It's About Time: Beach Boys Poll Results

xpost ... I dunno if it is a leap, actually. If you ever look at messageboards dealing with domestic violence, you'll see women recounting male behaviour patterns that pretty closely match those of the narrator of She Knows Me, before they tip over into hitting.

Shakey Mo - yeah, you're right. I was trying to make that point, but not clearly enough. But the sensitivity lies only in the music: the lyrics, on their own, are no one's idea of sensitive. But that juxtaposition is what makes the song sound like it's about a real person, and what makes it sinister. Whereas, in - say - Loudmouth by the Ramones, the violence in the music AND the lyrics means it can be dismissed as cartoon.

Yeah, I absolutely do not get hearing "It'd be another story if she looked at the guys" and immediately thinking of implied violence rather than just jealousy and sadness.

None of those are as jarring and disturbing as "Betsy took some beatings but she never once complained".... yeah I know it's about a car, but the obvious implication is that that's a positive attribute for a car/woman to put up with. Totally ruins the song for me, which sucks because it otherwise would be a kinda corny-but-sweet tune.

But it's not only in "it'd be another story if she looks at the guys", it's in the entire lyric, all of which add up to a picture of a cruel, angry and insecure man. The kind of character profile that ends up committing domestic violence - and which inform.
If "looks at the guys" was the only jealousy lyric here, it would be less troubling, but it's not the only one. And the sadness is communicated only by the music - not by the lyric; the music allows the lyric to be the narrator's romanticised self-presentation of his behavior. Even it that were the only jealousy lyric in the song, he'd still be a jerk.

Anyway, great song. Possibly my favourite Beach Boys song.

Sorry: delete the final sub clause of first par.

"Betsy took some beatings but she never once complained"

lol I never noticed this one but you are OTM

I see where you're coming from, but with Brian as the vocalist it's hard to imagine the character being some kind of sociopath. Jealous yes, violent no.

all of which add up to a picture of a cruel, angry and insecure man.

Disagree absolutely. The only other part that plays into this possible interpretation is the line about making her cry, which could easily just be because he is too overwhelmed by jealousy and sadness.

I don't think "She Knows Me Too Well" sounds like a violent man, just sort of "I know I'm jealous and insecure, and I know I don't deserve you. Thanks for putting up with me anyway"

I'm reading the song from a perspective nearly 50 years after it was written: so, I don't think the lyrics were intended at the time to be about a man as unpleasant as I'm perceiving him to be (but they were written by Mike Love, a man who appears to understand casual cruelty in a way Brian maybe doesn't). But I think it's valid, given the way perspectives on male behaviour and violence have changed in the intervening years, to read it this way. I certainly don't think you can read the lyric now and think the narrator is a good boyfriend.

She Knows Me Too Well is number one on my imaginary ballot

Making her cry MAKES HIM HAPPY. That's key.

Oh no, I hear that as a turn of phrase meaning that he couldn't let it go until it happened.

Someone has to be seriously mentally ill to actually be happy because they made somebody cry.

It's a reading is all. Still, given the lyric is written straightforwardly, with not a single metaphor elsewhere, I think you have to take that one literally: it's not a turn of phrase. And you're pretty weird if you won't let go of something till you've made someone cry, aren't you?

another song about domestic abuse:

#25

All I Wanna Do - Sunflower
189 points, 7 votes, 1 first place vote

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO_LX-m74uw

All I Wanna Do is number two on my imaginary ballot.

fuck, really should have voted

I totally think of this as like 'song I'd hear in the supermarket'

i heard it in a supermarket a couple weeks ago!

anyway, glad to see it (do it again) made it !

given the lyric is written straightforwardly, with not a single metaphor elsewhere, I think you have to take that one literally: it's not a turn of phrase.

Again, disagree absolutely.

gospin I'm collecting late ballots and showing the results w/ those after. you can still send one. also can send an album ballot cause I still haven't had time to count those.

we gospodin

errr stupid iphone

anyway this is impressively high for a song like this. I think it was in my top 5.

mike love's finest moment?

it was my #3 iirc

this and the alt version of big sur are top two mike love IMO

the "like the moon and stars shin brightly" bit, so gorgeous

um I guess it's nightly

Someone has to be seriously mentally ill to actually be happy because they made somebody cry.

