defend the indefensible: "kokomo" by the beach boys

i think i like "Still Cruisin'" better ... but "Kokomo" is pretty tight. I've never seen "Cocktail". Is "Kokomo" a credits-rolling song or is it used for a montage. Seems like a sweet montage. I can imagine it now. Anyway, "Kokomo." I'm listening to Charlie Parker right now, but in my brain, it's pure "Kokomo." The song has POWERS.

Also, Aretha's "First Snow in Kokomo."

So there you go, Kokomo is an island smaller than my parents front yard in a Sandals resort

xp to self

sloop john d.

I had always thought this was just about the worst song ever (and I am a huge Beach Boys fan) until I had the occasion to re-evaluate it when heard the Adam Green/Ben Kweller version and realized that there is actually a heartfelt song in there. (I do recommend that version).

The chorus is unforgivable but the melody is pure "Big Sur" Mike Love bliss. Some of the verses even scan OK.

Also, I hadn't realized that there was some actual private (?) island called Kokomo that might really be sublime enough to warrant a similar tribute (i.e. to that of "Big Sur"). Taken in that spirit, I can swallow it a whole lot easier.

I had previoulsy thought "Kokomo" was about the god-awful town in Indiana and therefore never understood the song any better than I could understand why Kokomo Arnold was first on about the place, other than it was his "sweet home". (First occurrence of reppin your endz?!)

Good, not great, song. Crappiest production ever, completely rubbish record. I would modestly endeavor to defend the song, as I think I have done, but not the "hit".

I quite prefer it to "Cheeseburger In Paradise" (unless you can track down the Xiu Xiu cover).

(btw J0hn, which song of yours should I jokingly refer to as a pastiche of "Sloop John B" in order to generate maximum ire?)

"Woke Up (and k)New (How Bad the Beach Boys Sucked)"

hahaha

chall-ops are responsible for this. watch out for the yellow helicopters.

"officer smith here. we need to get CSI out here. we've got several bodies in the sand. make it quick. they've got tropical drinks melting in their hands. yep. way down in kokomo. ok. over."

No one ever asked Beach Boys fan Nancy Reagan if she prefers "Kokomo" to "God Only Knows."

chall-ops/EMDs '08

Aww, thanks for the praise, Kevin JB! Just babblin' along here...

2. Did the song appear on a non-greatest hits BB album at the time? If so, which?

The album is called Still Cruisin' and it's extremely obscure (everyone just bought the soundtrack, I guess). Several tracks are re-recorded hits and IIRC there's a version of Wipe Out "featuring the Fat Boys." There's also a decent Al Jardine song called "Island Girl" (nothing to do with the Elton John song), a really good song called "In My Car" (not to be confused with the solo Brian Wilson song of the same title), and a couple other songs namechecked by me upthread.

I'd be hard-pressed to say it's a good, recommendable record, but I have nothing but fond associations with it due to childhood exposure, etc...

Does anyone know where I can get that lei'd in hawaii bootleg? I cant find it on soulseek or a torrent...

HELP

"Woke Up (and k)New (How Bad the Beach Boys Sucked)"

International Beach Boys Contrarian Blues

We'll put out to sea
And we'll perfect our chemistry
By and by we'll defy a little bit of gravity

You can't write worse lyrics than that.

Does anyone know where I can get that lei'd in hawaii bootleg?

http://warnakeysbeachboysblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/hello-all.html

I honestly didn't realize people disliked this song so much. It's fun! Probably like the most fun chorus ever!

2. Did the song appear on a non-greatest hits BB album at the time? If so, which?

The album is called Still Cruisin' and it's extremely obscure

It is pretty much a greatest hits though: two new songs, one Brian offcut credited to Eugene Landy, the Fat Boys song which had been a single, three songs they'd done for recent film soundtracks, one of which had also been a single [ie Kokomo], and three non-re-recorded old hits.

I guess the divide here is whether or not you had to withstand the song nonstop in 1988?

YES ... nonstop, and on "Full House" ... I associate this song with Bon Jovi's "Bad Medicine" because they were both inescapable and always seemed to be played back-to-back on the radio. The difference is that I can imagine a time in the far-off future when I might want to hear "Bad Medicine" again.

