I always associate Summer with The Beach Boys. When I was a kid, I listened to The Beach Boy songs on my transistor radio (remember them?) and loved their great harmony. This 20-song collection presents many of The Beach Boys hits. Even when The Beatles arrived in the U.S., The Beach Boys remained popular. Every Summer for the past decade, the remnants of The Beach Boys would play a concert here in Buffalo after our Triple-A baseball team, the Buffalo Bisons, finished a game. The event is always sold-out. Do you have a favorite song of The Beach Boys? GRADE: A
TRACK LIST:
1. Surfin’ Safari
2. 409
3. Surfin’ U.S.A.
4. Shut Down
5. Surfer Girl
6. Little Deuce Coupe
7. Catch A Wave
8. Be True To Your School
9. Fun, Fun, Fun
10. I Get Around
11. Dance, Dance, Dance
12. Do You Wanna Dance?
13. Help Me, Rhonda
14. California Girls
15. Barbara Ann
16. Sloop John B.
17. Wouldn’t It Be Nice
18. God Only Knows
19. Good Vibrations
20. Kokomo
I love so many of their songs, but my favorites are Darlin’, God Only Knows, Don’t Worry Baby, and Heroes & Villains. A fun fact is that when Paul McCartney heard Good Vibrations for the first time, he called the rest of the Beatles and basically said, hey guys, we’re really going to have to up our game to compete with this. The result: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Deb, GOOD VIBRATIONS shook up the 1960s. It was a “concept” album that influenced many artists like Beatles.
I believe it was PET SOUNDS that inspired McCartney, with Good Vibrations adding to that. But, of course, Brian Wilson was supposedly inspired to do PET SOUNDS after listening to RUBBER SOUL.
Rolling Stone’s top 500 albums of all time rates SERGEANT PEPPER at #1 and PET SOUNDS at #2.
Jeff, I agree with those album rankings.
It was indeed PET SOUNDS that spurred McCartney to try a “concept” album. I’d put REVOLVER and perhaps its two predecessors above PEPPER’S among Beatles albums (in their original Parlophone form)…and the Beach Boys’ several albums just before PET SOUNDS are very comparable.
McCartney seems, from the various the accounts, to be the most competitive of the Beatles, the one least comfortable with their top of the heap status or perhaps most protective of it…the Byrds also sparked him thus. Perhaps it was particularly US bands that Got to him.
Anything but Kokomo.
Help Me Rhonda has always been a favorite. Also I Get Around and Barbara Ann (lead sang by Dean Torrence of Jan & Dean) and God Only Knows and Caroline No, and several others. Jackie’s favorite was the B-side of I Get Around: Don’t Worry Baby.
There is a Volume 2 (“20 More Good Vibrations) that I also have (many were originally “B” sides):
In My Room
The Warmth of the Sun
Don’t Worry, Baby
All Summer Long
Wendy
Little Honda
When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)
Please Let Me Wonder
You’re So Good to Me
The Little Girl I Once Knew
Caroline No
Heroes and Villains
Wild Honey
Darlin’
Friends
Do It Again
Bluebirds Over the Mountain
I Can Hear Music
Break Away
Cottonfields
They did have to reach a little to get to 20. I definitely agree with you about the Beach Boys and summer.
Jeff, I’ll have to track down Volume 2. But, as you say, there are some “reaches” on that album.
“Kokomo” is pretty goofy, but “Johnny Carson” is worse. Though endearing.
I see we are on the same page with Deb, as usual.
Sloop John B is another favorite.
Jeff, I knew all the words to all the Beach Boys songs back in the 1960! Their music played on my transistor radio constantly back then. The Beach Boys and their music were the essence of Summer when I was a kid.
Nearly all the great ones have already been chosen, so I’m going to go with the relatively obscure “Disney Girls” from what may have been their last great album, “Surf’s Up” (1971). Just lovely.
Michael, I’m not familiar with “Disney Girls” but I’ll track it down and listen to it.
I’m back after listening to the Beach Boys singing “Disney Girls.” Wonderful song! I also found a version of “Disney Girls” by Art Garfunkel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QBRwj3kzno
Good Vibrations, Wild Honey, I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times, Caroline No, Heroes and Villains and God Only Knows. Elvis Costello called God Only Knows the perfect pop song. I could certainly do without Be True To My School.
Steve, our cheerleading team in High School used to sing “Be True to Your School” at rallies before football games.
Probably another reason why I avoided pep rallies and football games in high school.
Steve, I liked the free pizza at the pep rallies!
Well, as some of the songs Steve named reminds me, I could just go with the whole PET SOUNDS CD.
Jackie wants to add God Only Knows (which was used as a theme for the first three years of BIG LOVE) and Sloop John B.
Jeff, “God Only Knows” shows up in LOVE, ACTUALLY, too.
After the Beatles, along with the Beach Boys, the Four Seasons were the other American group that kept going at the top for a while but they were a singles group and didn’t have the album-oriented genius of records like “Pet Sounds.” I’ve never been a Beatles fan (sacrilege, I know, but as their music changed from their early pop to their later stylings I didn’t follow), I’ve remained a huge Four Seasons fan and a bit lesser Beach Boys guy. Asking for a favorite song is almost unfair, there are so many. I’ll go with “Surfer Girl” with “In My Room” a close second because while well enough known, they were never as overplayed as many of the others. “Help Me Rhonda” is another one that’s difficult to turn away. I agree with excluding “Kokomo”–it has the Beach Boys sound and I don’t remember who wrote it but it wasn’t a Beach Boy and although it has their sound I can’t help but feel it’s not a true Beach Boys song somehow. There’s two and a half cents.
