Discuss & Rate Beach Boys Songs Day by Day

4th of July - 5/5

 

I can easily give this one a 4/5. It would have been a good track for Surf's Up.

 

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5-4 votes

 

Today's song is Wouldn't It Be Nice To Live Again:

 

5 for the last two.

 

WIBNTLA- worth the wait. Great soaring vocals from Denny. Wish he had taken better care of himself because he never sang this sweet again. 5/5

 

4/5. A really nice tune and vocal. I don't know if it would have fit Surf's Up, definitely would have been a good song for Sunflower or Holland.

 

Beautiful song and worth all the hype it acquired over the years.
How the hell is Carry Me Home still not released though .

4.5/5

 

It fits with some of the other “progressive” songs on Surfs Up with the flute in the fade and flutes or maybe a synthesizer in the beginning? Marred only by the overly repetitive guitar solo - likely a placeholder that would have been replaced. I want the full take with the extended ending - we should get it in 2021 - but there’s no doubt this is a 5/5.

 

Bang on , that's what I have read before , the 'solo' was a place holder. However still don't understand how they could compile frankenstein edits like Fourth of July and leave this one sitting in the vaults for so long.

 

WIBNTLA - yep, truly baffling that it stayed in the can for so long or that Dennis didn’t revisit it for his solo album.

5/5

 

Gorgeous, soulful rock song. Just awesome. 5/5. And it only took 40 years to come out.

 

Dennis' "Surf's Up". 5/5

 

4oJ = 5/5

WIBNTLA = 4/5, grudgingly. Doesn't live up to the hype for me. Nonetheless, an exceptional vocal performance; woulda made a good single. (Were singles still a thing back then? I'd tuned outa AM radio some years prior.)

Not convinced it alone would have elevated SU to prominence in 71.

It does beat the pants off of Take Good Care Of Your Feet - Pete. I'll give it that.

 

Another two Jo(h)ns Smile Shop refugee, nice to see you .

 

4th Of July and WIBNTLA both get a 5 out of 5 from me. I agree with Lance that it’s maddening that 4th Of July was left in the vault for so long. And WIBNTLA might be my favorite Dennis vocal. It’s incredibly moving.

 

Never heard this song before, what an incredibly emotional vocal from Dennis and a lovely melody.
The only obvious flaw is that it's too long, I would keep the lovely ending/fadeout but shorten the song by maybe a minute or so.
Can't figure out which album this would have fit in though, maybe that was the other BB's issue as well. Doesn't sound like anything except a possible solo song to me. But it's miles better than anything on the snoozy "Pacific Ocean Blue", that's for sure. Sounds like this would have been a perfect time for him to do a solo album, not in 1978 after he was burned out.
Rating from me is 4/5

 

I give both a 4/5. "4th of July", a strong 4/5 - I've had it for a long while, and it is the better of the two. "(Wouldn't It Be Nice To) Live Again" definitely sounds unfinished. If Dennis had wanted to, he could have worked on it more and put it on "So Tough". That's where I think it belongs. Or, as said, he could have re-recorded it for Pacific Ocean Blue.

 

"Surf's Up"
Kind of a fake news song due no Mike Love lead vocals or lyrics about Rincon or shootin' the pier. Still, it's a pretty interesting diversion. Carl's vocals are inferior to Brian's, so that's another letdown. Good wordplay here from egghead: approaching a Dylan type of mastery. Can't go lower than 4/5.

Surf's Up
The end of side 1 has the listener begging for more Mike Love uptempo lead vocal tracks. Heck, throw in a blasphemous Maharishi themed gospel number if that's what it takes to get another Mike vocal on wax.

Average track value is less than 4, but the majestic heights of "Student Demonstration Time", "Disney Girls" and "Long Promised Road" will bump it up to 4/5.

"4th of July"
It's a political song, but without any obvious opinion or stance. Not a lot of meat to chew on here, just some interesting poetry. Not much going on, melodically, or with Carl's singing. 2/5

"Live In Dreams Again"
Great Spectorish production, a lot going on in the background. Passionate song and vocal.
5/5

 

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Today's song is Sound of Free:

 

"Sound of Free" is another 5/5 from Dennis. A good melody, an excellent lyric and as short it as is, it sure contains a lot of great music in it. What a tragic loss for music, Dennis Wilson.

 

This is the rocker that should have been onSurfs Up instead of Student Demonstration Time. A lot of changes in a short piece, as Lance noted, and it somehow manages to remind me of both Celebrate the News and River Song. The group should have been begging Dennis to include his songs on the album. So unfortunate that a disagreement over song order would result in Dennis pulling his songs - there had to be more to it than just that - of course this is when Dennis started talking about a solo album as well. 5/5

 

Sound of Free - great track. Glad they finally included it on Made in California. Stuff like this could have really elevated a Beach Boys album. 5/5

 

4/5. This is one of Dennis' better efforts from the period. I'm not taking the sound quality of the recording into consideration. I agree that he seems to have a lot of material that is high quality.