It's About Time: Beach Boys Poll Results

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

yeah, i think kaye is a pro who could read music -- she probably didn't write her lines. obviously a great sound. but most of the pet sounds bass stuff is doubled up with a string bass too, so it's not just her.

The vibraphone part is fun to play on a keyboard, it's almost all black keys

Point taken

McCartney has acknowledged modeling his melodic bass lines from Sgt. Pepper onwards on BW's on Pet Sounds

I went to a Kaye talk/bass clinic thing several years back that was pretty fun. She's kind of a character. It's pretty wild to think that she was like a mother of a couple of kids and worked pretty much non-stop in the studio, earning more money than a doctor did at the time. All in an era and an industry that you would think would have been intensely male-dominated.

yeah, i imagine studio musicians in the 50s-60s were totally sexist bros -- kaye must've had a tough personality.

Carol Kaye wasn't the only electric bass player on the Beach Boys' hits, by the way. Just as Earl Palmer and Jim Gordon subbed for Hal Blaine on a number of sessions, Ray Pohlman played on a number of BBs hits in place of Kaye. That's standard pretty standard with session musicians, though, and probably was even more so in LA in the 1960s, when records were produced so frequently and quickly.

can totally tell when carol kaye is on a record, also did great stuff with david axelrod

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.

oh man there are TONS of these kinds of "errors"/leftovers in BB mixes, conversations/talking, missed vocal cues, weird punch-ins, etc.

#22

This Whole World - Sunflower
209 points, 11 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xz5QDsYSto

love carl's vocals on that

& 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?

― tylerw, Wednesday, 17 August 2011 20:03 (53 minutes ago) Bookmark

Livin' With A Heartache is the only Boys' single with no backing harmonies. Just Carl singing a country song.

probably the catchiest BBs song with the weirdest chord changes. hits ever chord in the key at some point except for one iirc

xp

nice!

verse:
C F Em7 G Am F

A F#7 Bm7 E7 C#m

C# C#/C F#/Bb Ab7 Bbm Bbm/Ab F#maj7

break:
Bb Ebmaj7

Bb F G

ha, that's great. neat to get a glimpse into the weird little projects wilson was throwing into songs just for the hell of it, to entertain himself.
there's some story about him explaining how he wrote til i die where he says that he came up with the chords by twisting his fingers into the "coolest" shapes he could think of or something.

I wonder if it bugged him that he couldn't work a D chord in there somewhere

oh man there are TONS of these kinds of "errors"/leftovers in BB mixes, conversations/talking, missed vocal cues, weird punch-ins, etc.

I get warm and fuzzy just thinking about it. And the sad thing is, at the time I never would have believed I'd still want to hear this stuff 15 years later, and I only have a small percentage of what we recorded.

IMHO, you all need to be listening to more Beach Boys Love You.

i think there might be one or two love you tracks coming up!

I'd be surprised if there aren't tbh

my guess would be either The Night Was So Young or Johnny Carson...

god, I sure as hell hope not

I'll be surprised but not sad if no Love You tracks show up.

"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.

/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.

Just re-reading the lyrics, I have to say: violence is a real stretch here -- and sort of reeks of overanalysis. Mental abuse, sure. Bad boyfriend, agreed. But no way does this song suggest physical violence in any way. And frankly, if you imagine Mike Love singing instead of Brian, it all makes a lot more sense.

I had a few Love You tracks on my list that all got lost when whittling down to my top 20. "Honking Down the Highway", "The Night Was So Young", maybe "Let's Put Our Hearts Together" or "Good Time" would be in my top 40 certainly.

Great song, but for my money, I'll take its twin, "I'd Love Just Once to See You."

"when's the last time you baked me a pie?"

I was thinking of making a song that was just all the kitchen/dishes/food references in Brian's songs all strung together

cuz there are a LOT

have never been able to get into Love You because of the vocals, same reason I don't dig the 2004 Smile

I'm gonna chow down my vegetables

FOOD!

have never been able to get into Love You because of the vocals, same reason I don't dig the 2004 Smile

vocals (mostly Carl iirc) on the Night Was So Young are super-sweet!

huh, i just listened to that, sounded like brian mostly

hmm listening now - yeah you might be right. it seems less harsh/strained than some of the other songs, which made me think of Carl

Honking Down the Highway

Yes! The God Only Knows of Beach Boys Love You.

I pour some milk, and I start to think

you guys are gosh darn crazy

#21

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6a/Beach_Boys_-_Help_Me%2C_Rhonda.jpg

Help Me Rhonda - Today! / Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!)
210, 8 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81BjS3k_FZ8

As much as I hate Love You, there may be no better single moment in the Beach Boys catalog than the intro to "Let Us Go on This Way" - honk, synth, HEY!

it's really the synths and weird drums that make Love You for me...? as Wild Honey predates some 70s rock tropes, so Love You sort of predicts the synth-heavy 80s. I can't think of any other act of their vintage that was going balls-deep into synths like this album does, it's really rather striking.

well, the lyrics add a special something too

make me go *brrrr* LOL

Wow, Help Me Rhonda didn't even make top 20!!??

had to make room for "Mona"

which I am listening to right now and loving. disco disco discoteque mama I know yr gonna love Phil Spector

I ended up keeping both this and California Girls off my ballot despite their near perfection as pop singles. Hard to point to anything WRONG with Rhonda but it has been played to death and feels a bit repetitive and lyrically simple compared to the other tracks from Today.

I figured California Girls was a shoo-in anyway so yeah I didn't bother. it's perfect though.

I got behind on this thread & am now catching up. I was the #1 vote for "I'm Waiting For The Day"; one of the perfectest songs I know. Also I voted for "Barbara Ann" because it's fun to sing.

enjoying the book Heroes & Villains so far btw; didn't realize that Dennis had knocked up Mike Love's daughter, with whom he'd moved in with when she was 15...endless summer!

I don't really need to hear California Girls ever again, but I can never get tired of Help Me Rhonda. I love the 12 string riff and the bom-bom-bom line that leads into the chorus. And the almost "in media res" quality of the opening line.