The Beach Boys: The Capitol Years Boxed Set Liner Notes

The Beach Boys: The Capitol Years

By Peter Reum

Author’s note with respect to this update:

As some of you know, this set was assembled with the input of the Beach Boy fan community from around the UK and the world in 1980. It was an honor to be asked to write the notes for this set, which constituted my first major venture into Beach Boy/Brian Wilson writing outside of collecting and archiving. The notes have a remarkably untainted and innocent tone and texture to them, which, 34 years down the road, I appreciate even more now. I have updated minor points subtly, correcting obvious errors, while trying to keep the tone and message of the notes intact. All remaining errors are my responsibility. Thanks to Roy Gudge for giving me this opportunity 34 years ago. This was the first comprehensive Beach Boy Boxed Set, and as such has historical importance. It is also the first time The Brian Wilson Productions and several non album mixes and “B” sides of singles were assembled for presentation on an album. Of more than causal interest to me, looking back from here, is the highlighting of both the Pet Sounds and Smile Eras on album sides. This certainly was years ahead of its time, and is a tribute to Roy Gudge and Mike Grant, who spearheaded the work with Bryan Tyrrell and June Pengelly at World Records.

Preface:

The collection you hold in your hands is special. The music contained herein has been called by many people the most vast in scope and vision produced by a rock group of the Sixties. At the least, it is a collection of music which constantly brings smiles and warmth to almost everyone who hears it.

The Beach Boys’ very name stirs the imagination. One thinks of tanned, bleached-blonde muscular men and bikini-clad women; a lifestyle with no hang-ups and a summer sun which never sets. This world image, in many respects, was a magnification of California was already mythological from its film industry. The Beach Boys embraced this image, and made it into music which reflected a new, independent, and somewhat affluent group of United States middle class youth. This, in turn, captured the fancy of youth in other countries who were feeling the strength of the late Fifties rock’n roll explosion and the freedom it represented.

This collection of albums covers the first of three record company affiliations the Beach Boys have had. The Beach Boys were with Capitol Records from approximately May of 1962 until February of 1970. The songs in the collection were carefully selected to present the best of the Beach Boys’ Capitol tenure. Many of these selections appear on an album for the first time.

His brothers, Dennis and Carl, have called Brian Wilson “my idol” and “my favorite musician.” When one thinks of The Beach Boys and their body of music, it is amazing to realize that in the Capitol era, over 90% of their music was created by Brian Wilson. Brian’s mastery of the recording studio and his personal development as a musician is basically the story of The Beach Boys in their Capitol period. Brian could be called rock's’ first "Renaissance Man" in the sense that even in the very early stages of his career he could write a song, then take it through arrangement, performance, production, and engineering totally on his own, and have it come out as a finished product.

While Brian developed his studio abilities to their awesome potential, the other four Beach Boys took his music to the people, and made it accessible to the fans. The Beach Boys have been quoted as saying they have played almost every concert venue of any consequence in North America, and have toured in a couple of dozen other countries as well. They have consistently provided an energetic show, played with an excellent sound system and pleased two generations of concertgoers. Due to a 90% hearing loss in his right ear, Brian ceased touring in December 1964, to be replaced as “fifth Beach Boy” by Glen Campbell, and later more permanently by Bruce Johnston. Bruce, in addition to taking Brian’s bass guitar part, took some of his vocal parts as well.

Musically, each Beach Boy has developed an ability to play several instruments competently. In the Capitol period, their line-up was less complex, and consisted of; Mike Love, lead vocals; Carl Wilson, lead guitar and harmony vocals; Alan Jardine, rhythm guitar and harmony vocals; Brian Wilson, bass guitar, lead and harmony vocals; and Dennis Wilson, drums and vocals. From autumn 1963 until spring 1964, Alan was replaced by David L. Marks. Alan and David toured together for a period of months in 1963, while Brian spent time in Los Angeles writing and producing. In the late Sixties, several back-up horn players were added, who may be heard on the live version of Aren’t You Glad.”

The Beach Boys’ leader, Brian Wilson, idolized The Four Freshmen, and utilized many of their harmonic ideas in his ballads during the Capitol era. Often called rock’s choirmaster, Brian’s revolutionary ideas in rock harmonies continue to be used today. Radio is seldom without a “Beach Boy” sounding song.

The Beach Boys hail from a rather typical suburb of Los Angeles called Hawthorne. Hawthorne’s young people, along with the rest of America were discovering life under a vigorous, active President, and a newfound self-consciousness that revolved around sports, cars, school, and The Opposite Sex. Hawthorne was unique in a few respects: one was that it had an ocean. Being three miles from the beach, it was logical that surfing would be top priority for many young people. There was only one ardent surfer among the Beach Boys, Dennis Wilson. Ironically, it was Dennis who fired Brian’s imagination, and Dennis who eventually reflected the tarnished innocence which the late Sixties California seemed to embody. But, even as the Beach Boys lost their popularity and their music seemed to have lost its impact in America in the late Sixties, the Beach Boys in other parts of the world enjoyed a success second only to the Beatles in record sales and popularity polls. In one of those polls in 1966 in New Musical Express, they finished ahead of the Beatles.

More importantly, in the Capitol era, a definite feeling of musical growth and maturation can be heard. Brian first, stretching to amazing achievements, and in the late Sixties, the group stretching behind him. The Beach Boys in the Capitol Years never stagnated, and in many people’s view, went out of their way not to. Stardom was a heady experience, on that the Wilson Brothers’ father and Beach Boy’s first manager, Murry Wilson tried to keep within limits. He was partially successful, and was responsible for some of their early success. Despite being in some ways a negative influence, his enthusiasm and his love for his sons and their music should not be underestimated.

The utter innocence, warmth, economy, and melodic nature of Brian Wilson’s music, in company with rock’s finest vocal achievements, will endear the Beach Boys to future generations of listeners.   This set hopefully will be preserved in everyone’s collection for future listeners, yet paradoxically will also excite older people as well. Such is the nature of Beach Boy music. At a concert of theirs, one is likely to see three or four generations, all equally enjoying the show in their own fashion.

Notes to the set follow, not to detract from, but to complement your appreciation of this set. This is music to be listened to, not just read about.

Summertime USA

Program

Side 1

Surfin’

Surfin’ Safari

Ten Little Indians

Surfin’ USA

Catch a Wave

Hawaii

Surfers Rule

Surfer Girl

Don’t Back Down

The Beach Boys’ early records for Capitol were marked by an enthusiasm and innocence which, when compared to the records they cut in the Mid-Sixties, is quite refreshing. Like all beginners, their material was quite rough, but Brian was an uncut diamond, whose musical abilities shone, even in these very early years.

Although the Beach Boys are primarily noted in rock history as a “surf group,” the actual number of surfing songs they recorded is quite small compared with their contemporaries, who did not know when to stop a good thing. The Beach Boys never were a group which tried to milk a fad until it dried out.

Side One of Summertime USA consists of the best of the Beach Boys’ surfing songs. It contains the first song they ever recorded, Surfin’ , and the last surf song in the early years, Don’t Back Down, which appeared in 1964.

In late 1961 and early 1962 the Beach Boys recorded several demos for Hite and Dorinda Morgan. Surfin’ Safari. Surfin’, Surfer Girl, and six other songs became what was later released as the pre-Capitol material. Surfin’ Safari and Surfer Girl songs were re-recorded for Capitol, and Surfin’ was leased for the Surfin’ Safari album.  Surfin’ Safari was their debut single in America and the UK, released as a double “A” side with 409. The record spread like wildfire across the Midwestern United States, breaking in Phoenix, Arizona. Different lyrically than its demo predecessor, Surfin’ Safari has the substantial distinction of being the first song with surfing lyrics to be a major national hit across America. While Dick Dale had several local Los Angeles instrumental hits, Surfin’ Safari was the opening chapter of what can now be called “California Music.”

Surfin’, on the other hand was a local Los Angeles hit prior to Surfin’ Safari, and broke into the lower part of Billboard’s top 100 singles chart. Being the first song the Beach Boys ever recorded, it has a garage band sound to it that might even be more pronounced, had the group not borrowed liberally the back-up vocal lines used on several Jan and Dean recordings. This garage studio quality was reflected by Capitol leasing the Surfin’ track from the Morgans. While Nik Venet is credited on the first two Beach Boy albums as producer, a better description of his role would probably be as executive producer. His support of the Beach Boys to get them signed at Capitol was another reason for their unprecedented success with Capitol Records in the pre-Beatles era.

