A Cork on the Ocean: Beach Boys and Wilson Brothers song-by-song

Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!) is another lp from The Beach Boys Deluxe Set that I bought around 1970. It's also in duophonic, but it was these three albums that solidified my love of The Beach Boys. Summer Days was my initial favorite of the three, at the time it had the most hits that I remembered and liked. The hits were accessible to 13-year-old-ears, their complexity made them interesting. The other two records in the set were beyond me at first, but I soon came to love the other records more. Still, Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) is very good when listened to as a whole, and it was a great album for a budding guitar player to play along with. I don't usually mess with the track sequence, although I do sometimes listen to it in chronological order of when Brian recorded the instrumental tracks. I think the album holds together really well, and even the songs I consider to be weaker are pretty amazing in one aspect or another. I would go back and raise the scores on a couple of them, but I'm just another guy on the internet and my ratings really don't matter that much. 4/5

Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!) in chronological order (I think)
Help Me Rhonda [single]
Salt Lake City
Let Him Run Wild
California Girls
Girl Don't Tell Me
Then I Kissed Her
Amusement Parks U.S.A.
Summer Means New Love
The Girl From New York City
You're So Good To Me
I'm Bugged At My Old Man
And Your Dream Comes True​

PS It's so great that there are people in this thread who have discovered this music and are enthusiastic about it many years after it came out. I hope it still sounds as fresh for you when you're in your sixties as it does for me.

 

This album is a puzzle.
How much is it all Brian and how much is it Capitol pushing the fun in the sun angle?
Just want to say as well, great cover, even though the dentist is missing.
Maybe he's down below, looking at x-rays.

Another thing I wonder, does every album have to have 12 tracks?

Those Liverpudians had 11 on their Capitol LPs.
Did the Beach Boys, in their contract specify 12 songs.
I guess I am saying that maybe these talky and silly "comedy" tracks were not filler, and were put there because Brian wanted them to be there.
Or with 12 tracks more publishing money for Sea Of Tunes.
Tòo bad nobody asked these questions.
Does anyone know besides Brian?

Or at this point, who cares, just enjoy the good stuff.

 

Love Bruce & Terry's version of "Four Strong Winds." Probably my favorite of all the (many) versions I've heard. "Raining in My Heart" was always a bit boring to me, regardless of the performer.

I have no idea how you are are keeping track of all the Beach Boys songs and in what order to cover them. You are obviously better at organizing things than I am. I like your revised track list much better than Capitol's, although I probably wouldn't listen all the way through the album every time.

The "Sandy" track is just wonderful. Brian was using a lot of prominent organ around this time, which added a fun touch to many tracks.

 

12 was by far the standard at the time. The Beatles' releases were thrown together from tracks on UK albums. Maybe they were hoping to eventually get an extra Beatles' album out of it by "saving" one track each time? That would have resulted in a ton more money for the label!

 

Summer Days - 5/5

 

Summer Days 3.875 / 5.0

 

Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!)

The sound is more expansive than that of its predecessor (whose sound suffers sometimes from perhaps too many bounce downs or inferior recording equipment).

"Amusement Parks U.S.A." is as wild as any of the rides mentioned in the song, plus an experienced carnival barker in Harold Belsky.

"I'm Bugged..." never fails to raise a smirk from me, although the '76 version is even better, with Carl cracking up after Brian hollers ..."breadCRUMBS..."

4.5/5

 

Summer Days (And Summer Nights!)
We still don't have the perfect Beach Boys album yet. With its core of truly excellent songs we also have a couple of ho hum offerings that serve to bring the overall score downwards. This is another album that would have made for a better listening experience with a sequencing reshuffle. Maybe the suits at Capitol had a hand in that respect, or maybe Brian held the reins very tightly and insisted on this running order. For me, although far from a disappointment, it's probably fair to award 3.5/5

 

"Sandy, She Needs Me"

4/5 Definitely points to the next era of Beach Boys and Brian Wilson songs.



"Summer Days (and Summer Nights" As an album: 4.5/5. Just as good as that other band's mid 60's output.

