GIRL DON’T TELL ME

I can’t tell you how much I liked “California Girls.” I used to ride my cherry red Raleigh with my transistor hanging from the handlebars waiting for the song to come on the radio. And I rode my bike down the hill to Topps discount store to purchase “Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!)” the day it came out (I had to walk my bike back up the hill, it wasn’t until years later and the advent of ten speeds that there was a gear low enough so I could pedal up).

Now “Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!)” also had the hit version of Help Me Rhonda,” which was far superior to the version on “The Beach Boys Today!” (Two albums with exclamation points in their titles in a row?) But it started with “The Girl From New York City,” an answer song to the Ad Libs’ “The Boy From New York City,” which was good, yet I thought it was superfluous. After that came the roller coaster ride of “Amusement Parks U.S.A.,” which seemed kind of funny sung by guys of this age, you’d figure they’d outgrown them, that’s when I wondered if they were singing for themselves or the market. Then an even more superfluous cover, “Then I Kissed Her.” But the following “Salt Lake City” was magical, maybe because of Brian Wilson’s singing and the change, ending with “we’ll be coming soon.” And at that point I knew about the powder skiing in Alta, but in 1965, no one went on a flight on a whim, the airlines were still regulated, Salt Lake City was still exotic.

And then came “Girl Don’t Tell Me.”

“Hi little girl, it’s me

Don’t you know who I am”

1964 was the summer of “A Hard Day’s Night.” By 1965, the Beatles were part of the firmament, we’d gone from mania to amazement. That an act could be so consistently good. And by this time, for many of us, albums had superseded singles, and this was the summer we all brought our albums to camp.

Now 1964 was the year I had my first girlfriend.

But in 1965, she went to camp in July and I went in August. I could tell you how I stole Jimmy’s girlfriend Jill at the first social after dropping the needle on the Beach Boys’ version of “Do You Wanna Dance,” made special because of Dennis Wilson’s lead vocal…then again, I guess I just did.

Anyway, camp is where I had my first “relationship” experiences. And when I got home from camp, I literally cried. I missed my friends. My mother laughed at me, but that’s just who she was.

But “Girl Don’t Tell Me” is about meeting a girl on summer vacation and then…she doesn’t write back.

“I’m the guy who left you with tears in his eyes

You didn’t answer my letters

So I figured it was just a lie”

Now writing letters was a thing back in the sixties. You’d meet a girl on a trip and correspond…until it ended. I did this with Jill. Some girl in Wisconsin whose name I can’t remember. (I want to remember because you can look everybody up online…you’ve done this, haven’t you?) And I did correspond with Jill, but just for a while.

And eventually she got back together with Jimmy, they both lived in the New Haven area and I didn’t.

I can’t say I was licking my wounds, but the song ends…

“Girl don’t tell me you’ll write

Girl don’t tell me you’ll write

Girl don’t tell me you’ll write me again this time”

There’s all this literature about girls being ghosted, hanging by the telephone back in the day, but it happened to boys too.

But as meaningful as the lyrics are, it’s Carl’s delivery that puts the song over the top. It’s the antithesis of the songs I’ve mentioned above. It’s not in your face, it’s intimate. At this late date “Girl Don’t Tell Me” is my favorite Beach Boys song.

GOD ONLY KNOWS

In the summer of 1966, we took a three week family trip cross-country. We flew, it was my first time on a jet airliner, my father didn’t have the patience to drive, as many other families did.

This was in July. I begged my parents to send me back to Camp Laurelwood in August. My mother kept saying it was full, I didn’t believe her, I thought it was an issue of money. For the record, since we were not part of the New Haven JCC, it would have cost $225, it was $200 if you were a local member.

So, instead I went to Boy Scout camp. Which was on the Connecticut/Massachusetts border.

Camp Pomperaug was about as rustic as it gets. We slept in tents.

Most troops went for a week, but there was a provisional unit for those who went unattached. And we had to pay more. Twenty two dollars per week instead of twenty.