Surfer Girl completes the trilogy of Morgan tracks which were re-recorded or leased for Capitol albums by the Beach Boys. It is also the first Capitol recording which bears the credit “produced by Brian Wilson.”  It is the prototypical Brian Wilson ballad, the first ever recorded, and he has rewritten Surfer Girl countless times for Beach Boy albums through the years. His falsetto lead vocal on the recording foreshadows years of distinctive Brian Wilson vocals, which along with Mike Love’s nasal vocal sound became the trademark of Beach Boy records. Along with Frankie Valli, Brian made respectable the high vocal, either as a lead or harmony vocal technique in rock. Before the early Four Seasons and Beach Boy records, the falsetto was used in humorous fashion on novelty records, or on doo wop records which never achieved as much national or international exposure.

Surfer Girl, and its descendants, sprinkled throughout this set, are beautiful examples of the personal aspect of Brian’s lyrics, which rarely surface on more uptempo Beach Boy numbers.

Catch a Wave, Hawaii, and Surfers Rule were all album tracks on 1963’s Surfer Girl album. Catch a Wave features Maureen Love’s distinct harp imitating a breaker very effectively. It is one of the unusual instruments which keep turning up on Brian Wilson records. His arrangements on these early recordings are deceptively simple, and when listened to attentively, reveal themselves as ahead of their time. Jan and Dean later cut Catch a Wave as Sidewalk Surfin’. Hawaii is the first of several Beach Boy tracks on that subject, and should the Hawaiian Tourist Board require an anthem, this would be a prime candidate. Every generalization concerning these tropical isles surfaces in its lyrics. Surfers Rule is a statement of social position within the Hawthorne High School, but it is also an affirmation of legitimacy for the West Coast Sound. A distinct dig at the Four Seasons may be heard at the end of the song, which the Four Seasons gamely countered with a song called No Surfin’ Today, in which our surfer hero is suicidally depressed because the weather is terrible and his surfer girl has drowned!

Surfin’ USA is probably the song, along with Surf City, which cemented the genre of surf music as a piece of rock music history. Original issue singles fail to credit Chuck Berry as writer of the melody, which resulted in Berry often getting total credit for the song on later albums. Brian’s girlfriend’s brother named every surf spot he could think of for the song, which accounts for the running travelogue one gets while listening. A huge American smash, this song was voted “best rock song ever” in a vote taken by a Los Angeles radio station in 1974. It was reissued as a single by Capitol off the Endless Summer album, and climbed into the American top 40.

Ten Little Indians and Don’t Back Down are album tracks from the Surfin’ Safari and the All Summer Long albums respectively. Ten Little Indians was pulled from the first album as a single by a skeptical Capitol Records, who did not believe the surfing fad would last. Don’t Back Down was written as a farewell tribute to surfers and their bravery by a Brian who was very aware that the surfing fad, two years after Ten Little Indians, had definitely run its course.

Side 2

Little Deuce Coupe

409

In The Parking Lot

Car Crazy Cutie

Spirit of America

Shut Down

Custom Machine

Drive In

Cherry, Cherry Coupe

Little Honda

While surfing was something which most of the world could imagine, but not participate in, cars were something of which almost everyone who bought a Beach Boys record had a personal experience with. Some of us are more daring drivers than others, but very few people do not have dreams of being in a car with the sensation of power that comes with high speed.

The Beach Boys understood this well. It was a time of cheap gasoline and cheap autos, and the glamour of a car attracted girls, another important part of Brian Wilson’s imaginary world.

Surfin’ Safari, Surfin’ USA, and Surfer Girl shared the common characteristic of having a “B” side which was a car song. 409, Shut Down, and Little Deuce Coupe were all songs which described facets of teenage life which were common to hundreds of American towns, and in many cases still are.

These three songs and the album they are featured on, Little Deuce Coupe, are perfect mirror images of the car culture which has existed in America for decades. Shut Down, a description of a cocky driver whose confidence in his ‘rod is unshaken, serves as the perfect foil for the sadder but wiser driver of Don't Worry Baby, whose invincibility has become shaken by self-doubt and anguish. The two songs illustrate the two prime aspects of Brian’s artistic personality: that of the competitive and driven hitmaker, in opposition to the kid for whom stardom came quickly, and who honestly wondered if his songs were that good. Mike Love’s great lead vocals were the perfect vehicle for Brian and Roger Christian’s assertive, masculine music and lyrics.

Brian and Gary Usher’s 409 was a very early record recorded in front of the Wilson’s Hawthorne home. The tire squeals you hear are Gary Usher popping the clutch in front of a tape recorded at 2:00 am early one morning in 1962. He had a 351, and as with many other Beach Boy subjects, the 409 was an invention of Brian and Gary’s dreams.

Little Deuce Coupe is, along with Dead Man’s Curve, THE car song to emerge from this period of rock music. George Lucas understood this well, and in his epic, American Graffiti, portrayed the ultimate car as a Deuce Coupe. The car’s driver shared all of the qualities of Shut Down’s and Don’t Worry Baby’s protagonists, and even had his own Dead Man’s Curve. He didn’t come back either. The song remained a staple of The Beach Boys’ live set, and got a guaranteed response whenever it was played. Also featured on the Little Deuce Coupe album were Car Crazy Cutie, Spirit of America, Custom Machine, Cherry, Cherry Coupe, and several other songs which make it possibly rock’s first legitimate concept album. The album today retains its freshness because of this central theme, and unlike some other early Beach Boy albums, has no filler material designed to flesh out its length.

Car Crazy Cutie unites two familiar aspects of early Sixties teen culture, cars and girls. The song was later reworked into the punchy and powerful Pamela Jean. Spirit of America immortalizes Craig Breedlove, who along with Art Arfons battled in the early Sixties for the world land speed record on a desolate Utah plain called the Bonneville Salt Flat. The name of Breedlove’s car was “Spirit of America”, which Capitol later appropriated for a USA Bicentennial bonanza repackage album twelve years later under the same name.

Custom Machine was originally credited to Brian Wilson as both composer and lyricist. The tour de force description of the customized car is a masterpiece in combining car idioms and is now credited to Mike Love as co-writer. It is an excellent example of the Beach Boys' ability to appropriate part of Southern California culture for their own benefit. The version by Bruce and Terry gives the Beach Boy original a run for its money as the definitive version of the tune. Cherry, Cherry Coupe is a return to Little Deuce Coupe, and in fact is a virtual return. It features a distinctive background vocal from Dennis, unusual in those days, and Mike somehow making “cell-you-noid” out of “solenoid.” Many of these songs were co-written by Roger Christian, a disc-jockey at Los Angeles’s great radio station, KFWB, in the early Sixties. His description of cars and their drivers was indispensable to Hot Rod music’s lyrics of the period, and Brian has called him “a great inspiration to me.” His encouragement of these young songwriters was a big part of the success of early California music.

Sharing this side of Summertime USA with all of these classics is a piece of music immortalizing another early Sixties institution, the drive-in movie. Mike Love describes with great hilarity all of the pitfalls to avoid when one attends a drive-in movie. The rocking track behind the song with its stop and start is another example of Brian’s growing mastery of the Phil Spector “Wall of Sound” production technique. It’s Da Doo Ron Ron saxophone is a great moment in Brian Wilson music. Also featured in Drive In is one of the finest Beach Boy lyrical couplets, liar and forest fire.

In the Parking Lot offers some pretty harmonizing, opening and closing the song, along with some excellent rocking sandwiched in between.  The group worked three of the four essential topics into this track: cars, girls, and school. It is featured on the Shut Down 2 album, but when the album was reissued in America on vinyl in the Seventies; Capitol left off this song. It appeared on this set for the first time in many years on an album.

Little Honda was intended be a single for the Beach Boys, but Brian got cold feet at the last minute, and released the song on a US Extended Play 45 record instead. It seems no one inside or outside of the group gave him any encouragement on this one. Gary Usher heard it, loved it, and cut it with the Hondells, for whom it promptly went top ten in Billboard. Incidentally, it was rumored that the lead vocal on the Hondells version was sung by Brian, holding his nose. This was later proven incorrect. This song, although the only Beach Boy “motorcycle” song, spurred countless imitations by numerous groups.

By the time 1964 came around, The Beach Boys were tired of surfing and cars, and were ready to move on to a new theme, “Young Love”, which found fruition in 1966’s Pet Sounds album. They did not totally abdicate the “fun in the sun” scene, however, until 1965.

