It's About Time: Beach Boys Poll Results

but "Wild Honey" and "Darlin'" sound like early '70s AM radio. In 1967.

otm

Many thanks for this thread - this is my first exposure to Time to Get Alone, Celebrate the News, Big Sur and The Trader.

not a big deal for me personally because i don't have much to add, but any chance you could post these a little earier in the day? might get more the the euro vote chiming in? at the moment they're going up overnight here.

yeah I can try not to post them America-latenight

The Little Girl I Once Knew is too low but I didn't vote so I can't really complain. Hope She Knows Me Too Well places high

man looking through all their album covers is a horror show

wish i voted in this

catching up with the latest posts -- some great stuff. and it's about time stamos made an appearance, for christ's sake. where would the beach boys be without stamos!

#46

Little Pad - Smiley Smile
104 points, 5 votes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZGPxesVlUo

Came super close to including Little Pad -- but it felt a little too slight at the end of the day.

Did include it. Bit silly but what the hell. Regretting not including "Country Air" btw.

didn't vote for it, but it is lovely. great mixtape song.

Do it!

yeah, no way I could rank this as one of the Beach Boys' 20 best songs. But still fun to listen to, if also a little disturbing.

They were on my shortlist of 40 or so. I needed justifications for cutting stuff, so short instrumentals seemed like a good place to start.

I don't understand. Our Prayer isn't an instrumental, and is one of the least "slight" things the BBs ever did. People go to school for decades and can't write stuff like that. Like, if that's slight, then Bach is AM Gold. :(

voted for Little Pad because when I tried to learn to play it recently I was totally flummoxed by the chord changes, it is a really oddly-constructed song.

also it is purty and the first time they really got the SOUND of Hawai'i down (even though they have earlier songs that are about Hawai'i)

I don't mean that it sounds like a traditional Hawai'ian tune btw, just that it successfully evokes the tropical-island-paradise vibe, where earlier songs with the same subject matter did not

"Our Prayer" is 1:10, though. I think the original poster was just questioning whether it belonged amongst the twenty best things the BB ever did.

the answer is yes!

I have a special place in my heart for their a cappella tracks, and that's probably the second best one

"Our Prayer" is spooky and perfectly titled - sounds like monks in a huge medieval cathedral. Probably would have been #21 or #22 for me.

here's a spotify playlist: http://open.spotify.com/user/sp10000/playlist/36kXCKE1TDnsvQHiUCtfPt

#45

Wonderful - Smiley Smile
105 points, 5 votes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5CD40z6S60
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muSou79UFXQ&feature=related

One oddity I probably should have voted for: "The Old Folks at Home/Old Man River." They don't know the words to the latter, but the arrangement is so wistful and lyrical it doesn't matter.

this is one of those tracks whose life was completely sucked out on Smiley Smile. Love the Smile session work on it though.

"In Fort Worth, Texas there is a drug clinic which takes people off the streets and helps them get over bad LSD trips. They don't use any traditional medical treatment whatsoever. All they do is play the patient our Smiley Smile album and apparently this acts as a soothing remedy which relaxes them and helps them to recover completely from their trip."

... uhhhhhhhhh... perhaps Carl was referring to a secret CIA establishment investigating methods of extreme mental torture.

this is one of those tracks whose life was completely sucked out on Smiley Smile.

It just got really weird and creepy.

Thanks to Mike Love!

(prob)

off topic, but I'm going through that "singles collection" box and it appears there's lots of stuff in mono. Is Hushabye available in mono digitally anywhere else? I can't recall ever hearing it and it sounds great. What is it going to take to get some of those original albums in a mono/stereo twofer?

#43 (tie)

Wendy - All Summer Long
111 points, 6 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkqhZJTLulQ

hmm, never been crazy about this song. this clip is great though.

yeah I rate it in the lower half of their radio pop hits. not a bad song but nothing that really makes it stand out.

Oh, they're not spectacular but I think there are definitely things that make it stand out.

yeah Wendy is okay but nothing special imho. Brian's falsetto really does approach "Mickey Mouse with a sore throat" territory here, as Mike would say

good things about this track: Brian's vocal, Mike's tag, the amateurish organ solo, the Good Vibrations-esque changes in instrumentation and sound and use of open space, especially near the end. I see where people who slag it are coming from though.

listening to it now, i pretty much like everything about it except the "wennnnndy" part.

It's subtle. There's no chorus. And the refrain line is this beautiful derivative of the first line of the fantastic two-part verse.

The intro is incredible.

I don't understand. Our Prayer isn't an instrumental, and is one of the least "slight" things the BBs ever did. People go to school for decades and can't write stuff like that. Like, if that's slight, then Bach is AM Gold. :(

If you're trying to make me regret not voting for it, you've succeeded!

No, it's not an instrumental, but there aren't any lyrics, and it's just over a minute long. So that's why I called it "slight." But don't get me wrong: I still love it. Honestly, if I'd known it had so much support, I probably wouldn't have given it short shrift. Although I guess the other thing is that I felt like I already had too many Smile tracks.

but there aren't any lyrics

You know what I mean by this: the "mmm"s and "aah"s are vocables.

#43 (tie)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0b/Beach_Boys_-_Sail_On%2C_Sailor.jpg

Sail On Sailor - Holland
111 points, 6 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDWyxogL3KM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMdaFVovbng

man kinda wishing I had a stack of Beach Boys 45s just for the sleeve art alone

yeah another really nice one

This track epitomizes the mature Beach Boys sound

also their extensive use of beards

didn't vote but that would've been pretty high on mine

This was one of my last two or three cut - This Whole World and I Can Hear Music felt like better representations of this era and of course the Boys aren't singing. The lyrics and over-rhyming are really kind of ridiculous...VDP plus roots instrumentation doesn't really work. I love the song overall though. Who would have thought the Beach Boys would be singing about "sewer rats".

I sailed an ocean, unsettled ocean
Through restful waters and deep commotion
Often frightened, unenlightened
Sail on, sail on sailor

I wrest the waters, fight Neptune's waters
Sail through the sorrows of life's marauders
Unrepenting, often empty
Sail on, sail on sailor

Caught like a sewer rat alone but I sail
Bought like a crust of bread, but oh do I wail

Seldom stumble, never crumble
Try to tumble, life's a rumble
Feel the stinging I've been given
Never ending, unrelenting
Heartbreak searing, always fearing
Never caring, persevering
Sail on, sail on, sailor

I work the seaways, the gale-swept seaways
Past shipwrecked daughters of wicked waters
Uninspired, drenched and tired
Wail on, wail on, sailor

Always needing, even bleeding
Never feeding all my feelings
Damn the thunder, must I blunder
There's no wonder all I'm under
Stop the crying and the lying
And the sighing and my dying

Sail on, sail on sailor
Sail on, sail on sailor
Sail on, sail on sailor
Sail on, sail on sailor
Sail on, sail on sailor
Sail on, sail on sailor
Sail on, sail on sailor

who is singing lead on this, Blondie...?

love this song but you nailed why it's not top 20 for me.

yeah it's blondie

iirc carl also recorded the vocal but they prefered blondie's

Brian Wilson was not involved at all with the song's recording sessions, leaving the basic track to be recorded by Brian's brother Carl and ex-Flame and then-Beach Boys members Ricky Fataar and Blondie Chaplin. The lead vocal was first attempted by Dennis Wilson, who sang the vocal once before leaving to go surfing. Carl was the next to attempt a vocal, but he then suggested that Chaplin make an attempt. After two takes, Carl decided that Chaplin's vocal would feature as the lead.

lol

I think Chaplin and Fataar's contributions to the band during this time are generally underrated tbh