 

Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) (July 5, 1965) = Average: 4.3333333333333
A1: The Girl from New York City (1:54) = 4
A2: Amusement Parks U.S.A. (2:29) = 4
A3: Then I Kissed Her (2:15) = 5
A4: Salt Lake City (2:00) = 4
A5: Girl Don't Tell Me (2:19) = 4
A6: Help Me, Rhonda (2:46) = 5
B1: California Girls (2:46) = 5
B2: Let Him Run Wild (2:20) = 4
B3: You're So Good To Me (2:14) = 5
B4: Summer Means New Love (1:59) = 4
B5: I'm Bugged At My Ol' Man (2:17) = 4
B6: And Your Dream Comes True (1:04) = 4

Extras:
Sandy, She Needs Me = 3
Note: Sounds like it could’ve been great if finished.
> Raining In My Heart - Bruce & Terry = 4
> Four Strong Winds - Bruce & Terry = 4
> One Of These Days - The Flames = 5
> Sandy - Ronnie And The Daytonas = 4
> Landy You Need Me - Lee Dempsey = 3

 

"Sandy She Needs Me" - Yep, with a lyrical revision and lead vocal it should have taken the place of "Bugged." I didn't realize Russ Titelman co-wrote this. It feels like another step closer to Pet Sounds. Despite the 1976 vocal, the Made in America mix is my favorite. I'll give that 3.8/5 The mostly instrumental version here I would give 3.5/5

Summer Days (and Summer Nights) - I've heard these songs for years and they aren't as fresh as they used to be. I'm rating on how I feel about them now.

Lance has made a strong case of how these albums sequentially reflect maturing from teenhood to adulthood, but some songs really seem to go backwards to All Summer Long. I haven't kept up rating each song and I'm only rating (or more critically re-rating) these now to get a feel for how to rate the album. For me there aren't enough really strong songs and there's a feeling of "a hassle (rush) to finish (fill) the album." Maybe a revised sequence would change my mind, but I don't think so. A step down from Today for me. 3.5/5

Top Notch:
California Girls - Everything comes together beautifully to create a classic. 5/5

Near Top Notch:
Let Him Run Wild - I agree a little bit with Brian about his vocal. 4.5

Average to Above Average (too hard to rate): 3.0 to 3.5
Help Me Rhonda - Probably should be a 5 but the repetition gets to me
Salt Lake City - The production is better than the song
Amusement Parks USA -Ditto
Girl Don't Tell Me - Feels a little undeveloped but what's here is nice
Girl from NYC - Ditto
You're So Good to Me - Great verse riff and melody but chorus is a letdown
I'm Bugged at My Old Man - Filler but I still enjoy it

Pleasant but feel like unused songs from 1963:
Summer Means New Love - This does have a nice, if easy listening, production. 3
And Your Dreams Come True 3

Song I Just Don't Like
Then I Kissed Her - The performance and production are fine, I've just come to find the composition annoyingly simplistic musically and lyrically. 2

 

I have a lot of affection for Bruce & Terry, but I prefer The Searchers' version from the same year. Plus, I like the fact they retained the line about going out to Alberta, which is missing from Bruce & Terry's cover:

 

It sure does. Sometimes I actually don't like coming across things like this, though. It's so compelling I want to hear the finished version, but there isn't one.

 

Love the Searchers' version, too. More folky, whereas B & T's is more poppy. Searchers are one of my favorite UK groups.

 

The album it comes from -- Take Me For What I'm Worth -- was their last LP of the sixties and I think it's great, both in its UK format and the US one (track lists slightly different). Not too hard to find, either, as it was reissued on UK Pye in the early '80s and those sound great.

 

Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!)
Give a big 5/5.

 

SummerDays- glad we have it but a definite step down from Today. 3.5/5

 

Our votes for Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!)
1-0
2-0
3-2
4-21
5-7
Average: 4.0488

 

Albums discussed so far:
Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!) is the third-highest rated album we've discussed so far.

1. Surfin' Safari 2.7907
2. Surfin' U.S.A. 2.7875
3. Surfer Girl 3.752
4. Little Deuce Coupe 3.2906
5. The Big Beat 1963 3.52
6. Shut Down, Volume 2 3.06
7. The Lost Concert 4.4846
8. All Summer Long 4.1846
9. Live In Sacramento 1964 2.6286
10. Beach Boys Concert 2.5673
11. The Beach Boys' Christmas Album 3.3337
12. Keep An Eye On Summer: Beach Boys Sessions 1964 4.5
13. Sessions '64!! 4
14. Today! 4.4431
15. Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!) 4.0488

Studio Albums ranked:

1. Today! 4.4431
2. All Summer Long 4.1845
3. Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!) 4.0488
4. Surfer Girl 3.752
5. The Beach Boys' Christmas Album 3.3337
6. Little Deuce Coupe 3.2906
7. Shut Down Volume 2 3.06
8. Surfin' Safari 2.7907
9. Surfin' U.S.A. 2.7875

Live albums, compilations, etc ranked

1. Keep An Eye on Summer: Beach Boys Sessions 1964 4.6
2. The Lost Concert 4.4846
3. Sessions '64 4
4. Live In Chicago 1965 3.8333
5. The Big Beat 1963 3.52
6. Live In Sacramento 1964 2.6286
7. Beach Boys Concert 2.5673

 

Today’s song is “Graduation Day”, music by Joel Sherman; lyrics by Noel Sherman. Arranged by Brian Wilson. Produced by Brian Wilson with an uncredited Bruce Johnston.