But this provisional unit had a totally different vibe, a different attitude. You see it was peopled by lifers…assuming you consider eight weeks a life. It was looser…although Boy Scout camp was as about as loose and unsupervised as it got. And I was only going to go for a week, but I earned so many merit badges that I stayed a month. My goal was to get to Eagle so I could go to the World Jamboree in Idaho the following summer. I broke the record, fifteen in four weeks, the old one was fourteen in eight weeks. That’s how much I wanted to go. But when I found out that I didn’t have enough status in the council to make it to the Jamboree, it took me more than a year to earn the remaining six merit badges for Eagle…which they said looked good on your college application.

Anyway, there were three guys who ran the provisional unit. Two were teenagers, one was a twentysomething who was a teacher in real life, and he was  great guy. They got to live in a lean-to, and we’d hang out there and…

We were having a conversation, and this guy said “It’s like ‘God Only Knows.'” I didn’t know what he was talking about, not having heard the record. I didn’t buy “Pet Sounds,” it didn’t have enough hits. And it was not legendary until the seventies, despite today’s rewritten history. And then I started to hear “God Only Knows” on the multi-transistor in the lean-to. Magical, you only have to hear it once.”

GOOD VIBRATIONS

I got “Smiley Smile” as a Hanukkah gift from our cleaning lady Jean Moales, who was like a member of the family. She came every Saturday and she babysat us at night, sometimes made fried chicken. I know that’s not a term you can use today, but that’s what we employed sixty years ago.

Of course I knew “Good Vibrations.” And it had so many magical moments. But Carl’s vocal, from the very first “I…” sets a mood that you didn’t get in Top 40 in that era.

Enough has been written about “Good Vibrations,” but you’ve got to know that back in the day it was just another hit record…innovative and great, but even more, unexpected… The Beach Boys were fading on the chart compared to the English upstarts.

WITH ME TONIGHT

Now “Smiley Smile” was a weird album, it had the aforementioned “Good Vibrations” and “Heroes and Villains,” but what can you say about the rest of the record, it was just strange…

The next track I got into was “Vegetables,” which seems a weird concept for a record. But the rhythm, the obtuse lyrics and the harmonies delivered magic.

I’d be lying if I told you I liked all the songs on the LP, but when Carl sings the verses in “With Me Tonight” there’s  a heartfelt element that resonated.

“With me tonight

I know you’re with me tonight”

WONDERFUL

“One, one wonderful”

One step away from smooth, comporting with the rest of “Smiley Smile,” still this song had the bones of something transcendent. Only the Beach Boys could get away with singing about something being “wonderful,” it would be like using the word “fabulous,” positively unhip.

Now the version of “Wonderful” from “The Smile Sessions” is more streamlined, less out there, less rough, but it features the vocal of Brian Wilson, back when he still had his pure voice. The take on the 2004 “Smile” is smoother and more normal, and features one of Brian’s latter-day vocals.

WILD HONEY

I bought the “Wild Honey” album at Alexander’s in Stamford. I went on a rainy day with my mother…she wanted to buy something there, clothing, I don’t remember. And I wanted to buy “Wild Honey,” because of the title track.

Now the LP did have a hit single, “Darlin’,” their second to last hit, but my sister had purchased the single, I don’t know why, because at this point she’d pretty much  given up on buying records, I was the main purchaser, but occasionally a single would resonate…

Anyway, I’d heard “Wild Honey” on the radio and become infected and…

“Wild Honey” marks the return of the electro-theremin from “Good Vibrations,” but it’s also got Carl’s emphatic vocal, the complete opposite of his work on “Girl Don’t Tell Me.” He was goosed, akin to Paul McCartney singing those covers like “Twist and Shout” and “Long Tall Sally,” but not really, and this was not expected from Carl…

And there’s that line “Gettin’ sweeter (and sweeter)”.

I WAS MADE TO LOVE HER

This was back when he was still known as Little Stevie Wonder, he didn’t become the Stevie Wonder of today until 1972’s “Music of My Mind” and the tour opening for the Rolling Stones.

But Stevie did have hits, and I knew “I Was Made to Love Her,” but it was a different production, much sweeter and Stevie was emphatic, but Carl pushes it just a bit further in the Beach Boys’ take, Carl sounds like he’s at his limit, like a guy in a band at the sock hop doing his best to overcome the din.

Now Stevie’s version is superior, but it’s a great, at this point forgotten, song that could be done faithfully by anybody successfully, but what puts the Beach Boys’ take over the top is Carl pushing and pushing it, beyond the point of belief…what I mean is it’s like someone’s grabbing his package, he’s singing like his life depends on it, and you can feel it.

