.S.A.
"The parachutes at Riverview Park will shake us up all day
And Disneyland and P.O.P. is worth a trip to L.A."
P.O.P. was already gone by time I moved to L.A., but those who were here then continue to testify...an amusement park on a pier.
HELP ME, RHONDA
The hit version on "Summer Days (And Summer Nights)," not the original studio take on "The Beach Boys Today" sans the "h" in "Rhonda." Al sang it.
SURFIN' U.S.A.
The first Beach Boys album I bought, a year after it came out, when it was already deep catalog. I needed the hit of the title song.
FARMER'S DAUGHTER
That's Brian on lead vocal, with his falsetto, back when his voice was still pure. This is simple and dated but more magical than anything on the hit parade today.
LONELY SEA
Ditto.
Have you ever looked out at the ocean late in the afternoon, when you're tired from the sun, this song encapsulates that feeling exactly.
SHUT DOWN
Tack it up, tack it up?
I had no idea what a tachometer was, but this was the first car song I loved.
SURFIN' SAFARI
Sure, "Surfin'" was the original hit single on Candix, but not on the east coast, the real breakthrough was this. Jan & Dean and the Beach Boys were pioneering the west coast surf/car ethos, our eyes were opening, if you weren't living in California you wanted to move there.
409
Yes, there's a car song on the very first album, infectious. I love when Mike Love sings about Positraction. I may not have known what a tachometer was, but by the end of the decade we were all car crazy, we knew the models, the engine sizes, it was a mania. To think today kids turn sixteen and don't even get their license, unfathomable!
DO YOU WANNA DANCE?
Sure, it's a cover, but it's put over the line by Dennis's lead vocal. But Brian's on the record too, with background vocals and grand piano.
This is a big song in my life. I went to camp the second month, August, many campers had been there since the beginning of July. I brought my records. I dropped the needle on this as the first song at the social and I asked Jill to dance and promptly she was with me instead of Jimmy. But by Christmas she was back with him.
WHEN I GROW UP (TO BE A MAN)
I'm still waiting to grow up, I've gotten older, but I'm not sure I've grown up. I did get married, but I never had children. The counting of the age numbers was missed on the dashboard speaker in the car, but it's indelible when you're listening at home. As for Brian Wilson growing up to be 80? Back then we thought no one lived that long!
DANCE, DANCE, DANCE
"After six hours of school I've had enough for the day
I hit the radio dial and turn it up all the way"
It always seemed weird to me that they were singing about high school when they'd quite obviously graduated.
That's Brian with the high harmony.
FUN, FUN, FUN
"Shut Down, Vol. 2" was the third Beach Boys album I bought, once again after the songs on it were hits.
Still, the funny thing was my sister was always going to the library to do her high school papers and my father had a T-Bird and...
POM POM PLAY GIRL
Back in the day of all-in-one record players with heavy tonearms that you put coins on so the record wouldn't skip I was convinced it was "run, kick and pass" without the "p" in front.
VEGETABLES
Word was that Brian owned a health food store, but nobody I knew was a vegetarian back then. Some tracks on "Smiley Smile" sound unfinished, "Vegetables" does not. And this is one song that Van Dyke Parks wrote the lyrics for that was not inscrutable.
WITH ME TONIGHT
It's all Brian's song, but Carl sings lead, and it's when he sings "with me tonight" that the magic is embedded into the song. Minor, but not forgettable.
WONDERFUL
The secret song on "Smiley Smile," which didn't sell so well, but the song was so good that it ultimately broke through to fans, live it stood out. "Wonderful" is so good you only need one listen to get it.
GOOD VIBRATIONS
What is never said is that the Beach Boys were considered to be over, this was an unforeseen breakthrough, a huge hit single. As fresh today as it was back in '66, you hear it and you're immediately drawn into it, you become one with the track, this is what music is all about.