California Dream

Side One

Be True to Your School

Fun Fun Fun

Why Do Fools Fall In Love

All Summer Long

I Get Around

Wendy

When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)

Little Saint Nick

Christmas Day

Auld Land Syne

Before young love, lost and won, totally engulfed Brian thematically, he produced in 1963, 1964, and 1965 the body of songs for which the Beach Boys are best remembered for today. These songs, starting with Be True to Your School, reflected Brian's respect and love for Phil Spector's records and production techniques. Spector's famous "Wall of Sound" was to turn up progressively in greater degrees on Beach Boy records until it was totally assimilated on Pet Sounds.

Be True to Your School was probably the first Beach Boy record to reflect Spector's rising influence on Brian. A full-bodied production, complete with the Honeys cheerleading and piccolos sailing. Brian took his old Hawthorne High School fight song (actually On Wisconsin), and made it the bridge of Be True to Your School. In the southern USA, some stations would not play it due to its "inflammatory nature." Brian's own feelings on the song are best summarized by a statement he made in 1974: "Now that's one lyric I just wish everyone would pass on and just listen to the music." The single version of this song appeared on an album for the first time on this set.

Brian and the group had favorite hangouts, even after stardom hit. One of them was the Foster's Freeze  Ice Cream Stand on Hawthorne Boulevard. Fun Fun Fun is centered around that hallowed landmark. The song is probably one of the most recognizable songs done by anyone in the Sixties, and is featured here in its mono mix, which is the version originally used for its single release. This had not appeared on an album since Capitol stopped pressing mono lps in 1967. The classic Chuck Berry riff and the chilling ending with Brian's fantastic falsetto wailing over and over again is not heard on the stereo mix with anything like the intensity of the original mono mix. Feel free to "oo-wee" with Brian on the tag of this one!

Fun Fun Fun's flip side was Why Do Fools Fall In Love. Originally cut by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, Brian remained true to the original and dressed it up with a beautiful a cappella vocal break. It would probably be fair to say that this is one of the two or three nicest cover versions of another group's record the Beach Boys have ever done. The Fun Fun Fun/Why Do Fools Fall In Love single was not released with an "A" and "B" side in America. The two songs battled it out with each other, and the music directors chose Fun Fun Fun.

George Lucas chose to close "American Graffiti" with All Summer Long. The song is a virtual movie in itself; a reminiscence of a summer which probably will never come again. It speaks of that last summer before adulthood and responsibility set in. The arrangement is again full-bodied, with marimbas and xylophones accentuating the chorus. The centerpiece of the album of the same name, it is one of Brian's nicest early productions, and should have been an American single, as it was in the United Kingdom.

I Get Around was a record, which notched several "firsts" for the Beach Boys. It was the first top rated song in America, and their first top ten record in the UK (It broke a string of number ones the English groups had mostly had on American charts since the beginning of 1964). Its lyrics expressed a desire for change in the group and in Brian, and they stopped writing songs about surfing and cars about the same time. Moving to songs about girls, couples, marriage, and summer, Brian had become engaged, and his own first marriage took place later that year. I Get Around remains a Beach Boy standard, and the original record is so good that few groups have dared to cover it.

Wendy remains a Beach Boy record, which reflects sadness in an eloquent, yet simple manner. Brian had broken up with a long time girlfriend just before this song was cut, and the reflections of love gone wrong were later to resurface in Caroline, No. But the person asking "What went wrong?" in Wendy is still innocent whereas lost innocence is Caroline, No's subject.

When I Grow Up was performed live on England's "Ready Steady Go" television show in 1964, and was a large American hit for the group. It's harpsichord and projections into the future make it unique in rock music. Often a group has looked back into its past, including the Beach Boys, but seldom, if ever, has someone wondered what their future would be like in their middle-age years while they are still young men.

Little Saint Nick, Christmas Day, and Auld Lang Syne are all a part of an album the Beach Boys recorded for Christmas 1964, Probably one of their most unusual albums, it features one side of Beach Boy originals on which Little Saint Nick and Christmas Day appear, and one side of Christmas standards, on which Auld Lang Syne is the last track.

Little Saint Nick was actually released in 1963, and the recording on this album is the original single version, which has several exciting percussion overlays not on the album version. The song treats Santa's sleigh in a "Custom Machine" fashion, and was first released as a single in the UK in 1973.

Christmas Day features Alan Jardine's first lead vocal on a Beach Boy record, on a song with a jazz oriented melody, and an unusual organ break. The organ seems to always make its appearance on happy, family oriented Beach Boy records, and is also featured prominently on their Friends album from 1968.

Auld Lang Syne in its original a cappella form made its debut on a commercial Beach Boy album on this set. Previously available only on extremely obscure Capitol radio transcription records, this jewel features Brian hitting some high notes not able to be heard on The Beach Boys Christmas Album original issue.

Side Two

Don't Worry Baby

Your Summer Dream

In My Room

The Warmth of the Sun

Keep An Eye On Summer

Girls On The Beach

Please Let Me Wonder

Hushabye

The Lord's Prayer

This collection of ballads and a cappella vocals showcases the Beach Boys' unsurpassed harmonies, and Brian's pioneering vocal arrangements, which are still heard on many records today, in slightly altered form. The ballads Brian wrote in the mid-Sixties were beautiful drops of emotion, never overwhelming, sometimes tinged with slight melancholy, although the sadness was never self-pitying. It was usually underlined with a forward-looking attitude, which reflected the Beach Boys; basic optimism.

Your Summer Dream, Keep An Eye On Summer, and Please Let Me Wonder together make up a small Pet Sounds. These three ballads trace the rise and fall of a love affair, and although recorded two years apart, are similar to moods Brian perfected in songs on Pet Sounds. The lovely Your Summer Dream features a beautiful vocal from Brian, and was co-written by Bob Norberg, who was Brian's college roommate. Keep An Eye On Summer is an early version of Wouldn't It Be Nice in its mood, which is both forward looking and reassuring. The same guitar heard in Christmas Day again appears here, with a nice bass back up vocal from Mike also prominent.

Please Let Me Wonder was part of the beautiful "slow side" of the Beach Boys Today album from 1965. The song has a pretty bass line similar to Don't Worry Baby's, and Brian's vocal is moving and understated. Mike Love's lyrics to this piece are among the most eloquent he has written. The song was the "B" side to Do You Wanna Dance? in America and many people feel it should have been the opposite. In the UK, the "A" side was All Summer Long.

Girls On The Beach is the title track of a movie of the same name in which the Beach Boys appeared in 1964. The Beach Boys' movie career was spotty at best, with appearances in the TAMI Show, Two Lane Blacktop, and Walt Disney's The Monkey's Uncle completing their filmwork. The song shares a similarity with The Warmth Of the Sun in that while the lyrics are positive, the way the Beach Boys perform them is fairly melancholic in mood. The Warmth Of The Sun was written on the eve of US President John F. Kennedy's death in 1963, and Mike Love has stated in several interviews that there was a vague premonition of tragedy in his mind when he wrote the lyrics. The song nevertheless is hauntingly beautiful, and the harmonies the Beach Boys sing on it are among the best they have ever done. Melissa Manchester is among the artists who have covered this song, her version was recorded in 1976, adding another perspective to the song.

Hushabye was recorded by the Beach Boys in 1964, and wasn't too different than the original recording by the Mystics. The harmonies are again lovely, and the full Spector treatment is given. Unlike Beach Boy covers of the Seventies and Eighties, there is an energy in these early Sixties covers which in many cases makes the Beach Boy version of the songs the definitive recording.

The Lord's Prayer is a traditional sacred music piece which is performed prolifically. The Beach Boy version was the "B" side of the American Little Saint Nick single of Christmas 1963, and made its debut appearance on an album for the first time in this set. The a cappella arrangement is by Brian, and incidentally, this piece is named by Beach Boy Bruce Johnston as his all-time favorite Beach Boy recording.

Be My Baby by the Ronettes is Brian's all-time favorite record. He set out to write a song which Phil Spector could use as a Ronette's single, which would have all the positive qualities of Be My Baby, the result being Don't Worry Baby. The openings to the two songs are similar., but there the similarity ends. Spector turned down Don't Worry Baby, cut Baby I Love You instead, and in early 1964, Don't Worry Baby surfaced on Shut Down Volume 2. Ronnie Spector has stated that she wishes she had cut the song, but it goes down in rock history as what may people feel is the best Beach Boy ballad ever. The self-doubt in the lyrics, and the need for reassurance Brian expresses, are afar cry from the macho invincible persona of the early hot rod records. Brian's fragility permeates this record, and the emotion laid bare is not often heard to this extent on a Beach Boy track.