It is pretty much a greatest hits though

Well, okay, but a really weird one that has five recent, emphatically non-hit songs. If Magical Mystery Tour counts as an LP surely this does?

I probably get Kokomo in my head inadvertently more often than anything else by The Beach Boys. I don't really get the deal about them. Good Vibrations is OK but I get the idea that Wilson was just a douchebag, creeping into his girlfriend's sister's room in the middle of the night and fucking her. Dirty man.

You can't write worse lyrics than that.

PAGING PAUL WESTERBERG

Huh!? xpost

fucking weirdo

This song was awesome on an 80 degree day walking through soho with a bunch of vice magazine types with it blasting distorted out of a solar powered radio on a banana seat bike

yah that sounds awesome :/

that sounds horrible! but kind of perfect for the song.

calling a woman you are attracted to "mamma" is just fucking weird.

just because people dress like idiots doesn't mean they're not nice.

calling a woman you are attracted to "mamma" is just fucking weird.

-- Tracer Hand, Wednesday, April 23, 2008 11:57 AM (22 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

That's racist

truth bomb-bitty

http://www.kathygarver.com/mlovet.jpg
"step off, mama"

(Q)- You co-wrote "Kokomo" along with the late "Papa" John Phillips. (In 1988, The Beach Boys had their largest sales hit single, titled "Kokomo." The song, "Kokomo" was a featured in the motion picture "Cocktail" and "Kokomo" really put The Beach Boys back into the international spotlight.
Mike Love- I did indeed. John Phillips came up with the concept for the song in the verse and then I came up with the chorus. (Mike Love begins singing "Kokomo".) That was my contribution. I changed two words in the first verse and I rewrote the second verse in a little less, half a verse. So it was a true collaboration between John Phillips, myself and Terry Melcher, who produced the song. "Kokomo" went to Number One in 1988. Now that song, really, we're talking had a multigenerational appeal. It really helped to rejuvenate The Beach Boys career.

I was listening to some tracks from his unreleased "Unleash the Love" recording from several years back. It's actually pretty good in parts. Plenty of the Kokomo-ish vibe, for those who are so inclined.

I really love this song.

Well, okay, but a really weird one that has five recent, emphatically non-hit songs. If Magical Mystery Tour counts as an LP surely this does?

Magical Mystery Tour is a compilation too! (if in LP form)

i'm pleasantly surprised that a thread that i started with at best a half-serious intent has generated this much passionate debate.

carry on ;_;

and everybody's right, it's not like it's a big deal, it's just kind of an infantile thing to do and makes the people doing it look like fuckin morons, so i thought one of 'em might wanna know

that song, really, we're talking had a multigenerational appeal
that song, really, we're talking had a multigenerational appeal
that song, really, we're talking had a multigenerational appeal

so does anybody know where I can score an a cappella of this track

right here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyei99D1Mq8

ilx: solutions

I wouldn't have expected any better from Mike Love, but it was kind of sad to see John Phillips sink this deep musically.

Best Concert Ever.

I think the objectionable thing about this entire endeavor is the transformation of the "Beach" in the Beach Boys' identity from a sort of plausibly "universal" (ie teenagered) conception of sun, surf, fun, and all that...through the wistful-but-still-adult-reconsideration-of-same ("All Summer Long," "Surf's Up" etc)....to this boomer retiree scenario of "I scored a great deal on a time-share!" [...] The threat posed by "Kokomo" is that it will ruin all those other, less commodified beaches of yesteryear.

I would add to the above that it also moves the Beach of the band's name from any beach, your favorite beach, the beach at Lake Lanier Water Park, whatever....to a private resort beach for couples on tropical getaways. Sort of implicit in the above, but the place-d-ness of this bugs me, perhaps even moreso than the decision to firmly re-establish the Beach Boys as a Hawaiian-shirted beach-themed novelty act instead of a band that could, in theory, sing about all manner of things.

And yet I can't bring myself to really hate this:

i can practically set my watch by how this thread revives at opportune moments in my life o_O

This is a bit of a banger, this one.

― Dom Passantino, Saturday, April 19, 2008 11:43 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark

you can't front on that

this song reminds me of my grandparents' garage

http://www.sporcle.com/games/kokomo.php

I know all of you will get the first six but the last three are for KOKOMO PROS only.