defend the indefensible: "kokomo" by the beach boys

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How many times has a reference to "Kokomo" been followed by a photo of Koko the signing gorilla, Jess?

Redd Harvest (Ken L), Saturday, 31 December 2005 01:48 (eighteen years ago) link

i don't really hate this song

Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Saturday, 31 December 2005 02:25 (eighteen years ago) link

it reminds me of grade four

Freud Junior (Freud Junior), Saturday, 31 December 2005 08:27 (eighteen years ago) link

but it's far from the worst thing ever recorded!

Not that far.

However, the picture of Mike Love/Disney's California Adventure = classic*(classic

Joe (Joe), Saturday, 31 December 2005 13:36 (eighteen years ago) link

jaymc's story, sadly short on details, totally redeems this song.

Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Saturday, 31 December 2005 13:38 (eighteen years ago) link

four weeks pass...
Has anyone here heard the BB's Lei'd In Hawaii bootleg from 1967? It's all super mellowed-out Beach Boys peace music with only bass and organ accompaniment and gorgeous whispery Carl and Brian vocals. As much as I've always loathed this song, I'm wondering what I'd think of it with the Lei'd treatment...

Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Sunday, 29 January 2006 06:58 (eighteen years ago) link

Ok, five points for anyone who knew this factoid about "Kokomo". From a Terry Melcher interview I found on the web:

Throughout the '80s, the Beach Boys had placed several songs in films (The Big Chill, Lethal Weapon 2, Troop Beverly Hills, Soul Man). In '87 the amassed brain trust of Melcher, Love, ex-Papa John Phillips, and Scott McKenzie (of “San Francisco” fame) decided to try to write a song for the film Cocktail, derived from the scene where the Tom Cruise character moves from New York to Jamaica. Recalls Melcher, "We went into it to see if anyone could write a major hit for the band besides Brian. I figured a lot their hits had been travelogues like ‘Surfin' USA' and 'California Girls.'

“John Phillips had this idea about a kind of blues song about some place the band would go before they broke up. We changed all the words and chords around and I wrote the chorus. As far as the feel goes, I always loved Jimmy Buffett records, so I got a steel drummer, Van Dyke Parks played the accordion, Ry Cooder played the guitar and the slide, and Jim Keltner was the drummer, going for a 'Margaritaville' kind of thing.

"I just layered it until it all started to shimmer. What really made it was the out-of-tune accordion: it glued everything together, especially with the steel drum. Then we left the falsettos out of the harmonies rather than having somebody copy Brian." The song shot to No. 1 and led the Still Cruisin’ album to gold.

Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 01:28 (eighteen years ago) link

so i'm gonna be the first and only one here but i really like this song ! it's a huge party favorite of mine (yeah, we have some weird parties dancing limbo and singing karaoke to it).
of course it's totally cheezy and corny and all but still i enjoy it (not on the same level as i love brian's songs, obviously).
and not even in a nostalgic/ironic way !

AleXTC (AleXTC), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 11:51 (eighteen years ago) link

two years pass...

This is a bit of a banger, this one.

Dom Passantino, Saturday, 19 April 2008 10:43 (fifteen years ago) link

Indefensible. With the sole exception of the aforementioned Muppets version.
-- Stephen C (ihope), Friday, December 30, 2005 3:06 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Link

Above posts make it appear that the Muppets covered the Imus version.

If Timi Yuro would be still alive, most other singers could shut up, Saturday, 19 April 2008 10:55 (fifteen years ago) link

watching the muppets version on youtube, i notice that half of the lines are double entendres.

abanana, Saturday, 19 April 2008 11:40 (fifteen years ago) link

I brought in a tape with "Kokomo" on it to show & tell in 4th grade, when everyone else brought Nirvana, Weird Al and Guns & Roses tapes. Damn you, Beach Boys. I tried to explain to my classmates that it was Van Dyke Parks unorthodox accordion playing that really made the song, but no one would listen...

Z S, Saturday, 19 April 2008 14:17 (fifteen years ago) link

when I was in 5th grade, I wrote a pornographic version of this song while attending a performance of Jesus Christ Superstar with my grandma.

Cockomo?

stephen, Saturday, 19 April 2008 14:21 (fifteen years ago) link

prefer it to all other beach boys songs

J0hn D., Saturday, 19 April 2008 14:34 (fifteen years ago) link

Mike Love does it good.

Thus Sang Freud, Saturday, 19 April 2008 15:09 (fifteen years ago) link

prefer it to all other beach boys songs

-- J0hn D., Saturday, 19 April 2008 15:34 (36 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

^^^real talk

Dom Passantino, Saturday, 19 April 2008 15:10 (fifteen years ago) link

insanity

roxymuzak, Saturday, 19 April 2008 15:37 (fifteen years ago) link

Mike Love does it good.