In My Room is concerned with another facet of Brian's personality, his shyness. Gary Usher recognized the special qualities of this song, and recut it in 1968 with Sagittarius. Brian's tendency to retreat is expressed nowhere more clearly than in this tune. An unusual "B" side, it was the flip of Be True To Your School, and followed a pattern set often in the early Capitol singles of placing an outward, assertive powerful fast song on the "A" side and a moody, personal ballad on the "B" side. Dance Dance Dance/The Warmth Of The Sun and I Get Around/Don't Worry Baby are two other good examples of this pattern. They made for super singles whose appeal cut across a wide variety of music lovers.

The love songs of early Beach Boy music are perhaps the prettiest body of songs of that type in Sixties rock. Brian's often painfully autobiographical ballads were balanced by the great uptempo numbers, many of which are featured in the next two albums of this set, Sunshine Music and Changes.

Sunshine Music

Side One

Dance, Dance, Dance

The Little Girl I Once Knew

Good To My Baby

Help Me Rhonda

Do You Wanna Dance

You’re So Good To Me

Don’t Hurt My Little Sister

She Knows Me Too Well

California Girls

Side One presents a collection of songs primarily culled from singles from 1964 and 1965. They are all evidence of Brian’s mastery of the recording studio, and his ability to create masterful pop songs which have perfectly been able to stand the test of time.

Good To My Baby, Don’t Hurt My Little Sister, and She Knows Me Too Well are all album tracks from the watershed Beach Boys Today! album, which is as fine a collection of rock songs as has ever been assembled. The album presents a fast and a slow side, which was not unique in Beach Boy history, having already been done on 1964’s Beach Boys’ Christmas Album. The Today! album was also the first album partially produced by Brian after he stopped touring with the Beach Boys, and its lush Spectorian arrangements are a signal ahead to 1966’s classic, Pet Sounds-with which it shares another similarity. Except for the two Dance singles, (also on this album’s first side) and a throwaway track discussing their 1964 European Tour with their chaperone Earl Leaf, Today is totally involved thematically with subjects of young love and relationships with girls. Good to My Baby and Don’t Hurt My Little Sister discuss treatment of a girlfriend and her sister’s point of view is presented in the latter song, inspired by the Rovells, Marilyn becoming Brian’s first wife. She Knows Me Too Well is the lament of a guy who feels he doesn’t deserve his girlfriend. All three tracks are Spectorian in production feel, and Don’t Hurt My Little Sister was written for Spector who recorded it with Brian on keyboard, only to later record it as Things Are Changing, as an Equal Employment Opportunity public service message.

Do You Wanna Dance and Dance Dance Dance are also from the Beach Boys Today! album, and feature a driving rhythm and interesting percussive instrumentation. Dance Dance Dance’s guitar break has been called by several writers the nicest the Beach Boys have ever recorded. An extremely energetic record, its catchy rhythm stands in contrast to Do You Wanna Dance which is more of an all out rocker. Dennis’s lead vocal is one of the few he has ever done on a Beach Boy single, and if one listens carefully, one can hear him almost blow a line in the middle of the song. While Do You Wanna Dance has also been covered by many other artists, the cover of many fans’ highest interest is The Ramones’ 1977 version, which is deeply inspired by the Beach Boy version.

While originally featured on Today!, Help Me Rhonda was also released in a re-recorded single version which also appeared on Summer Days. The single version appears in this set, making its first album appearance since Summer Days went out of print. The fast pace of the song and its unusual arrangement made it a number one in America. Al’s lead vocal is his first on a major Beach Boy hit, and Mike’s “git” in the chorus is one of those touches that gives the record a distinct Beach Boy sound. Johnny River’s hugely successful remake of this song in 1975 had Brian as a back-up vocalist in one of his few Mid-Seventies appearances on record.

Sharing company on Summer Days with Help Me Rhonda are two songs, You’re So Good To Me, and California Girls. The former is a Four Seasons knock-off, with Brian’s la-la-la vocal chorus sounding like Frankie Valli on helium. California Girls is perhaps one of the most perfect records ever made, from its classic introduction its “I Wish Things All Could Be California/I Wish They All Could Be California” circular closing. The record is the first by the Beach Boys to include Bruce Johnston, and it’s loping bassline was recycled for 1972’s California Saga-California. Mick Jagger among others, cites it as his favorite Beach Boy song, and with its flip side, Let Him Run Wild, it is probably one of the best Beach Boy singles ever.

The follow up single to California Girls, The Little Girl I Once Knew, was a moderate hit in America. Its stop and start musical structure disturbed program directors of American radio stations, who are quite touchy about “dead air” because of American governmental regulations. The song’s track is filled with bells, chimes, and other unusual percussive devices. It was not placed on a album in America until Best of The Beach Boys Volume 3 was issued in July of 1968, although it had appeared on Best of the Beach Boys Volume 2 in the UK in 1967.

Musicians on all these classic singles were the cream  of LA’s studio session players. Such names as Ray Pohlman, Glen Campbell, Billy Strange, Hal Blaine, Carol Kaye, Leon Russell, Tommy Tedesco, and Jim Gordon all grace these early Beach Boy records. Unlike the Beatles and other groups, Brian Wilson always used the best possible musicians to get the sounds he wanted, whether they were in the group nor not. Along with Phil Spector and Jan Berry, Brian opened up Los Angeles’ music scene, and these producers’ influence probably had a great deal with the American music industry’s shift of focus from New York to the West Coast in the Sixties.

Side Two

The Little Old Lady From Pasadena

Graduation Day

The Monster Mash

Johnny B Goode

Barbara Ann

There’s No Other (Like My Baby)

Devoted to You

Mountain of Love

Aren’t You Glad

Their Hearts Were Full of Spring

The Beach Boys have always been a potent live act, going to great expense to present a sound as faithful as possible to their meticulously prepared studio recordings. This side focuses attention on three albums which can be considered as live recordings. Beach Boys Concert and Live In London  were recorded in 1963/64 and 1968 in front of live audiences respectively. Beach Boys’ Party, the third album in the trilogy, was a contrived “live in the studio” album of sorts, perhaps one of the first ever recorded.

The Beach Boys Concert album was recorded at two separate concerts in California’s state capitol of Sacramento. Hugely popular in that city, it is still one of their favorite concert venues. The album would probably not have been released without sweetening added by the band when the returned to LA, as crowd noise on parts of the tapes was almost deafening. Culled from Concert for this side are Little Old Lady From Pasadena, Graduation Day, The Monster Mash, and Johnny B. Goode.  In 1963, most concerts lasted for about thirty minutes, with a group packing as many non-stop hits as possible into that short time. Little Old Lady From Pasadena was cut to return a compliment Jan and Dean had paid, having recorded I Get Around on their live Command Performance album. Graduation Day, later recorded by the Ivy League using Brian’s arrangement, is a tribute to the Four Freshmen, who are mentioned by Mike in his introduction to the song. The Beach Boys’ shows in the early Sixties were not totally comprised of their own songs , and it is interesting to note that all four songs on this set taken from the Beach Boys Concert are cover versions. Monster Mash and Johnny B. Goode were standards of many groups’ live sets in the Sixties. Johnny B. Goode was performed in the momentous April 27, 1971 jam with the Grateful Dead at the Fillmore East, strangely enough virtually the same way you hear it on this album.

Beach Boys’ Party was a smash for the Beach Boys largely as a result of the single Barbara Ann, which was released without the group’s knowledge in 1965. Capitol’s judgement was astute, as the song went to the top in several American charts, and became a Beach Boy standard. Although recorded by the Regents and by Jan and Dean, the version most people remember is by the Beach Boys. Dean Torrence shares lead vocal duties with Brian, having ducked out of a session for You Really Know How to Hurt a Guy in disgust.

Party gave the Beach Boys the excuse to record other people’s music under the pretext of having fun with the songs. The only Beatle tunes covered by the Beach Boys that were released legitimately are on Party, as is Dylan’s The Times They Are a Changin’.

Brian continued his tributes to Spector by recording There’s No Other (Like My Baby), which became the “B” side of The Little Girl I Once Knew. Devoted to You  (credited to the Cleverly Brothers) is too short, featuring a stunningly beautiful duet between Brian and Mike. Mountain of Love was one of Brian’s high school favorites which he liked enough to include in the Beach Boys’ repertoire.

1968’s Live in London album was not actually released in the UK until 1970 to fulfill the last album required by the Capitol contract. It did not see release in America until 1976. It features Bruce Johnston “live” with the group. Several pretty late-Sixties Beach Boys’ tunes are featured which rival their studio counterparts for catchiness. One of these is Aren’t You Glad, from the Wild Honey album, which has a punchy horn arrangement and energetic vocals.

