Student Demonstration Time: your favourite Beach Boys songs

[extraordinary walnuts]

I think this is a perfect song

Also love this treatment of Friends, it's like a little Erik Satie piece

[Mr_Simnock]

[chabrol]

The Beach Boys Today! is a tremendous album, particularly in its back Brian-led half, and really proves that Pet Sounds didn't come out of the blue as sometimes assumed.

Similar story with Summer Days and Summer Nights:

[Shaky]

Cabinessence. Just love the banjo and the accordian stuff. "Who ran the iron horse" and "Over and over, the crow cries uncover the corn field" pop into my head all the time. Bloody love The Beach Boys though, my favourites list is long.

I have a huge soft spot for the captivating oddness of this one, not least because it was the fourth track I played during my one and only DJ attempt at Uni and it garnered a cry of "What the fuck is this?" before my "set" was immediately shut down. I like to think my bold choices were just too much for them.

[lazyhour]

The Beach Boys Today! is a tremendous album, particularly in its back Brian-led half, and really proves that Pet Sounds didn't come out of the blue as sometimes assumed.

Similar story with Summer Days and Summer Nights:

Literally what I said on the previous page :-(

[daf]

'Shut Down Volume 2' (1964) is the start of the golden era for me - Three cast-iron classics on that : "Fun, Fun, Fun", "Don't Worry Baby" and "Denny's Drums" "The Warmth of the Sun".

[daf]

Spoiler alert

Written in the immediate aftermath of the JFK assassination :

Wilson and Love began composing the song on November 22, 1963, the day of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, although the two co-authors give different accounts of the timing and whether it was begun before or after the killing. The subsequent recording of the song was informed by the emotional shock felt by its authors in the wake of Kennedy's death.

Mike Love : "The Warmth of the Sun" was started in the early morning hours of the same morning that President Kennedy was killed in Dallas. The melody was so haunting, sad, melancholy, that the only thing that I could think of lyrically was the loss of love, when interest slips and feelings aren't reciprocated...though I wanted to have a silver lining on that cumulus nimbus cloud so I wrote the lyrics from the perspective of, "Yes, things have changed and love is no longer there, but the memory of it lingers like the warmth of the sun." I think it's really impactful and memorable...one of my favorite songs from an emotional and personal point of view."

Brian Wilson : "When the shooting happened, everyone knew instantly. It was all over the TV and on every kind of news. I called Mike and he asked me if I wanted to write a song about it. I said sure. It seemed like something we had to think about, and songs were the way I thought about things. We drove over to my office and in a half hour we had "The Warmth of the Sun." We didn't think of it as a big song. It was a personal response. But it got bigger over time because of the history linked to it."

[close]

[SteveDave]

There's a new documentary about the Beach Lads on Disney Add in May.

Interviews include ones with band members Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, David Marks and Bruce Johnston, as well as musicians including Lindsey Buckingham, Janelle Monáe, Ryan Tedder and Don Was. Former members Carl and Dennis Wilson, Blondie Chaplin and Ricky Fataar are also participating in the documentary.

No Dave Grohl or Bono.

Bit weird saying "former members" about Carl and Dennis but the inclusion of Blondie Chaplin and Ricky Fataar hopefully means the early 70s gets more coverage.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

participating beyond the grave

[gilbertharding]

I always liked the car songs when I was a teenager. 409, Shut Down, Dead Man's Curve - that kind of thing.

[kalowski]

There's a new documentary about the Beach Lads on Disney Add in May.

No Dave Grohl or Bono.

Bit weird saying "former members" about Carl and Dennis but the inclusion of Blondie Chaplin and Ricky Fataar hopefully means the early 70s gets more coverage.

Former humans Carl and Dennis Wilson.

[gilbertharding]

There's a new documentary about the Beach Lads on Disney Add in May.

No Dave Grohl or Bono.

Bit weird saying "former members" about Carl and Dennis but the inclusion of Blondie Chaplin and Ricky Fataar hopefully means the early 70s gets more coverage.

I had no idea Stig O'Hara was in the Beach Boys.

[SteveDave]

I had no idea Stig O'Hara was in the Beach Boys.

He was always very quiet

[SteveDave]

The first talking head is a "rock and roll historian" who looks about 30 and the second is Ryan Tedder of "Fuh You" fame! Just waiting from Dave to show up.

Haven't Disney Add learnt from "Get Back" that talking heads aren't needed.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Yep, this looks utterly pointless.

[The Culture Bunker]

I do chuckle when I see pics of them from the 60s. I know Mike Love was only in his 20s, but he looks like someone's dad was filling in for test shots.

[SteveDave]

I do chuckle when I see pics of them from the 60s. I know Mike Love was only in his 20s, but he looks like someone's dad was filling in for test shots.

WHAT THE FUCK IS UP DENNY'S?

[daf]

Who's that mystery-bonced Beach Boy behind him? I'd have said Glen Campbell, but I think he played bass with them.

