It's About Time: Beach Boys Poll Results

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.

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.