Their Hearts Were Full of Spring is a beautiful a cappella piece which originally appeared as A Young Man Is Gone on Little Deuce Coupe, but which had been done live before then. Recorded in its original lyrical form on Live In London, despite corny lyrics, it is a perfect vehicle for demonstrating the four part harmonies at which the Beach Boys excelled.

Live in London is an important document in the group’s recorded catalogue, and it is worth mentioning that the Beach Boys’ live albums appeared at approximately five-year intervals from 1964-1973. A live album was recorded by the group in Hawaii, but nothing has been seen concerning Lei’d In Hawaii since its disappearance many years ago.

Changes

Side One

Then I Kissed Her

Kiss Me Baby

Let Him Run Wild

Amusement Parks USA

I’m So Young

Girl Don’t Tell Me

Salt Lake City

The Girl From New York City

Sloop John B

1965 was a year of commercial and artistic success for the Beach Boys. Brian Wilson spent his first year off the road, and showed his instincts were correct in his decision to stop touring. The bevy of outstanding records he released in 1965 is perhaps only equaled by 1966, which in sheer numbers of records was not as active a year.

Then I Kissed Her was actually released in the UK in 1967 as a single by an impatient Capitol Records waiting for a new Beach Boy single. Recorded in 1965, it is yet another Beach Boy cover of a Phil Spector produced record. It appeared on 1965’s Summer Days album, and was never really intended as a single release. It does not have the depth of Spector’s original, yet it does have an energetic aura of its own, and another fine lead vocal by Alan Jardine.

Kiss Me Baby was the “B” side of Help Me Rhonda, and appeared on Today’s slow side. It is arranged with lovely counterpoint vocals, saying “kiss a little bit, fight a little bit”, with Mike’s bass vocal particularly effective. Thematically it fits in with the rest of Today’s romantic orientation, and it is a close cousin with Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder) from Pet Sounds.

Let Him Run Wild with its cyclical structure is a fascinating example of Brian’s ability to use instruments which one wouldn’t expect to hear on a rock record. The song has a big band arrangement with saxes blaring and a pretty contrast between lead and back up vocals. It is the song Dennis Wilson considered to be their first artistic leap forward, and even sounds fresh today. The tracks on these 1965 records were becoming more sophisticated and when one stops to consider that songs like Let Him Run Wild were recorded on three and four track tape recorders, Brian’s achievements grow all the more impressive. Brian wrote this song to chastise his father for having an affair. His anger may be heard in the lyrics, and this may be why Brian is not that fond of the song.

Amusement Parks USA is a potpourri of production effects and noises, along with a fast paced “Heroes and Villains” type of vocal arrangement. Reminiscent of Little Egypt, one of its funnier moments is a pun Brian slipped into the mix. As the instruments come up, Hal Blaine, the carnival barker, describes Stella the Snake Dancer as “walking, talking, and having the biggest asp in town.” An “A” side in Japan, it went to number two, and should have been a single in the rest of the world.

I’m So Young is another song the Beach Boys covered and made their own, inspired to cut it after hearing a Ronette’s version in 1963. Brian gave it the full treatment, and one wouldn’t know it’s not a Beach Boy original. His obsession with Phil Spector led Brian to a series of records, which established his reputation as a producer, and Spector has always been gracious regarding Brian’s use of his techniques.

Brian’s intricate instrumental arrangements have often been underplayed because of his unmatched vocal innovations in rock. In the end, all of his musical abilities should be regarded as groundbreaking. Another facet of his musicianship often ignored is his ability to integrate musical styles from widely varied origins into his own style in seemingly effortless fashion, of which Girl Don’t Tell Me is an excellent example. A song that combines Beatles’ phrasing and instrumentation and Beach Boy arrangement, the record’s lyrics have John Lennon’s cynical approach to girls in them. Not quite Norwegian Wood, it is nevertheless an interesting experiment in itself and people hearing it don’t often recognize it as a Beach Boy song.

Salt Lake City is one of the 1968 Stack-o-Tracks collection, which featured a number of Brian’s instrumental backing tracks without the familiar vocals. Oddly, it was karaoke before its time. One was supposed to sing along with the record, and it even had a songbook to learn to strum guitar with while singing. The song reflects some positive experiences the group enjoyed when playing the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, and the concert they played is still legendary among the city’s residents. Unfortunately, the Lagoon immortalized in the song was razed by fire in 1969. It has since been rebuilt.

The Girl From New York City has a sailing Brian Wilson high vocal that is sufficient qualification for it to be included in this set. Rumor has it the long is about Lesley Gore, who hailed from The Big Apple at that time. Her eyes certainly are distinctive, so perhaps this rumor is based on fact. Also on Summer Days, the song is an all out rocker, as is the entire first side of Summer Days.

Sloop John B was a concession to Alan Jardine’s desire to cut a folk song. Rather than be topical, the group chose to be tropical, selecting an old Bahamian Carl Sandburg/Kingston Trio chestnut (Al is a huge Kingston Trio fan). The song was released as a single almost concurrently with Caroline, No. Both tracks later surfaced on Pet Sounds, although the inclusion of Sloop John B is believed to have been against Brian’s wishes. The track is unusual in its use of a bass guitar as the lead guitar carrying the melody, something rarely done in rock, until Pet Sounds. Its dense production is close to Pet Sounds in its coloring, and close attention to Glen Campbell’s Rhinestone Cowboy will reveal a similarity in arrangement. Campbell’s love for Brian’s music is well known, demonstrated by the fact that he has covered and performed live several Beach Boy songs over the years, and is always a big booster of their music in interviews.

Side Two

Here Today

Caroline, No

I’M Waiting For the Day

You Still Believe In Me

I Know There’s An Answer

Wouldn’t It Be Nice

God Only Knows

I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times

Pet Sounds has been praised for its groundbreaking qualities by literally hundreds of writers and musicians. Brian Wilson has called it “my first solo album, a chance to step outside the group and shine.” It is very much an album to sit down and absorb. Each listening will reveal new facets, much like repeated readings of a favorite book. It was not teenage good time music, however, and it songs bared a kaleidoscope of emotions which a typical adolescent would rather not think about. The album’s lyrics, arranged in a song cycle, follow a love affair from its exuberant beginnings to a shattered finish. The arrangements of the album’s songs are orchestral, though in a rock sense. A variety of instruments appear in contexts to accentuate shades of feeling that are never overbearing, but are often turbulent. Two instrumentals are showcased on the album. Brian pulled out all stops to emphasize the tranquility of love in bloom in Let’s Go Away For Awhile. And the razor edge of an affair ending in Pet Sounds.

Side Two of Changes highlights some of Pet Sounds’ songs and the abrupt contrast to what you have heard on previous albums of this set is not as great as it might appear. Thematically, Pet Sounds could be called a mature step forward from the Today! Album, and musically, several Beach Boy songs from earlier periods foreshadowed the lush arrangements of Pet Sounds. Perhaps one way to put Pet Sounds in perspective is to say that it is the first album the Beach Boys recorded as an album. That could be considered a step forward.

Plagued by consistent resistance from several directions, Brian’s thoughts on popularity and its fickle nature can be pointed out in two songs from Pet Sounds: Here Today and I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times. Musically, they pit ascending vocals against descending instrumental tracks, the theramin heard soaring in I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times is probably the first use of an electronic instrument on a rock record. Brian has often stated that I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times is one of his most autobiographical songs. Here Today’s almost bitter lyrics serve as the souring of the love affair in the Pet Sounds song cycle. The song’s warning of troubled times ahead seems almost prophetic concerning the Beach Boys’ career. A careful listening reveals Brian shouting directions to studio musicians during organ and rhythm guitar solos. These may have been left in deliberately as instruments in themselves. I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times foreshadows the immense vacuum left when Brian’s Smile era friends had all departed after showering him with attention for months. Brian’s yearning for artistic fulfillment was to burst into full bloom in the Pet Sounds-Smile era, only to cave in on him, much like the collapse of the protagonist’s love affair in Caroline, No-leaving him devastated.  

Caroline, No is Brian’s finest moment as a composer of love songs. Its mood is established by a reverberating polystyrene water jug by Hal Blaine beat on, to which Brian added echo. The consistent beat sounds like an exploding heartbeat, and Brian’s pained vocal over it is wrenching. The version appearing on Changes is the original single version, which Brian released under his own name in March of 1966.

I’m Waiting For The Day was actually first recorded in 1964, but was set aside for a year and a half, finally finding its way to Pet Sounds. Along with You Still Believe In Me, it is part of what could be called the optimistic side of Pet Sounds. A rocker, I’m Waiting For the Day’s lyrics were written by Mike Love, and are among his finest. The song runs very closely in theme to Wouldn’t It Be Nice, looking to a brighter day in a relationship, and its daydreaming quality runs throughout the positive side of Pet Sounds. The oboe that follows the intricate lead vocals is both delicate and loving, as would express the song’s feelings without vocals.