-- Thus Sang Freud, Saturday, April 19, 2008 3:09 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

love mike love

dell, Saturday, 19 April 2008 16:48 (fifteen years ago) link

good tune

Curt1s Stephens, Saturday, 19 April 2008 17:47 (fifteen years ago) link

In a sense, this horrible makes other songs sound all that much better, so 'kokomo' acts as a palette cleanser of sorts, like the sprig of parsley between salad and entre, or the prune slivovitz between courses.

Chelvis, Saturday, 19 April 2008 18:00 (fifteen years ago) link

they are selling "15 Big Ones" for a buck around the corner from me. fuck, i should go pick that up; it's a great record.

dell, Saturday, 19 April 2008 18:00 (fifteen years ago) link

crutis if you love it so much, why don't you nom it for 1p3 top 100 songs

roxymuzak, Saturday, 19 April 2008 18:04 (fifteen years ago) link

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/00/15BigOnesCover.jpg

best album cover artwork, ever, to boot. fuckit, i'm buying this posthaste and gonna slam it up on my walls

dell, Saturday, 19 April 2008 18:07 (fifteen years ago) link

I think you get the meaning from my badly worded previous post: kokomo makes other music sound a little bit better.

Chelvis, Saturday, 19 April 2008 18:14 (fifteen years ago) link

secretly about this guy:
http://www.afropop.org/img/world_music/african_music/escaping/Kokomo.jpg

ian, Saturday, 19 April 2008 18:21 (fifteen years ago) link

Never minded "Kokomo" -- it's exactly how I would have envisioned the BB's sounding in the eighties had I been a littlet deuce coupe in the sixties.

Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Saturday, 19 April 2008 18:58 (fifteen years ago) link

http://www.beachboysband.net/BBBNEWS/MikeLove_Kokomo.gif

dell, Saturday, 19 April 2008 21:04 (fifteen years ago) link

quelle douche

roxymuzak, Saturday, 19 April 2008 21:08 (fifteen years ago) link

The 1p3 Top 100 Songs of All Time

Curt1s Stephens, Saturday, 19 April 2008 21:09 (fifteen years ago) link

Mike Love died for your sins!

Joe, Sunday, 20 April 2008 02:34 (fifteen years ago) link

Kevin Love declared early for Mike Love's sins.

briania, Sunday, 20 April 2008 02:35 (fifteen years ago) link

I like this song. I'm kind of relieved the see the hate is not universal.

daavid, Sunday, 20 April 2008 02:40 (fifteen years ago) link

Mike Love died for your sins!

It's true! Wait and see...

dell, Sunday, 20 April 2008 02:43 (fifteen years ago) link

let's see, what would I prefer - "teenage symphonies to God" or a pop song that goes well with a rum & coke? no fuckin contest yo, Dom I got the next round

J0hn D., Sunday, 20 April 2008 02:51 (fifteen years ago) link

I don't have a problem with the song itself, per se, but hearing it inspires mental images of John Stamos and the rest of the Full House gang, which I'd prefer not to have.

Pillbox, Sunday, 20 April 2008 02:57 (fifteen years ago) link

my ding a-ling >>>all other chuck berry songs

gershy, Sunday, 20 April 2008 05:38 (fifteen years ago) link

mikin' love out of nothin' at all

electricsound, Sunday, 20 April 2008 06:37 (fifteen years ago) link

i just remembered that my family tree includes people with the surname 'love'.. maybe i'm related to mike?????!

electricsound, Sunday, 20 April 2008 06:38 (fifteen years ago) link

i know someone who is related to him and met him in person; no joke. He was every bit as cheesy in the flesh as you'd imagine, from the story my friend related to me.

dell, Sunday, 20 April 2008 06:40 (fifteen years ago) link

a pop song that goes well with a rum & coke?

since when did we start using "go well with" to spin "could curdle"

El Tomboto, Sunday, 20 April 2008 13:59 (fifteen years ago) link

this song is mind torture from start to finish

El Tomboto, Sunday, 20 April 2008 14:00 (fifteen years ago) link

this song might actually be why i hate the beach boys. my sister used to play it obsessively when we were young.

ian, Sunday, 20 April 2008 14:17 (fifteen years ago) link

I guess the divide here is whether or not you had to withstand the song nonstop in 1988? I was 0 yrs old so back then all I ever heard was the Muppets version a couple of times