And there’s those great lines…

“You know my papa disapproved it

My mama boo-hooed it”

And…

“Oh, even if the mountain tumbles

If this whole world crumbles

By her side I’ll be standing there”

Whew!!

DARLIN’

They played this regularly on WDRC Hartford, both AM & FM. ’68 was the year FM burgeoned, I got a Columbia stereo, with detachable speakers, Milt worked for the company and got it for me for $100 (my parents paid, not me…but at this point music had superseded everything but skiing for me, and it was just as important to nearly everybody). And this Columbia unit had an FM tuner, so I’d spend time on the dial listening to all of the nascent FM stations popping up that year. We’d listen to WDRC AM in the car when passing through Hartford on the way to Vermont. We’d convince my father to let us listen to our music… That would never last long, he’d freak out and push the button and we knew to shut up, he was at his limit. And did your father listen to Monitor too?

But despite all that, I never really loved “Darlin’,” it wasn’t a breakthrough like what had come before.

I CAN HEAR MUSIC

Jimi Hendrix, Cream… It wasn’t so much that the Beach Boys were passé at this point, just that they’d stopped making great records. As a hard core fan it caused me to wince, and I didn’t even buy “Friends,” which Brian ultimately called his favorite, which I still can’t fathom today.

However, by time “20/20” was released, it was clear that Brian was off on his own personal hejira… Hell, he wasn’t even on the cover. So how high could one’s expectations be? But by this time, there was now rock news…that’s how big and powerful the music was, and we learned that the Beach Boys were covering “Cotton Fields”…huh?

But I read enough, and I liked the opening cut, “Do It Again,” which was the Boys’ last big hit, so I purchased the album, but…

This cover of the Ronettes’ “I Can Hear Music” was mellifluous, had the feeling of honey, because of Carl’s vocal. This portended the direction the Boys were going in… Carl was starting to take control, he produced this.

CABINESSENCE

The “Smile” leftover…

And it sounded like it, in a good way. “Cabinessence” tested limits, was innovative, whereas the rest of the album was moving in the opposite direction, towards safe.

What did “cabinessence” mean? And what about that maelstrom in the middle?

And then the finale…

There was something there that drew you in, made you think, made you want to go even deeper. This was the music of the late sixties, the absolute opposite of today’s made by committee in-your-face dreck. If it doesn’t have the potential to be a hit, the company is not interested. As for those off the radar screen experimenting… Don’t forget that Brian paid a lot of dues before he widened the vista, he was building on bedrock.

THIS WHOLE WORLD

“Sunflower” was supposed to be the comeback, the group had moved from Capitol to Warner Bros., the king of album rock. But the Beach Boys were neither fish nor fowl, not quite hip, although they started to come back in the public consciousness after this, appearing the closing night of the Fillmore East in June 1971 with the Allman Brothers…I listened to the simulcast, I was proud. But I’ve got to let you know, the Allmans were a surprise headliner to most, I knew “Idlewild South” from college, but most people were unaware until the subsequent release of “At Fillmore East.”

Now ultimately the Carl-led act became an arena fixture, even releasing a double live album, but it was based primarily on the sixties hits, and then came the greatest hits double album “Endless Summer,” which became a surprise blockbuster, cementing the Beach Boys’ place in the firmament forever, but really as an oldies act and…

“Sunflower” is a surprise, a tear, and that also describes the opening cut, the Dennis co-write (with Gregg Jakobson) “Slip On Through,” which Dennis also sang, before his voice turned gruff. Pure magic.

But really, the opening three cuts are all killers, as if the band had something to prove, and that they did. These are songs I sing in my head to this day.

The third of the trilogy was “Add Some Music to Your Day,” which was supposed to be the breakthrough, the hyped in advance single that was supposed to bring the Beach Boys back…but it didn’t.

“Music

When you’re alone

Is like a companion

For your lonely soul”

Ain’t that the truth.

But here we’re talking about the track sandwiched in between “Slip On Through” and “Add Some Music to Your Day.”

“This Whole World” has got the sunniness of Southern California, but unlike on “Wild Honey” and “I Was Made to Love Her,” Carl is not pushing it, he’s sweet and confident and it all resonates.