You Still Believe In Me is a beautiful song expressing apologetic affection to a girl who has apparently endured great indiscretions because of her boyfriend’s riving eye. Perhaps Brian was expressing himself to Marilyn for some perceived slight, or maybe it is simply the evergreen gesture that men make to their unhappy but loving women. The gorgeous introduction was recorded by having Tony Asher pluck strings inside the piano one by one by hand repeatedly until the correct pattern was captured on tape.

Hang On To Your Ego was I Know There’s An Answer’s original title, discarded after immense resistance from Mike Love, who did not like the lyrics. Brian’s answer to that resistance can be heard in the lyrics to I Know There’s An Answer. The song is co-written by Brian and Terry Sachen, a one-time road manager for the group, and is one of the few on Pet Sounds whose lyrics are not by Tony Asher.

Asher’s lyrical abilities were untested prior to Pet Sounds as he was an advertising agency writer by trade. He took a leave of absence to write lyrics with Brian, with a view to his helping to create more mature lyrical themes on Beach Boy records, as Brian has always felt his own lyrics were not sufficiently sophisticated for the music he composes. Asher’s finest hour as a lyricist on Pet Sounds comes on the great Wouldn’t It Be Nice/God Only Knows single. These tracks are presented on Changes back to back to spotlight what is probably one of the best rock singles ever released.

Wouldn’t It Be Nice was the “A” side in America, and God Only Knows was the “A” side in the UK. Both went top ten in their respective countries. God Only Knows rivals Caroline, No for its poignancy and simple expressions of emotion. Its circular ending is one of the most beautiful moments on a Beach Boy record, and Carl delivers one of his greatest vocal performances.  Paul McCartney called it “the best song ever written” and that remark, along with an accolade concerning Surfs Up by Leonard Bernstein went a long way towards fortifying Brian’s self-deprecatory nature. Wouldn’t It Be Nice has been covered by several artists, and its uptempo, innocent desire for security served as an excellent foil when it was used in Warren Beatty’s Shampoo, a tale of a Hollywood bon vivant, who upon finally deciding to settle down, can’t seem to work out the logistics.

Pet Sounds’ commercial potential was crippled by several misunderstandings between many parties concerned with the record. It was nonetheless one of the top ten selling rock albums of 1966 in America, and was a runaway best seller in the UK, contrary to published accounts that say the record flopped. Its sales were not on the level of the hugely successful Summer Days or Party albums, al least initially. Brian had hoped for a blockbuster in terms of sales after all the work he had put into Pet Sounds. In 1966, this was not to be, but Brian was to be vindicated, at least temporarily by Good Vibrations, which in 1966 became the Beach Boys’ first gold single. (They already had had several gold albums under their belt.) Good Vibrations and Smile, the album on which it was originally scheduled to appear, remain a period of mystery, tragedy, and unfulfilled promise for the Beach Boys.

Timeless

Side One

Good Vibrations

Wind Chimes

Cabinessence

Vegetables

Wonderful

Our Prayer

Heroes and Villains

Good Vibrations is a song which Brian Wilson called “The biggest production of our lives.” Musically the song is like most of Brian’s songs-deceptively simple, uncomplicated, and melodically catchy. The production is what makes it special. Unusual vocal arrangements and strange instrumentation give parts of the record an ethereal quality. A single rhythmic cello playing triplets provides the base for the rest of the record’s instruments. The high pitched wailing siren is a theramin, another innovative use of electronics very early in rock. The breathy lead vocal by Carl is complimented by cascading waterfalls of harmony. Six months in the making, recorded in three different studios, Brian had now fully assimilated Spector’s influence and had given it the spaciousness which Spector’s records did not have. One still got the feeling of a grandiose sound, as on Spector’s records, but there was more-perhaps the feeling one gets upon walking into an immense cathedral.

A number one hit on both sides of the Atlantic, Good Vibrations captured the imagination of rock’s fledgling young artisans and writers. Brian was proclaimed a genius, a tag that he began to rue almost the day it was coined. Several people passed in and out of Brian’s life in 1966 and 1967, but two were of major consequence. Van Dyke Parks became Brian’s collaborator, and later close personal friend. David Anderle headed the Beach Boys’ own record company, Brother Records, which predated Apple Corps by over a year. Anderle, for many years an executive with A&M records after leaving Brother, was Van Dyke’s personal manager at the time and was asked by Brian to coordinate all Beach Boy media projects: film; record; and television. Anderle’s love for Brian and his reminiscences with Paul Williams in Crawdaddy Magazine in late 1967 and early 1968 became much of the base of the legend concerning Brian’s musical creations between June 1966 and May 1967. The music at this period has been written about in such volume that to say much more here is difficult.

The Brian Wilson of this era was at a peak of his creative powers. Ideas were spawned almost daily, and a flood of outside influences was translated into music. Dozens of people met, impressed, and were impressed by Brian Wilson. Leonard Bernstein perhaps cemented this era’s legend by insisting that David Oppenheim film Brian singing a song he had written with Van Dyke Parks. “Poetic, beautiful, even in its obscurity” Oppenheim’s narration of the footage called Surfs Up. The film screen on CBS as a part of the Inside Pop documentary. Surfs Up’s lyrics reflected Parks’ brilliant command of the English language, and were filled with puns, satires, scenarios, and lovely sentiments. Brian’s track for the song surfaced on 1971’s Surfs Up album, a stunningly beautiful arrangement of French horns, piano, bells, and unusual percussion. The song was to have been part of an album scheduled for release in late 1966 entitled Smile.

The album was never released. Speculation on reasons why are too numerous to mention. Smile became The Great Lost Beach Boys’ Album. It would be fair to say that several album ideas were conceived and a better way to refer to the music from this period would be the “Smile Era” instead of the “Smile Album.”

This side of Timeless consists of music written during the “Smile Era.” Some of it surfaced in a form fairly close to Brian’s original intentions during the “Smile Era”, and some of it was finished later without Brian's full participation. The Capitol Smile material found its way mainly to two albums, Smiley Smile and 20/20. The former was a simplified surrogate of Smile released in late 1967. The latter was a collection of singles not yet released on albums as of early 1969, and “cold tracks”, which had been recorded for, but not included in earlier albums.

1967’s most anticipated single was Heroes and Villains. Record of the Year in France in 1967, it lived up to its advanced raves, despite several ridiculous writers’ moans that “it just doesn’t rock.” Versions of this song reportedly ranged from three and a half up to six minutes.  It was at one point almost released in two parts by Capitol in early 1967. Borrowing Phil Spector’s River Deep Mountain High bassline, Brian built a fascinating series of descending chords around it, along with several unusual stops and starts. Its organ provided an interesting contrast to Brian’s intricate vocal arrangement, and his lead vocal is among the best he has ever cut.

Heroes and Villains stood in stark contrast with Good Vibrations on Smiley Smile to the material Brian had cut after abandoning complex production techniques to “mellow out.”  Collected from Smiley Smile, not necessarily in their original Smile forms, are three songs whose simple “good humor’ perhaps fit Brian’s first concept of a light, melodic album designed to bring “smiles” much more easily than the original more elaborate productions.

Brian had wanted to frame the concept of humor into a musical context that would bring joy to its listeners. His humor concept ran antithetically to his own dazzling production abilities, as most of his songs produced that way tend to leave the listener awed, overwhelmed, and breathless. Heroes and Villains, and its Smile counterpart, Cabinessence, in its released Beach Boy form are good examples of this.

Brian perhaps realized this, and for this reason, among others, he chose to release as Carl put it, “a bunt instead of a grand slam.” Smiley Smile was recorded partly over a three week period at Brian’s new Bellagio Road home studio, which he began building after encountering incredible resistance from Los Angeles’s numerous conventional recording studios.

Again, Brian had been ahead of his time. The spare, earthy feeling of Wind Chimes, Vegetables, and Wonderful are partially due to the makeshift nature of the studio, which at the time was very new and untested.

Wind Chimes is a vignette recorded because of a mesmerizing experience Brian had with some wind chimes one breezy afternoon. Mike’s “Yogi Bear” bass vocal at the end of the choruses stands in contrast to Brian’s high and mantric lead. Just as one lulls off into a somnambulant state, Brian’s Hawthorne humor rears up and provides a fuzz tone that jolts the senses back to reality. A great deal of circular, mantric music was recorded in the “Smile Era”, but Wind Chimes and the humorous You’re Welcome, also on Timeless, are among the few examples released.