WILD HONEY
The theremin and Carl's vocal create magic. Oh yeah, that change before the chorus...the pre-chorus is MAGIC!
DARLIN'
A surprise success, my sister bought the single, but I bought the album as soon as it was available, at Alexander's I remember.
DO IT AGAIN
Yes, it was only 1968 but the Beach Boys were already nostalgic, trying to recapture the magic, and they did, this was a chart hit! Once again, it's the change, the middle part, that Brian was able to create that youngsters seem unable to replicate, that pushed the track over the line.
CABINESSENCE
A "Smile" leftover which sounded like it belonged on "Smiley Smile." The middle part with the choral vocals, as if you're twisting and turning in a funhouse, that's what makes it great.
LITTLE DEUCE COUPE
The first Beach Boys track I remember being a hit. There's great swagger, but at the time I wasn't sure what a deuce coupe was. As for the pink slip...I couldn't even make out the words, what exactly were they singing about? Can you imagine racing for pinks today??
CATCH A WAVE
Ellen gave me the "Surfer Girl" and "Little Deuce Coupe" albums for my 17th birthday, wrapped in yarn, I remember, they were her older sister's.
The track I immediately dropped the needle on on "Surfer Girl" was this, the original of Jan & Dean's remake with different lyrics, "Sidewalk Surfin'." Can you imagine another act using a harp? Even today? As for sitting on top of the world, I get the same feeling skiing, some sensations are purely physical, unfortunately couch potatoes never experience them.
HAWAII
We could barely fathom California, Hawaii? No one I knew had ever been, it might as well have been Asia. It had only become a state a few years before.
IN MY ROOM
One of the most legendary Beach Boys songs but it was never a hit single. Making a point about what lasts. I got it back then and still get it today. Removed from the hustle and bustle, in my own mind. Gorgeous.
SURFER GIRL
This was a hit single, but I don't remember ever hearing it on the radio, maybe I was just too young, I listened to the radio but was not addicted until the Beatles broke in '64, and this was the summer of '63. "Surfer Girl" and "In My Room" are the essence of Brian Wilson.
BE TRUE TO YOUR SCHOOL
Loved the track, but couldn't believe the sentiment. This evidenced the band's ages. By time I was in high school in the mid-sixties school spirit was anathema, you didn't believe in your school, you rebelled against it!
ALL SUMMER LONG
The closing song of "American Graffiti." An upbeat shock to cap the maudlin feeling at the end of the movie. Can't believe they say "miniature golf," that was a big thing growing up, I used to beg my parents to take me, this was when every course was different, and there were exotic hazards. Like the pinball machine hole in Westport.
LITTLE HONDA
The hit was by the Hondells.
One day across the street friends of the Navarette girls, already teenagers, showed up on two Honda 60's. One red, one blue. They took me for a ride, I remember having to get off and push the bike up a hill.
I GET AROUND
But I did know this, from hearing it incessantly at the Nutmeg Bowl, where while waiting for our parents to pick us up we hung out by the jukebox, after polishing my ball. The British Invasion now owned the radio, this showed Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys were still a factor whereas so many other hit acts were wiped out by those from the U.K.
DON'T BACK DOWN
My college roommate Lyndon used to listen to this before getting in his Saab to go to the Maine coast to go surfing.
WENDY
My younger sister's name, a hit in our house.
GIRLS ON THE BEACH
The title song of the 1965 movie, within which the Beach Boys appeared, singing this song.
We were on Steel Pier in Atlantic City, waiting for Peter & Gordon to perform. There were two movie theatres. Once you paid to get in, all this was included. We came in the middle of the film, it irked me to leave, but I did see the Beach Boys performing in the movie. And yes, later in the evening we did see the diving horse.
SLOOP JOHN B
This was the hit from "Pet Sounds." A great radio track, I ultimately found out it was a cover, the song was new to me..