Curt1s Stephens, Sunday, 20 April 2008 14:24 (fifteen years ago) link

this song is bullshit~

omar little, Sunday, 20 April 2008 16:10 (fifteen years ago) link

best beatles song: free as a bird

omar little, Sunday, 20 April 2008 16:11 (fifteen years ago) link

lol

roxymuzak, Sunday, 20 April 2008 16:13 (fifteen years ago) link

cue some contrarian asshole saying "b-b-but it is!"

roxymuzak, Sunday, 20 April 2008 16:14 (fifteen years ago) link

a pop song that goes well with a rum & coke

But to paraphrase what many have sung, some things go better with coke...like approx. 100,000 pop songs (and actually quite a few of those teen symphonies to God).

Actually, I just heard it again and the chorus features a more agreeable chug than I remember. But the rest of the song doesn't. I don't hear how the accordion makes it special at all. And it's still a song abut repressed homosexuality. No gay guys like it. I know - I asked them.

Kevin John Bozelka, Sunday, 20 April 2008 16:15 (fifteen years ago) link

abut = Freudian slip

Kevin John Bozelka, Sunday, 20 April 2008 16:16 (fifteen years ago) link

I give in.

Dom Passantino, Sunday, 20 April 2008 16:20 (fifteen years ago) link

we'll get there fast and then we'll take it show makes sense

they want to get there (Kokomo) fast (b because they are excited for vacation)

then they'll take it show (chillax on vacation)

The Desus & Mero Chain (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 24 July 2018 13:09 (five years ago) link

fun fact: 'kokomo' is good

a Stupendous Leg of Granite (bizarro gazzara), Tuesday, 24 July 2018 13:13 (five years ago) link

not bad

a Stupendous Leg of Granite (bizarro gazzara), Tuesday, 24 July 2018 13:13 (five years ago) link

UMS: compare "Body Like a Back Road," specifically the line "I'ma take it slow just as fast as I can."

nonsensei (Ye Mad Puffin), Tuesday, 24 July 2018 13:23 (five years ago) link

I get more requests to write about this song than any other, and I have to say, "But it's not bad."

morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 24 July 2018 13:45 (five years ago) link

^ this guy fuckin' gets it

a Stupendous Leg of Granite (bizarro gazzara), Tuesday, 24 July 2018 13:46 (five years ago) link

it's bad

Οὖτις, Tuesday, 24 July 2018 15:47 (five years ago) link

I don't dislike it.

Police, Academy (cryptosicko), Tuesday, 24 July 2018 15:48 (five years ago) link

I was born in 1986 and it wasn't until like 2003 that I found out that the Beach Boys had more songs than "Kokomo"

frogbs, Tuesday, 24 July 2018 15:49 (five years ago) link

Best thing Stamos was ever involved in.

i’m still stanning (morrisp), Tuesday, 24 July 2018 15:50 (five years ago) link

UMS: compare "Body Like a Back Road," specifically the line "I'ma take it slow just as fast as I can."

― nonsensei (Ye Mad Puffin), Tuesday, July 24, 2018 8:23 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think it makes a lot more sense than this line

though "I'ma take it slow just as fast as I can." def has some "galaxy brain" appeal

The Desus & Mero Chain (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 24 July 2018 15:59 (five years ago) link

song/verse is so so and just kind of there but the catchy chorus alone def makes it. if nothing else then Mike Love hit a homerun there. this is a fast food jingle level earworm.

Hazy Maze Cave (Adam Bruneau), Tuesday, 24 July 2018 20:12 (five years ago) link

Yeah I have always liked this song while knowing (even as a kid) it was trash.
And the verses are nice but indeed the most catchy part is Love’s.
Actually I’m pretty sure if you ask 100 persons to sing « Good Vibrations », I’m pretty sure 60% will sing Mike’s chorus part.

AlXTC from Paris, Tuesday, 24 July 2018 20:35 (five years ago) link

60% of people are pretty dumb tbh

I think of the bit where Mark says "c'mon, feel it feel it!"

16, 35, DCP, Go! (sic), Tuesday, 24 July 2018 22:18 (five years ago) link

two years pass...

aruba jamaica oh I want to take you to
bermuda bahama let’s leave it up to fema
key largo montego baby my state’s a frozen igloo
oh I want to take you down to
cancun-o we'll get there fast and then I’ll shitpost slow
that's where mr. trump would go way down in cancun-o

— kilgore trout, back in some form (@KT_So_It_Goes) February 18, 2021

"what are you DOING to fleetwood mac??" (C. Grisso/McCain), Thursday, 18 February 2021 17:53 (three years ago) link


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