Part of the “Smile Era” was concerned with being open to new influences, whatever they might be. But instead of dwelling on the inner mind, like many other groups, Brian and the Beach Boys also recognized a need for nature and things natural. This included keeping in condition, and being careful and attentive with one’s body. They recorded two songs with this theme-I’m In Great Shape and Vegetables. The former was never released by the Beach Boys, the latter became an important part of the Brian Wilson/Van Dyke Parks collaboration.

Vegetables, with its single heartbeat bass note and its enthusiastic munching, pouring, and shouting, was years ahead of its time in its health food/organic food theme. Someone should have kidnapped it for use in school childrens’ “eat correctly” campaigns. It’s an interesting combination of Smile and Smiley Smile fragments. The unusual reverse scales at the end of the song, along with its Stephen Foster based “favorite vegetable” chorus, are from an earlier version of the song, not recorded at the Bellagio home studio. It is rumored that Paul McCartney co-produced the song. While he did contribute some munching on an unused take, he did not co-produce Vegetables.

Wonderful is a song that originated in the Van Dyke Parks/Brian Wilson Smile sessions, and then went through some changes in its Smiley Smile form. Brian’s prolific experimentation with different recorded segments of music meant Wonderful went through several permutations before seeing release on Smiley Smile. The most revolutionary aspect of the Smiley Smile version of Wonderful is its bridge, an a cappella mixture of wordless syllables, giggling, and strange unintelligible phrases that vaguely resemble a verbal disagreement. “Don’t think your God-Vibrations” is one of the phrases; “trying to be a cool guy” is another. Anyone who wishes to sort it out is a brave person indeed.

As the years went by, Smile fragments surfaced on many albums, some of which are probably unidentified as such. Our Prayer and Cabinessence are two that have been identified.

Looking for some first-rate material to close 20/20, the group decided on using several fragments of Brian’s Smile material. Our Prayer is a wordless piece of harmony that perfectly illustrates Brian’s post Good Vibrations production techniques. The track is a vocal “Wall of Sound” that literally soars with an almost three-dimensional effect upon the listener. Verily, it indeed conveys impressions of a cathedral. Today, it is sung by choirs at St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome. It was intended to be a spiritual invocation for Smile. 

Cabinessence is a synthesis of three fragments from “Smile Era”  Brian music. The original “Cabin-Essence” fragment, with its plunking banjo and “”doyng-doyng” vocals, leads off the track, followed by the Who Ran The Iron Horse chorus fragment. Then the Cabin-Essence lyrics return, followed again by the Who Ran The Iron Horse theme, finally followed by a fragment with a Grand Coulee Dam reference. This piece has been referred to by several different names, but what’s important is its unearthly vocal scales in tandem with a bending banjo and fuzz bass guitar. One of the most beautiful pieces of music Brian has ever created, it is perhaps the Smile fragment besides Surfs Up that gives justification to the endless speculation as to what the Beach Boys’ Smile album might have sounded and the impact on music it might have had in 1967. What we do have is tantalizing, but Beach Boy music did not end with Smile. Great music came out after Smile albeit with the credit “produced by the Beach Boys” instead of “produced by Brian Wilson.” 

Side Two

Darlin’

Getting’ Hungry

Here Comes The Night

With Me Tonight

Wake The World

Country Air

Well, You’re Welcome

I’d Love Just Once To See You

Wild Honey

The story of Beach Boy music after Smile was a story of four extremely diverse albums, as different from each other as night and day. Smiley Smile, Wild Honey, Friends, and 20/20 were produced collectively but their producers’ eclecticism surfaces only on 20/20. The other three albums are remarkably uniform in musical intention within themselves.

This side of Timeless focuses on the more uptempo, funky songs from the Smiley Smile and Wild Honey albums. Two exceptions are You’re Welcome, never on an album before Timeless, and Wake The World from the Friends album.

You’re Welcome is a charming little chant, recorded in a hurry when a “B” side was needed for Heroes and Villains. A close relative of Ding Dang, Whistle In, and Mama Says, from other albums, the song is something Brian probably cut alone, and gives a brief impression of his working methods while cutting music in the “Smile Era.”

Wake The World is Country Air’s reappearance on the Friends album. Both songs have a freshness and early morning as their themes. Similar riffs accompany each song, and they are perfect examples of the modest and unassuming nature of most of the late Sixties’ Beach Boy music. A grunting tuba on Wake the World and lovely strings accompany the track, but the two songs were probably written within a few weeks of each other. The singing, humming, and whistling on Country Air would make even a morning loather enjoy the early hours. Country Air’s lone rooster crow serves as a pleasantly mild reminder of more hectic Beach Boy productions in years gone by. They had learned a lesson that had come hard to many groups-that the “big” production treadmill was not necessarily the way to pop progress. Bob Dylan later reinforced this idea with his John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline albums, both with country and simplicity as their themes.

With Me Tonight was recorded at Brian’s home studio very soon after it was assembled. His return to less complex and preconceived production is illustrated by this anecdote concerning why the deep voiced “good” is heard just before the first chorus in the song. Brian told Jack Reynolds “That was a guy named Arny Geller…it was an accident, but it worked out just right. He was in the booth and said ‘good’…and so we left it in.”

Much of Smiley Smile was recorded “dry” (without studio effects) because of the primitive nature of the equipment and unfinished state of the home studio. Wild Honey was recorded that way because of a desire to get a funky sound without any of the qualities for which the Beach Boys were getting criticized at the time by the so-called “hip” San Francisco rock press. Europe and The United Kingdom knew better and devoured the new music as readily as the earlier music.

Gettin’ Hungry with its "data processing organ" was released as a single under the name “Brian and Mike.” Like most other songs from the period, it could have been interpreted in a variety of other styles. Mike Love and his solo group Celebration did a reggae style version of the song on their second album in 1979. Like much of Smiley Smile, there was no drum track on the  1967 record, only percussive effects, in this case wood blocks.

Darlin’ was recorded in its original form as Thinkin’ Bout You Baby by Sharon Marie, a record Brian produced for Capitol in 1964, which appears on the Brian Wilson Productions album in this set. Brian sped up the tempo, Mike wrote new lyrics, and a fantastic rhythm and blues track was born. Perhaps the grittiest Brian Wilson song the Beach Boys have ever done, it was written for the Redwoods, who were to have recorded for Brother Records. In one of the great business follies of his career, Brian let the Redwoods go to another label because he felt they couldn’t seem to sing on key. They became better known as Three Dog Night.

Here Comes The Night and I’d Love Just Once To See You concern a theme that runs throughout Wild Honey, that of sexy women and men’s’ relationship to them. Actually, I’d Love Just Once To See You can be applied to either gender.  A funny, charming acoustic guitar piece, one is treated to a person’s private thoughts directed at their rather disinterested spouse. The song circles around its quarry, pleading, cajoling, hinting, and finally shooting right between the eyes. Certainly the song is one of the Beach Boys’ finest late Sixties accomplishments.

Here Comes the Night examines the other side of the coin. The song’s protagonist is a young man, presumably the same gentleman who also discusses his Wild Honey in the song of the same name. Singing the praises of his lady, no words are spared to let her know how much she turns him on. As with many Wild Honey songs, Brian’s terrific rhythm piano takes the place of a rhythm guitar. His keyboard abilities, always underrated, are in particularly fine form on the Wild Honey album.  The song was recut in 1979 on the Beach Boys’ L.A. Light Album, but the original Capitol version with all its charming flaws seems to still hold its own as the definitive version of the song.

Concluding Timeless is the great title track to the Wild Honey album. With an organ and screaming theramin providing the base to a very uptempo record, the song is an unabashed tribute to Motown, and certainly is one of the best of the late Sixties’ uptempo numbers the Beach Boys recorded. A single in both America and the UK, it only had mixed results. It also gave rise to one of the great quotes concerning all Beach Boys’ music after California Girls-“That’s the Beach Boys??? It sure doesn’t sound like the Beach Boys!”

Break Away

Side One

Do It Again

Little Bird

Let The Wind Blow

Busy Doin’ Nothin’

Passing By

Time To Get Alone

Be Here In The Morning

Friends

The Beach Boys decided to do something that “sounded like the Beach Boys”. Hence, Do It Again, their 1968 “Summer Single” was born. With its chugging rhythm, nasal Mike Love lead vocal, and bass saxophone, Do It Again was a conscious effort to regain lost chart status in America. It was successful, as it went to number 20 in Billboard, their highest charting single since Heroes and Villains. In the UK, this song was a smash, going to top spot in the charts. The song’s coda is a very small fragment of Smile music, with Brian shouting “No Clem, No!” a reference to Carl’s nickname inside the group.