WOULDN'T IT BE NICE
I didn't really get it until it played over the credits in "Shampoo." Now that was a movie. I was living in L.A., but I aspired to live in that world. Everybody was in love with Julie Christie. Everybody knew who Warren Beatty was, his pictures always demanded attendance, but he's faded along with the movies themselves, which are on big screens, but smaller.
GOD ONLY KNOWS
I remember being at Boy Scout camp. The leader of the provisional troop loved this song. This was where I was sexually abused.
ADD SOME MUSIC TO YOUR DAY
"Sunflower" is the best Beach Boys album of the seventies and beyond, it had no hits, all the hype was on its follow-up, "Surf's Up," but "Sunflower" is better. "Add Some Music to Your Day" is pure magic, just completely out of time with what was being played on the radio, FM or AM.
"Music
When you're alone
Is like a companion
For your lonely soul"
Ain't that the truth.
THIS WHOLE WORLD
The first three songs on "Sunflower" are quite a run. The opener is "Slip On Through," "Sunflower" is where Dennis Wilson comes alive, shows his talent. Then comes "This Whole World" and then "Add Some Music to Your Day."
It's the change at 1:05, what comes after... Once again, nothing like what was on the radio, but that does not mean it wasn't, and still isn't, great.
'TIL I DIE
The best song on "Surf's Up," even better than the title track. I don't know another track with this exact feel. I got it the first time through and have loved it ever since.
"I'm a leaf on a windy day
Pretty soon I'll be blown away"
We're all at the whim of the world, we're insignificant, we're just leaves on the tree of life.
Until we die.
MARCELLA
A hit single...in the sixties, but this was the seventies, the spring of '72. The album it was contained on, "Carl & the Passions - So Tough," was a disappointment, but the selling point was the pairing of "Pet Sounds" in the package, making it a double album. This was when the "Pet Sounds" renaissance really started to begin.
The waterfall vocals are stupendous. CRANK IT!
SAIL ON SAILOR
Not a hit, but everybody knows it. Blondie Chaplin sang it. I've got the Flame album, do you?
FUNKY PRETTY
"Funky Pretty" and "The Trader" are the two other standout tracks on "Holland." When Carl kicks back and sings... "Funky, I STILL REMEMBER FUNKY PRETTY!" Only the Beach Boys could deliver this.
IT'S O.K.
Showed that Brian still had it, buried in an album of covers, it was another song out of time. But still not as good as "Marcella"...
GOOD TIME
American Spring released it first.
GOOD TIMIN'
That ol' Brian Wilson magic, along with Carl's lead vocal, but it's really about the voices in the chorus. A complete return to form, unfortunately it was overshadowed by the second side's disco workout, an almost eleven minute remake of "Here Comes the Night," completely superfluous, unnecessary, and released too long after the fact, disco was just about to die.
LOVE AND MERCY
The opening cut of Brian's first solo album, nothing could live up to the hype and the album did not, nor did the single, his voice was already showing its age, but Brian has embraced "Love and Mercy" as his theme song, and everybody who is a fan of Brian knows it.
LAY DOWN BURDEN
Somehow Joe Thomas is able to make Brian sound like he did in the early days, he recaptures the magic. This is the other solo song that Brian has fully embraced.
PACIFIC COAST HIGHWAY
From the fiftieth anniversary comeback album, "That's Why God Made the Radio." The band went on the road to hosannas, and then they went their separate ways and now it's sixty years.
The early career was driving down the coast, all these years later the Beach Boys are driving up, disappearing as the sun sets. "Pacific Coast Highway" is astounding, it stands alone, however brief it is. If you've been to the left coast and stood looking at the sun disappear over the ocean, you know, this track gets it.
SUMMER'S GONE
"Summer's gone
I'm gonna sit and watch the waves
We laugh, we cry
We live then die
And dream about our yesterday"
Brian Wilson is in the sunset of his life, but so are we, those who lived through those years of optimism and hope. Listening to these songs brings it all back. They're forever, even if we are not.
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