I can't possibly imagine anyone in the Beach Boys being seriously mentally ill.

lol

speaking of which

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtQdHlcbj4s&feature=related

#24

Busy Doin Nothin - Friends
198 points, 8 votes, 1 first place vote

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

one of my favorite moments in their catalog, the blissful mundanity of it... otoh who voted it #1 cuz come on now

such a fantastic song

also one of their only stabs at bossa nova, which they should have done more of imho

hmm, this song has always been underwhelming to me. seems like one of those things where, if it had been recorded by anyone else, ppl would largely respond to it with an indifferent shrug, but b/c it's BW and ppl were looking so hard after smile debacle for further evidence of his genius, tracks such as this one end up being overcelebrated

imo

i mean would have been an interesting curiosity as a demo or whatever, (brian's exercise in working through writer's block plus bossanova!) but that's about it... no way this should have placed above say, sail on sailor! or johnny carson!

It seems like a lot of the post-Smile/Smiley Smile tracks that people lobbied for have already appeared. Is Darlin' going to be the only one to make it into the top 20?

otoh who voted it #1 cuz come on now

*raises hand*

agreed completely, del.

It seems like a lot of the post-Smile/Smiley Smile tracks that people lobbied for have already appeared. Is Darlin' going to be the only one to make it into the top 20?

Kokomo? :)

I think it makes more sense in the context of the album - the 'peak' moment in 30mins of nonstop laid back beach stoner tunes xp

I also voted for "This Whole World."

i mean would have been an interesting curiosity as a demo or whatever, (brian's exercise in working through writer's block plus bossanova!) but that's about it... no way this should have placed above say, sail on sailor! or johnny carson!

I'd put it about on the same level as those actually, although Sail On Sailor has a better hook. But I like this tune precisely because of its modest ambitions, it's less-than-ponderous "a day in the life" quality (of a piece with "I Went To Sleep") it really paints an evocative picture of late 60s LA burnout, things are sunny and wood-panelled and mellow, but it's all predicated on a withdrawal, on a scaling down. there's no more partying or nerve-wracking emotional rollercoaster rides, just a fat guy at a piano thinkin baout Joao Gilberto...

xp

like I don't think any song in 'friends' would be a masterpiece outside of context, but this one feels like one in its context

also it's my favorite bb album xp

Kokomo? :)

I don't think underrated aerosmith voted in this poll

I wrote this about "Busy Doin' Nothin" a while ago:

Brian Wilson has said that Pet Sounds is the best Beach Boys album but that Friends is his favorite, the one he reaches for most. I do, too: its breeziness makes it a perfect Saturday morning record, especially on a verandah somewhere in northern California when it's clear and sunny and in the mid-sixties. "Busy Doin' Nothin,'" a soft bossanova with a lilting clarinet line not unlike some of Antonio Carlos Jobim's arrangements of this era, most literalizes this mood by being about, well, a lazy day in the life of Brian Wilson. He fills the verses with small talk about the weather, but the choruses take these banalities even further. In the first Wilson gives the listener detailed directions to his house, while in the second he takes us through the sudden crisis of not being able to remember a friend's phone number. As with "Caroline, No," it's a rare solo vocal performance, but whereas that song sacrificed the band's trademark harmonies to give Wilson space to mourn, there is little overt emotionalism here. The inevitable sense of loneliness only occurs later, as you imagine the by-now ill and drug-addled Wilson puttering around his place, just trying to stay calm and focused on something. And yet there's a beauty in this nothingness, too: a pop song for a kind of pleasant everyday boredom.

Sharpened up a pencil.

yeah, it salvages something sweet and beautiful from boredom

In the first Wilson gives the listener detailed directions to his house, while in the second he takes us through the sudden crisis of not being able to remember a friend's phone number.

seriously just seeing this described elicits a chuckle from me, I can't help it