The Beach Boys – Graduation Day Lyrics | Genius Lyrics
Background:
“Graduation Day” was a cover of a Four Freshmen song that was a staple in Beach Boys concerts — in fact, both the already discussed Concert and Live In Sacramento 1964 albums contained covers of the song.

Dennis and Bruce were both in the control booth while Brian, Al, MIke and Carl were recording, but Dennis left for a short time (I'll be back in ten minutes!)and while Dennis was gone, the group nailed the take and double-tracked it.
Line Up:
Carl Wilson: guitars, group vocals
Brian Wilson: group vocals
Al Jardine: group vocals
Mike Love: group vocals

This version of “Graduation Day" was an outtake from Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!), first released in 1990 on the Today!/Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!) CD twofer and again on the 2001 remaster of the same.

Alternate mix:
This same studio version, but with a longer studio extract included at the beginning, was released on Made In California in 2013. The studio extract is, in my opinion, interesting, ,so I'll post it below.

"Graduation Day" was also included as a bonus track on The Original US Singles Collection The Capitol Years 1962–1965.

Live Versions:

• Live In Sacramento 2964 2x (released 2014)
• Beach Boys Concert (1964)
• Graduation Day 1966: Live at the University of Michigan 2x (released in 2016)

I believe the version on Beach Boys Concert was also included on Spirit of America (1975) and The Capitol Years box set in 1980

 

With session extract at beginning.

 

Live in Sacramento 1964: Extended Mike Banter warning.

 

Live at University of Michigan in 1966: Extended Mike Banter warning. Apparently The Beach Boys were picketed at the University of Michigan for "undermining the advancement of culture." But also it's interesting because someone behind Mike's voice says something like "OK, move it along, what's the name of the song?" Who is it? It doesn't sound like any of The Beach Boys to me.

 

I think the (Session Excerpt and Master Take)* version is the keeper for me, gives it a little something extra, and it helps to have a loose intro to this because the song is kinda very starched.

Don't even know if I actually like the number, would have to guess not — the live performances don't even hold my interest — but the master take is so nicely done.

*4.3234/5

Put a little indignation introduced as self-effacement, or a touch more if you hear it already, in Mike's voice on the Michigan intro and you have a preview of vintage 1970s Steve Martin comedy LP delivery.

 

Tomorrow I’m going to start holding up songs from Beach Boys Party!




The Beach Boys were on tour when Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!) were released, with Bruce Johnston now a permanent fixture of the band. They would play a total of 115 shows in in North America in1965, each one netting thousands of dollars for the group. Most shows were sold out, though one gig in the Boston area was poorly attended — a show that had been absolutely sold out the year before — a harbinger of their dwindling fortunes on the East Coast.

During a short break between long spates of gigs, Dennis married his girlfriend Carol Friedman, whose son, Scott, he would eventually adopt. This happened on July 27th, 1965, a few days before the band set off for a tour of Hawaii.


While The Beach Boys travelled across North America, back in L.A., Brian now found himself as a sort of pop prince: three years of steady hit-making had propelled him into the upper echelons of American pop.

His behavior became ever-more eccentric as he led a nocturnal lifestyle surrounded by his friends at his mansion with Marilyn on Laurel Way, and he continued his experimentation with LSD, taking the powerful drug perhaps up to two dozen times in 1965 and smoking weed as often as he could with select friends in a huge tent he had erected inside his living room.

Everything the city had to offer was at Brian's beck and call no matter what the hour: stories abound of him demanding things like telescopes or ping-pong tables at all hours of the night and getting what he wanted, whenever he wanted.

Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!) had seen Brian creating a new kind of grand symphonic, post-Spector pop on some of the songs and Brian was eager to continue with music in that vein. However, writing such music was a matter of much work. According to Steve Desper (though I’m not sure if he had first-hand experience from this time) in this time Brian began writing and recording small piano demos that he called “feels" — chord progressions, or melodic ideas. These “feels” might be as short as 30 seconds or as long as a minute and a half. From these “feels" he began putting together tracks or songs, many of them yet without lyrics, thus creating the densely layered tapestry of interlocking melodies that characterised his work in his High Period. It was a time consuming process.

In early August, little over a month after the release of Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!) Capitol called a meeting with Brian and told him that they expected the submission of a third album by October 1965, in time for a release that would coincide with the Christmas season.

Brian knew he was at his peak and he knew that what he was working on would be his greatest work to date and he was determined to do it right and not rush his muse. He also knew there was no way he was going to have his next major work done by October. He could compromise and put out a few classic songs alongside some filler tracks as he had done in 1963…indeed, as he had just done with Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!) or he could come up with an alternative solution. At any rate, he needed to buy time.