Also, Kokomo has one of the worst “rhymes” ever:
“Port au Prince,
I wanna cawtch a glimpse.”
Maybe it should be “glince”?
Surprisingly (to me, at least), it was written by John Phillips & Scott McKenzie.
Jeff, even though John Phillips & Scott McKenzie wrote “Kokomo” it does have a Beach Boys feel to it. Fans love it.
Rick, “Help Me Rhonda” was a High School favorite because our class president was a Rhonda. She would play the Beach Boys song every time she ran for office.
Yes, Beach Boy songs were right for the summer holidays!
Help Me, Rhonda was my favourite followed by California Girls – though of course there was no chance for a German student to ever get there …
I remember seeing them the first time in concert on a DVD – or was that a VHS Cassette even? Fantastic!
A bit OT:
After I started working and made some good money I went on shopping sprees, bought all the concert videos of the groups I liked – from the Doors to Jimi Hendrix mainly, but also Beach Boys and of course the Woodstock concert.
So when I saw a sign “Bethel Woods” on the way back from Niagara Falls to NYC (in 2009) of course we had to go there!
Wolf, I have a number of rock concert videos, too. I rarely attend rock concerts now. Too much of a hassle unless the concert is held in smaller venue.
The most memorable Beach Boy song for me was “Help Me, Rhonda” sung in a true Irish accent. I was in an Irish pub on Cape Cod and the band was from the Auld
Sod on an American tour. The building supposedly had come from Ireland and was reassembled in Hyannis, a story that may or may not be true. How can I tell this was an IRISH pub? Two reasons. First, this was the early ’70s and at a table in the corner was a slightly snozzled Ted Kennedy attempting to sing along with the band. And second, there was this conversation I heard when I visited the men’s room: FIRST GENTLEMAN (in an Irish accent), “The only good Englishman is a feckin’ dead Englishman. SECOND GENTLEMAN (also in an Irish accent), “Y’er feckin’ right!” I left the men’s room and the establishment in a hurry. Since that night, “Help Me, Rhonda” has stuck in my brain.
Jerry, you have lived a colorful life!
“And what might You’re name be, boyo?”
“Gearoidín.McHouse, and top of the evenin’ to ya.”
Can’t imagine why they didn’t include “Warmth of the Sun”, one of my favorites, along with “Fun, Fun, Fun” and “Surfing’ Safari”. They also didn’t include the very first song, “Surfin'” which was, naturally, all over the Southern California radio in 1961.
Rick, I have “Fun, Fun, Fun” and “Surfing’ Safari” on another Beach Boys compilation disc. I also have “Surfin'” on a California music anthology.
And I think all three, or perhaps all but “Surfin'”, were included on the early-career retrospective album ENDLESS SUMMER which revived interest in their work in the early ’70s. “The Warmth of the Sun” is certainly one of their best recordings, and as impressive as anything on PET SOUNDS, which it presages.
Todd, I’ll have to hunt down a copy of ENDLESS SUMMER. I had a vinyl copy of ENDLESS SUMMER but it went to a record dealer in the 1ate 1980s when I sold my album collection. Now I’m faced with a similar dilemma with my CD collection. Patrick and Katie have no interest in it. I’m going to contact the Music Library at SUNY at Buffalo to see if they would take my 3000 music CDs when I die.
Although I like the Beach Boys, I never bought one of their albums.
Favorites are Barbara Ann, Help Me, Rhonda, and (sorry, Jeff) Kokomo.
Beth, I’ve been to three Beach Boys concerts and “Kokomo” was one of the songs the crowd got most excited about.
Saw them in the late 70’s and they put on a very good show.
Saw them about 6 years ago and they were embarrassingly bad.
Without any of the Wilsons aboard it has become the Mike Love show.
Steve, Mike Love is my least favorite Beach Boy.
George, on one of the concert DVDs I have Brian Wilson appears as a total wreck, not really playing the pianp, just going through the motions – probably they switched off his mic.
have you been to one of those concerts too?
Wolf, I haven’t been to a Brian Wilson concert. Brian Wilson had a lot of physical and mental problems. I’m not sure the stage is the right place for him now.
He’s also done some very good live work in the last decade or so. When he’s ready, he’s ready. In the ’80s and particularly the ’70s, not so much.
So true, Steve. I cannot stand Mike Love. We saw Brian when he went solo. With several younger guys backing him up, it was a very entertaining concert.
I’m also a Beach Boys fan, and I have most of their actual albums on cd, not just the compilations. My favorite song is the utterly beautiful “Surf’s Up.”
I have never seen The Beach Boys live, but I did see Brian Wilson on his return to touring. He had a dummy keyboard, but was fully engaged in the singing and the overall program. I was amazed at the number of grown men crying around me, who never expected to seeBrian this healthy again.
Jeff, I don’t know if a touring Brian Wilson was a Good Idea given his range of problems.
What Jeff said. He was obviously not the same Brian as when he was young, but he was totally involved and interacted with the audience and band. This was in 2001. anyway. We saw him and Paul Simon and they even did two or three songs together, which was odd. (Not as odd as the next year, however, when we saw Paul with Bob Dylan.)
Jeff, just by serendipity, I’ve been listening to GRACELAND and Paul Simon’s greatest hits. Wonderful music from the 1980s!
My two favorites aren’t on this album (Don’t Worry Baby, In My Room)!
Bob, “Don’t Worry Baby” and “In My Room” are both on Volume 2.
https://socialistjazz.blogspot.com/2019/07/underappreciated-music-for-june-and.html