[Jim_MacLaine]

It is indeed the Wichita Lineman himself.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

WHAT THE FUCK IS UP DENNY'S?

i love Whitehouse

[SteveDave]

There's an accompanying book to this series it seems

https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-beach-boys/beach-boys/9781905662852

Like their version of the Beatles Anthology book. I'm paying £50 for it though. It'll be £20 by the end of the Summer.

[fuzzyste]

A few that have not been posted yet...

Surf's Up is by far my favourite album by them. Til I Die is a lifetime top 10 song for me.

[Rolf Lundgren]

The first talking head is a "rock and roll historian" who looks about 30 and the second is Ryan Tedder of "Fuh You" fame! Just waiting from Dave to show up.

As long as Mike Love is around then it will always be the same story of rise to fame, peaking with Pet Sounds, and then the next 20 years where they made some of their most creative, eclectic and innovative music glossed over in 30 seconds until we hear about Kokomo.

[Aleister Growley]

Custom Machine.

Even though the 1967 - 1972 stuff is my favourite overall, this belter has been in my head for about forty years.

Well, with naugahyde bucket seats in front and back
Everything is chrome, man, even my jack.

Step on the gas she goes WAAAAAAAAAA....!

Peerless.

[gilbertharding]

A few that have not been posted yet...

Surf's Up is by far my favourite album by them. Til I Die is a lifetime top 10 song for me.

As a teenage fan of old music (a few years after I was deliberately shunning James gigs happening at my actual school), I liked the Beach Boys, but like most people I'd only really heard 20 Golden Greats, and someone had done me a tape of the Little Deuce Coupe album... that xmas I asked for a Beach Boys record from someone, and they got me Surf's Up, I guess because it was available in the provincial Our Price which was the only place to buy records in our town - or maybe because they thought the title sounded good.

I was grateful, but slightly baffled by all these long-ish, slow-ish songs about conservation and pollution. I kind of liked it, but it was a bit of a struggle, if you know what I mean. Like The White Album but all the songs were Martha My Dear and I Will.

Obviously a few years after that, I realised that I'd been given a head-start in the world of loving this kind of thing.

[gilbertharding]

Custom Machine.

Even though the 1967 - 1972 stuff is my favourite overall, this belter has been in my head for about forty years.

Well, with naugahyde bucket seats in front and back
Everything is chrome, man, even my jack.

Step on the gas she goes WAAAAAAAAAA....!

Peerless.

Different song but:
"Chrome reversed rims with whitewall slicks
And it turns a quarter mile in one oh six
Door handles are off but you know I'll never miss 'em
They open when I want with the "cellunoid" system"

[dontpaintyourteeth]

As a teenage fan of old music (a few years after I was deliberately shunning James gigs happening at my actual school), I liked the Beach Boys, but like most people I'd only really heard 20 Golden Greats, and someone had done me a tape of the Little Deuce Coupe album... that xmas I asked for a Beach Boys record from someone, and they got me Surf's Up, I guess because it was available in the provincial Our Price which was the only place to buy records in our town - or maybe because they thought the title sounded good.

I was grateful, but slightly baffled by all these long-ish, slow-ish songs about conservation and pollution. I kind of liked it, but it was a bit of a struggle, if you know what I mean. Like The White Album but all the songs were Martha My Dear and I Will.

Obviously a few years after that, I realised that I'd been given a head-start in the world of loving this kind of thing.

One of the first things I ever got with my own money was the Surf's Up/Sunflower twofer cd. Truthfully? I thought it was shite. Put me off them for years and years. Didn't really get Pet Sounds at first either. Feel very differently now of course.

[yesitis]

Someone on here posted this years ago.  Don't know who it was, but thanks. I bloody love it.

[Mwnger]

On a bit of a Beach Boys buzz lately and found this multi-part history of the band on the Pop Goes The 60s YT channel

Very illuminating, the host really knows his onions

Speaking of fave BB tracks, here's a couple of mine:

Just absolutely gorgeous harmonies. Best track on Pet Sounds for me

This one from Wild Honey is a Stevie Wonder track, and probably the only occasion where the cover is better than Stevie's original

[Arbiter]

Someone on here posted this years ago.  Don't know who it was, but thanks. I bloody love it.

This is my favourite lesser-known BB song. The big hits are probably more glorious and exciting but this does something else, so woozy, my kind of psychedelia. I also first heard it when I was massively into Panda Bear and it's basically the blueprint for Person Pitch and everything that followed in its wake, I reckon.

Peak chillwave:

Separately, my favourite non-BB Beach Boys song is this, from Brian de Palma's Phantom of the Paradise, written by Paul Williams:

I think this is genius, perfect pastiche, so ironically inane. The split-screen sequence in the film is also a masterpiece of direction and tension, it's clever clever but so effective. Great contrast of the vacuous video and performance with the escalating terror of the ticking bomb.