Let The Wind Blow and Time To Get Alone are gentle ballads from Brian from the Wild Honey and 20/20 albums respectively. Let The Wind Blow is a pretty love song primarily written by Mike with music added by Brian. One of the nicest of the late Sixties’ ballads cut by the Beach Boys, it shares with Time To Get Alone an affection for the outdoors, and romance inspired by being outdoors. Carl’s lead vocal is effective, with background vocals and swirling violins combined so closely that it is often hard to tell which is which. The “deep and wide” echo added to the last verse of the song is reminiscent of Friends, as is the ¾ time signature. Written by Brian for the Redwoods, this is another song the Beach Boys took for their use.

Little Bird is the debut of Dennis Wilson music on Beach Boy records. His relatively clear and touching vocal is an interesting contrast to the Joe Cocker like vocal style 1977 solo album. The odd, muted trumpet heard in the last chorus is from Smile, and the tune is arranged by Brian. It would be fair to say that one of the major trends of a positive nature in the Beach Boys was the development of Dennis as a songwriter and musician in the Seventies.

Busy Doin’ Nothin’ is Brian’s first entrance into the world of the samba, as popularized by Jobim in the mid Sixties. The song is a lovely mixture of clarinet, shuffling percussion, and Brian’s own gentle lead vocal. It’s also somewhat autobiographical. Brian was relishing life outside the Rat Race, something John Lennon wasn’t able to do until 1975. The song describes a rather mundane existence, but in musical terms which reinforce that lifestyle.

The samba arrangement coupled with Diamond Head’s tropical island instrumental effect (not on Break Away) are designed to communicate the same feelings that Bob Dylan sang about in Nashville Skyline’s Country Pie.

Passing By is Brian’s “Let’s Go Away For Awhile” on the Friends album. After writing lyrics for the song, Brian decided he’d rather just sing the song without words. Perhaps lyrics would have been more effective, but the vocal is affecting as it stands, and is a warm closing to the first side of the original Friends album, the Beach Boys’ most warm and loving unified work.

Be Here In The Morning and Friends share ¾ time signatures, along with a concentration on soaring vocals and interesting instrumentation. Friends has probably the most innovative use of the harmonica on a Beach Boy record, interwoven with what sounds like a very primitive synthesizer, but what may be another harmonica in a lower register. Be Here In The Morning has that wonderful organ that keeps popping up in Beach Boy records expressing love and friendship.  Wordless codas end each song, with Brian’s music again expressing emotions that would never need lyrics. Perhaps the organ recalls days gone by of singing, while gathered around the Wilson’s organ at home in Hawthorne. Whatever it is, it is a thread that along with the Beach Boys’ always beautiful vocals, runs through the Friends album, giving continuity. Murry Wilson contributes the bass vocal “full” in Be Here In The Morning’s verse. Knowing Brian’s aversion to arguments and family infighting, it is easy to see why Friends is often cited as his favorite album recorded with the Beach Boys.

Side 2

I Can Hear Music

Never Learn Not To Love

Cottonfields

I Went To Sleep

Bluebirds Over The Mountain

Celebrate The News

Be With Me

Breakaway

By 1969, when most of the music on this side of Break Away was originally released, the Beach Boys were ending an seven year association with Capitol. The music was infinitely more complex, yet also maintained a dignity that comes with years of success. The Beach Boys did not bow to pressures and go back to surf music, and in fact for some time were averse to even playing much of it live. Locked into a stereotype by the rock press, and also by American fans, the Beach Boys chose to do the only thing they could do under the circumstances; they ignored America for almost two years and toured where they were appreciated. Except for a few gigs, they did not play in Los Angeles for the 1969 –1970 period. They did an important date in 1970 at the Whisky-a-Go-Go, but they were hardly a California band.

Ronnie Spector says the Beach Boy version of I Can Hear Music is the definitive version. A higher compliment could not be offered unless it came from Phil himself. Produced by Carl Wilson, this single was top thirty in America, which was a big late Sixties’ achievement for the Beach Boys. Its almost a cappella vocal break has been lauded by Pete Townshend as one of the most beautiful moments he’s heard on a rock record. Brian Wilson heard the record and decided that the guys could make a record quite well without him. What it did signify was Carl’s arrival as an extremely talented producer. Another in the long string of Spector songs the Beach Boys have recorded, it is important to note that Spector did not produce the Ronette’s original single.

Never Learn Not To Love in a primitive form is a relative of Celebrate The News, the “B” side of Breakaway. Both the circular mantric songs reveal Dennis’s frame of mind in the late Sixties. Both have unusual arrangements, with Celebrate the News offering pounding tympani, screaming penny whistles, and pretty flute surrounding Dennis’s lead vocal. The song is easily the closest sounding Capitol recording of Dennis’s to his 1977 solo album, Pacific Ocean Blue. Celebrate The News appears for the first time on an album on Break Away in this set. It is a good example of Dennis’s production talent. It was becoming obvious that Brian was not the only production heavyweight in the band. In later years, the Wilson brothers’ studio abilities saved the band during Brian’s long periods of inactivity.

Be With Me is another powerful Dennis Wilson song that surfaced on the 20/20 album. It is an odd love song, with Dennis’s intensity burning throughout. His material on 20/20 shows a man in turmoil, perhaps at war with himself. His pleading vocal in Be With Me resolves itself with a shriek at the end of the song. A bending cello and subtle string charts emphasize Dennis’s Wagnerian influences, again showing him as the most classically oriented of the Beach Boys.

20/20 eclecticism shines through on no cut more distinctly than Bluebirds Over The Mountain. Produced by Bruce Johnston and Carl Wilson, the song is a strange amalgam of classic Fifties’ rock and roll which it originally was, and Late Sixties’ self-consciousness. The version offered on Break Away is an alternate mix taken from the original Dutch issue of the single. It is livelier and tighter than its more common counterpart and contains a percussion overlay mistakenly mixed higher than conventional versions of the song. Ed Carter’s guitar solo is somewhat out of place on a Beach Boys’ record, but at this time the group was trying numerous approaches to regain their American popularity. The single hit the top 100, but didn’t go top 50. It was basically forgotten by the group after its drop from the charts.

Cottonfields was released in two forms. The one presented on Break Away is the single version, more energetic than that, which appeared on the 20/20 album. The pumping pedal steel guitar and the more highly mixed drum track makes this version another Beach boy folk music tour de force. Alan Jardine sweetened the track after he and Brian recorded the original version on 20/20 some months before. Appropriately enough, the sweetening was done at Capitol Studios, which seems only right since this was the last record done for Capitol. As in 1962, the Capitol Studios hosted The Beach Boys one last time. The record went to number one in several countries around the world, but fell on deaf ears in America.

I Went To Sleep is a beautiful outtake from the Friends album. Actually released on 20/20, the song would have been a far more appropriate closing song for the Friends than Transcendental Meditation, which did close the album. I Went To Sleep is a postcard from a very domestic Brian, ensconced in the thrill of a new baby, and fatherhood.

Breakaway was written with commercial success in mind. It has all the ingredients of a classic Beach Boy song. Brian Wilson wrote it with his dad, Murry, who got his first and only writer’s credit on a Beach Boy record as “Reggie Dunbar.”  Brian had called a press conference in Los Angeles while the group was touring England, and announced that the Beach Boys were going broke. He then mentioned his plans for Breakaway, saying that he was going to “cut one like the old days.” Whether or not the press conference was a promotional ploy or whether the Beach Boys were really hurting financially is unknown. A chagrined Mike Love upon being asked about Brian’s remarks said “Brian’s panicking again, he must be down to his last million.” Breakaway, whatever the situation, is all that Brian promised. A summary of The Capitol Years in one record, it has intensely personal lyrics, Spectorian castanets, early Sixties harmonies, and a taste of late Sixties gentility in the acoustic guitar strumming throughout. The Beach Boys went on to newer pastures, but their Capitol Years music will serve as a fresh sound to generations yet to come. Perhaps the reason the music has endured is that the Beach Boys  endured themselves.

Boxed Set Credits:

Compiled by--Roy Gudge and Mike Grant with the help of many Beach Boys Fans around the world

Booklet Notes--Peter Reum

Tapes Compiled at EMI’s Abbey Road Studios, London

Coordinators: Bryan Tyrrell and June Pengelly

Graphic Concept : Robert Norton

Design: Frank Watkins (Out of Town Creative)

Originally issued by World Records, United Kingdom, 1980