It's About Time: Beach Boys Poll Results

#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

those actually seem like really vague directions. I'm trying to imagine talking to Brian on the phone circa 1967 while he gives these rambling directions to his house that focus on all the wrong details.

"so then you turn left and, you see, it's a lot like Phil Spector..."

the lyrics were actually written by charles manson, the directions are to terry melcher's house

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

I know! I love how banal it is!

Never Turn Not to the Left
xp

"so then you turn left and, you see, it's a lot like Phil Spector..."

LOL

"so then you turn left and, you see, it's a lot like Phil Spector..."

lol

xp

"She Knows Me Too Well" & "Busy Doin' Nothin'" would have been on my ballot if I'd thought harder.

#23

Let Him Run Wild - Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!)
203 points, 8 votes, 1 first place vote

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

Yay, the first one on here that I probably couldn't live without.

TOO LOW!!!

a lot of stuff has to fit in the last 22

i dunno, i like "wild" but it's never been a big fave.

it would have fit in fine on Pet Sounds IMO

"busy doin' nothing" though! love it. just great that in the late 60s when everything was getting crazy cosmic/psychedelic, wilson was writing a song like this.

he really tapped into the come-down vibe of the '70s earlier than a lot of his contemporaries huh?

that's otm. explains the "70's radio" sound of Wild Honey someone mentioned earlier

& yeah, interesting point about it being a solo vocal (no backup vocals?). Along with "caroline no" are there others in the beach boys catalog? does "back of my mind" have backing vocals?

Think Brian is double-tracked on the "choruses" in "Busy Doin' Nothin'."

I just checked my outbox to see if I was the guy who placed this at #1. I'm not, but it was way up there (#4). This is my favorite production-wise though. I've made a handful of recordings over the years, and dabbled in record producing, and this is pretty much what I try to make most of my stuff sound like. Just so incredibly rich and lush, "he would just saturate the tape" (can't remember who I'm quoting).

P.S. it's tragic that Gold Star Studios is long gone. That place was just magic, that incredible reverberation you hear here and on most of Phil Spector classics. When you read about the "wall of sound", these were the actual walls that formed it. I can often pick out records that were made there when I hear them - its sound is just that distinctive.

xp actually he might be doubletracked on "caroline no" too. but not a vocal harmony or anything.

and yes! gold star! love listening to those pet sounds sessions just to hear the reverb, the overall sound of those musicians!
http://www.goldstarrecordingstudios.com/galler1.gif

Let Him Run Wild was my #1

for some reason it was on the first Beach Boys "best of" I heard as a child and it blew my little fragile mind

"Be Still" is just dennis singing, no backup

Hard to tell, but aren't there other vocal lines (i.e., not just matching, double-tracking) on the "Want to go and cry/So sad to watch a sweet thing die" part of "Caroline, No?"

"Busy Doin' Nothin'" was the last song I cut when trying to reduce my favorites to just 20.

The double-tracking on '60s Beach Boys records was much sloppier than the Beatles (before they started using ADT). The two voices sometimes come in or take breaths in different places. On "Be With Me", on the second chorus Dennis sings "it could set you free" one time and "it could set us free" the other; it went uncorrected.

I love the way the whole first verse of LHRW is like an extended intro that builds up toward the chorus. And check out that bass line.

Carol Kaye = God

I think Wilson's bass lines are kind of the hidden foundation of his genius, much like Paul McCartney.

Kaye is great but I think it's unlikely she wrote any of the bass parts.

it's kinda funny how the plinky plunky Fender Jaguar fit so well into the early Beach Boys sound- like the guitar was made for that band