In March, The Beach Boys had recorded a pair of shows in Chicago exactly for this eventuality, but when meeting with the other members, that idea was rejected for whatever reason, probably because they had just released a live album in autumn ’64 and to do so again a year later was neither a commercially sound idea, nor was it artistically fulfilling for the restless Brian.

They also discussed the release of a Greatest Hits album to tide Capitol over — but in those days, releasing a Greatest Hits album was tantamount to announcing that your career was over, so that idea was quickly dismissed.

In the end, Mike had the idea to record a live set of covers at a party, surrounded by their friends and family…something loose and fun and easy. Brian loved the idea and ran with it.

Brian’s perfectionism, of course, (as well as his technical no-how and experience which told him that recording at an actual party was not a good idea) meant that Beach Boys Party! would be recorded in the studio. But it would be recorded live, vocals and instruments alike, with acoustic guitars, no drums and electric bass guitar with almost no overdubs…and it would mainly be recorded by The Beach Boys themselves, alongside a few friends on percussion and other supporting instruments.

The initial session was in mid-August, 1965, but if Brian hoped to record it all in one session, it was not to be; after that session, the five touring Beach Boys returned to their relentless tour: in the meantime they rehearsed various songs that they might use on the album.

Recording really began in earnest in September. Sessions were deliberately fast and loose, instrumental and vocal flubs, some of which were intentional, went unsweetened, and to some extent and between-take chatter was intentionally left in. The band was encouraged to drink alcohol in the studio to loosen them up and get them into a “party" mood.

In between sessions, the band played gigs in various parts of the eastern USA and Al turned 23.

There were four studio sessions in September, after which Brian recorded a special session with The Beach Boys and their various wives, wives-to-be, girlfriends and friends — a session of an actual party held in the studio.

Then he selected the best or most spirited performances, and edited them together with the party sound effects to create something unique: a live-in-the-studio album; an album of songs played on acoustic guitars, which was currently in vogue; and a party album.

All that and a bag of chips. Literally. Early promo pressings of Beach Boys Party! were apparently released with a bag of Beach Boys potato chips, artificially flavoured to taste like Dennis.

The fossilised remains of these chips are prized collector’s items nowadays.

Beach Boys Party! was submitted to Capitol in October just as they had demanded, right at the time that Beach Boys Today! went gold. It was released on November 8th, 1965 a week before Surfin’ USA and Surfer Girl were also certified gold, as the Beach Boys’ ongoing audit of Capitol continued.

In the time between submission and release, Mike married his girlfriend, Suzanne Belcher on October 15th.


Beach Boys Party! was a swift hit, going to #6 in the US, #3 in the UK and #4 in West Germany. As of 2012, it had sold about 400,000 copies in the USA alone, with an additional 20,000 copies of the CD twofer (paired with Stack-o-Tracks) sold. It was then the 14th highest selling Beach Boys album (not counting compilations) and the 22nd overall.

The tracklist was:

1. Hully Gully (Fred Smith, Cliff Goldsmith)
2. I Should Have Known Better (John Lennon, Paul McCartney)
3. Tell Me Why (Lennon, McCartney)
4. Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow (Carl White, Al Frazier, Sonny Harris, Turner Wilson, Jr)
5. Mountain of Love (Harold Dorman)
6. You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away (Lennon, McCartney)
7. Devoted to You (Felice & Bordleaux Bryant)
8. Alley Oop (Dallas Frazier
9. There’s No Other (Like My Baby) (Phil Spector, Leroy Bates)
10. Medley: I Get Around/Little Deuce Coupe (Brian Wilson, Mike Love/Wilson, Roger Christian)
11. The Times They Are a-Changin’ (Bob Dylan)
12. Barbara Ann (Fred Fassert)

In addition to the above, I’m going to hold up the following extra-album tracks:

• Ruby Baby [Take 1]
• Blowin’ in the Wind (Bob Dylan)
• Satisfaction [Take 1] (Mick Jagger, Keith Richards)
• Riot in Cell Block #9 [#2]
• One Kiss Led to Another

I’ll hold up the above five songs in two days: on the second day I will also hold up:

• Party! Uncovered and Unplugged (2015) This archival release presents the album in stereo without the party sound effects, alongside various alternate run-throughs and outtakes of songs from the sessions.

After that:

• The Little Girl I Once Knew (Brian Wilson) {A-side, released on November 22nd, 1965}
• Three Blind Mice (Wilson) {outtake, released in 2011 on The Smile Sessions}
• Things Are Changing (Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Phil Spector) - The Blossoms {released May 1966}

A note:
I'm going to hold up two versions of each song on Beach Boys Party! The original version and the 2015 remix which omits the party effects. If two ratings are given, I'm going to just record the highest one.