And then there’s the bridge, absent from today’s hits but a feature of yesteryear:

“When girls get mad at boys and go

Many times they’re just putting on a show

But when they leave, you wait alone”

Solid.

IT’S ABOUT TIME

Talk about a tear…

“I used to be a famous artist

Proud as I could be

Struggling to express myself

For the whole world to see

I used to blow my mind sky high

Searching for the lost elation

Little did I know the joy I was to find

In knowing I am only me”

Self-knowledge. Not putting themselves in the shoes of the audience, but being themselves. This was the seventies, an era of self-examination, but it was not expected from the Beach Boys.

“Oh, the creation, yeah

Of a good time doing my part

With an open-hearted laugh

Of realization in my mind

And now I’m but a child who art

Erect in humility

Serving out a love for everyone I meet

In truth who are really me”

Maybe a bit too touchy-feely for you, however…once again, it’s not about fame, but introspection, finding meaning in your life, knowing riches and fame are not enough. Then again, it’s from the point of view of the other side, whereas so much music is from the middle, empty-feeling questioning era.

And as if the rest of the track is not great enough, there’s this bridge, which no one could execute but the Beach Boys, it sounds exactly like them:

“No, no, no, no, no, no

It’s about time now

It’s about time now

It’s about time now

Don’t you know now

It’s about time now

It’s about time now

It’s about time now

Don’t you know now

It’s about time we get together

To be out front and love one another

Brothers, sisters, everybody

We better start to help each other now

We need it now”

The pure sound is the essence of music, it exists in its own rarefied atmosphere, but it ends up resonating more than that which is trying to convince, to close you.

And then the whole track explodes.

A tour-de-force.

FEEL FLOWS

Well, that didn’t work. “Sunflower,” I mean. So the group went back to the mines and…

The thought was to resurrect “Surf’s Up” and promote the hell out of the song previously only heard on a Leonard Bernstein TV special as being a masterpiece.

And then there were the au courant tunes, “Don’t Go Near the Water,” about ecology, and the self-explanatory “Student Demonstration Time,” and suddenly the Beach Boys had commercial as well as critical success, despite the “Surf’s Up” album not being as good as “Sunflower.”

But “Surf’s Up” does contain one gem, which I thought only I knew until Don Was featured it in his Brian Wilson film back in the nineties.

“‘Til I Die” is the essence of the Brian Wilson sound, there’s not another act that can do this, nor another act who has come close to this. This is the California mentality for the seventies as opposed to the sixties. Instead of hedonism, it’s contemplation.

Used to be my favorite Beach Boys track, but I played it so much and now as I stated above, “Girl Don’t Tell Me” is the one I like best, not that I like “‘Til I Die” any less.

A stunning achievement.

And Carl’s one of the three vocalists on “‘Til I Die,” and he’s hearable, but it’s the mass vocals/singing/harmonies that are most magical, but Carl’s peak on “Surf’s Up” is the second side opener, “Feel Flows,” cowritten with Jack Rieley who insinuated himself into the band to the point where he had a vocal in “A Day in the Life of a Tree” before the act ultimately woke up and jettisoned him, but…

Unlike the sixties hits, there was nothing obvious in “Feel Flows,” Carl was not trying to impress us. “Feel Flows” is sui generis, there’s not another song like it, and it opens up the second side of the album like an early morning wake-up call. And it evolves into what might have been called “experimental” in the late sixties, but this section of the track was more exploration, more journey than excess.

LONG PROMISED ROAD

Also co-written with Rieley, the interesting thing is “Long Promised Road” starts positively seventies, latter-day Beach Boys, and then hearkens back to the sixties heyday.

MARCELLA

The last song on the first side of the double-album package “Carl and the the Passions — ‘So Tough,'” “Marcella” is positively SHOCKING!

There were only days left in the spring semester of junior year. I purchased “Carl and the the Passions — ‘So Tough'” because the band was on a roll. But to say the studio album was forgettable…it truly was.

This was the beginning of the full court push of the “Pet Sounds” renaissance, it was the second disc of this double album.

And I hadn’t owned “Pet Sounds” previously, as stated above, yet it was the new material I was interested in.

