It's About Time: Beach Boys Poll Results

Because it got to number one in the UK.

I had forgotten about this track and am regretting not voting for it. If you ignore the lyrics there's nothing "oldies" about it. Those lyrics an uncanny telegraphy of what they would end up becoming though.

In the U.S. it's a nonentity on the radio.

rather, in my experience it has been a nonentity on the radio.

it's not uncanny it's mike love's masterplan

you could probably do a poll of beach boys tunes with the "hey, remember when" vibe ... though thinking about it, do it again would win hands down. unless of course, "still cruisin'" shows up at the #1 spot on this thread. fingers crossed!

All those "early" BeachBoys classics, "I get around" excepted, did not break the top 20 over here.

Until "Barbara Ann" and the Pet Sounds singles, onwards...

I am from California and maybe our oldies stations are more sophisticated when it comes to the beach boys. or maybe my local station just liked the song.

"Summer in Paradise", baby!

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

i'm from southern california deep in the heart of beach boys country USA, and i missed hearing do it again until i bought the good vibrations box set.

I also grew up listening to K-Earth (thanks Dad) and never heard "Do It Again".

yeah, k-earth one oh onnnnnne.

I'm in the UK and I don't think I heard that track until I started buying all the albums in the 90s. Mind you, I never listen to tin-pot local radio.

i can still remember my dad being annoyed when k-earth started playing more 60s stuff. like the byrds' mr. tambourine man, he'd say "this isn't an oldie!" that was probably the moment when he realized he was old.

#27

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Beach_Boys_-_When_I_Grow_Up_(to_be_a_man).jpg

She Knows Me Too Well - Today!
178 points 7 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7-05fXS_Q

Far too low, but I didn't vote, so it's my own fault. If I'm pressed I'll often say it's my favourite.

yeah, this is a fave. the ballads on this record!

fantastic song.

xp to tyler - great story. Kind of how I felt when they started recasting classic rock stations into "the best of the 70s, 80s, 90s and today" and played Nirvana and Soundgarden alongside Boston and the Allman Brothers.

didn't vote for this one but it's a winner. More straightforward and doo-wop than some of the other Today tracks, just as affecting.

haha nirvana gets played both on classic rock and modern rock stations

Love this song, easily the highlight of Today for me.

(how I felt, in reverse)

xp yeah it is funny -- that would've been mid 80s, so the byrds were like 20 years old at the time. so by that logic, nevermind should start getting played on k-earth right about now.

Well, I don't mind any of that, it's more when they say "Hey, the Eighties!!!" and play Spandau/Duran/etc like that was what we *all* liked...

yeah, k-earth one oh onnnnnne.

^^^right there with you

never heard Do It Again until I bought the twofer, have definitely never heard it on the radio. amazing song though (I think I voted for it?) glad to see the love. the point about the drums + smile tag + aggro sound all clashing with the lyric is very OTM

xp

man you guys REALLY love Today! don't you (is every song on side 2 gonna place?)

played Nirvana and Soundgarden alongside Boston

this doesn't really bother me personally. in some ways the aesthetic gulf between the Byrds and Chuck Berry is much wider than the one between Boston and Nirvana

#26

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/74/SurferGirlCover.jpg

Surfer Girl - Surfer Girl
184 points, 9 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5OHy6ThZf4

surprisingly low maybe

a lot of inevitable stuff left to place but there are a few things coming up today that I'm surprised beat this

this and In My Room are kinda the first ballads in their catalog to really stand out imho

man you guys REALLY love Today! don't you (is every song on side 2 gonna place?)

― that mellow wash of meh (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 17 August 2011 16:23 (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

Wouldn't surprise me. That is one of the most sophisticated run of ballads in rock history.

Surfer Girl is so good. I think it's their first great album.

rehearsal version from hawaii (1967?) is breathtaking. great song.

She Knows Me Too Well is such an amazing song, and one of the most lyrically troubling in 60s pop: it's the sound of the sweet bastard, the man who beats his girlfriend, but she refuses to leave him because "most of the time he's lovely and he swears he'll never do it again". (Yes, I know the lyric isn't actually about a violent man, but it's not that far of a leap). The bastard is in the lyrics, the sweet guy in the music, especially those pillowy, seductive harmonies in the chorus: how can you distrust a man who sounds like this, even if that unremitting bassline suggests a tension that isn't present elsewhere in the BBs' mid-60s music.

But what's most unsettling of all is that the singer of the song forgives himself. Even though he has a weird way of showing his love, even though he's not happy til he makes her break down and cry, even though he looks at other girls and woe betide her if she looks at the guys – despite all that, she can tell he really loves her. By any rational analysis, this man is dangerous. She should get out of that relationship. But God only knows what would happen to her if she should ever leave him. It would be bloody.

in some ways the aesthetic gulf between the Byrds and Chuck Berry is much wider than the one between Boston and Nirvana

I voted for three songs from Today! side 2

nice post, ithappens. yeah that song captures the terror at the heart of so many beach boys love songs.

Surfer Girl is obviously a classic but the Beach Boys had a number of better and more interesting ballads. With only 20 votes there was only so much room for pre-Pet Sounds slow songs and this didn't make the cut.

I'll make the counter-argument: if by interesting we're talking about being exploratory, I don't think it needs to be any more interesting.

(Should point out, by the way, that the first fourteen seconds of the song is I-iii-vi-iii-IV-ii-V, which has nothing to do with the chord progressions in the rest of the song.)

yeah, I was torn between Surfer Girl, In My Room, and Warmth of the Sun. I didn't want to include all three, and WotS won.

timellison - what song are you talking about?

Oh, "Surfer Girl" - sorry.

great post ithappens. "She Knows Me So Well" is even more troubling than the Beatles' "Getting Better" or "Run For Your Life".

eh I dunno mysogyny, possessiveness and implied violence towards women was (is?) a pretty heavy feature of popular music going waaaaay back - if anything it's the veneer of sensitivity that makes those songs odd.

personally I've always imagined Run For Your Life being sung by some mustache-twirling vaudeville villain, it's so silly

"Implied violence" is a leap for "She Knows Me Too Well."

man you guys REALLY love Today! don't you (is every song on side 2 gonna place?)

Well I highly doubt "Bull Session with the 'Big Daddy'" is going to place anywhere...

"Surfer Girl" shoulda been top 20 at least. The harmonies are unreal.

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.