So I drop the needle, the opening cut is supposed to be the best, at least great, right? But the hyped in advance “You Need a Mess of Help to Stand Alone” missed the target nearly completely. I mean REALLY? How out of touch could you be? Didn’t anybody know this was subpar, and if they did… In any event, this did not portend good things.

And good things did not come. “Here She Comes” was a Flame song, with no Wilson, never mind Love, involved. Good, but this was not what we were looking for, how thin was the vault, how light was the creativity, to include a song written and sung by people associated with the band, but not members.

The third track, “He Come Down”…this is really going in the wrong direction, this is a far cry from “Sunflower” and “Surf’s Up.”

And then comes “Marcella.”

It’s like being in the desert and stumbling upon an oasis.

It’s like reconnecting with an old love and not only having it go smoothly, but realizing it’s everything you ever wanted.

I mean “Marcella” is a complete return to form, hearkening back to the sixties, yet not dated.

It starts with a brief flourish out of a carnival but very soon thereafter goes into an hypnotic chorus, but it’s the background vocals that put it over the top.

And the verse delivers, with adult lyrics, a bit cryptic, but far from the surface, beach, fun, fun, fun words of the sixties.

And then the chorus returns. But it’s like they’re singing rounds, it’s elementary school singing on steroids, this is the peak of the paradigm, and then the synth notes deliver an exquisite palate cleanser, and then we’re back into it.

And then there’s even a guitar break, not overdoing it, but not so simple that anyone could deliver it, and then nearly sotto voce…

“One arm over my shoulder

Sandals dance at my feet

Eyes that’ll knock you right over

Ooh, Marcella’s so sweet”

Ad infinitum as the band slowly marches over the hill and disappears and you have no option but to pick up the needle and listen to “Marcella” again. And again. And AGAIN!

Now this was in the days when you had to buy it to hear it. And few bought this double album. So it was a personal treat. If only others could hear it, if only they could play it on the radio, this is a HIT!

But I never found anyone else who knew “Marcella.”

But the internet has brought “Marcella” back from the dead, people know it now.

All that naysaying about the internet?

Hogwash.

“Marcella” is not the only obscurity the internet has surfaced, they were land mines just waiting for attention, and now they’ve gotten them.

THE TRADER

A ton of money spent, shipping all that gear overseas, as well as the families, all to come back with nothing resembling a hit. And then they reached out to recluse Brian and he delivered the opening cut for “Holland,” probably their most memorable late-period track, the Blondie Chaplin sung “Sail On Sailor.”

“The Trader” opens the second side of “Holland” in the same way “Long Promised Road” opened the second side of “Surf’s Up.” But it hits the ground running as opposed to being subtle, and the song is good, with memorable sections, the same but with different lyrics, like this:

“Banish them from our prairies and our hillsides

Clear them from our mountains and our seasides

Or want them off our lakes, so please reply

Signed, sincerely” 

And then halfway through the song it switches completely, Carl is no longer emphatic, but sweet.

“Making it softly

Like the evening sea

Trying to be”

And the song concludes with:

“Reason to continue

Reason to go on

Reason to live”

FUNKY PRETTY

“Funky

I still remember funky pretty”

There’s the magic, not quite three minutes into the song, Carl is positively wistful.

GOOD TIMIN’

The last hurrah. The last great Beach Boys song. Rescued from the vaults and finished to counteract the band’s disco foray with “Here Comes the Night.” Very few can follow trends and survive. The Stones did it. Rod Stewart…had success after “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy,” but he lost all credibility with the fans who built and supported him.

The Beach Boys released an oldies album, did a TV special with Aykroyd and Beulshi, they told us Brian was back, but he wasn’t.

But with “Good Timin’,” co-written with Carl and sung by the youngest Wilson brother, there was a complete return to form. Not as good as “Sail On Sailor,” but close.

FULL SAIL

The best song on “L.A. (Light Album)” after “Good Timin'” was “Angel Come Home,” co-written by Carl with Geoffrey Cushing-Murray, but sung by Dennis. Heartfelt. Utterly fantastic. Dennis’s voice was now rough, but that just added gravitas here, and then there’s the chorus, and backup vocals with the magic of “Marcella.”

Carl also wrote “Full Sail” with Geoffrey Cushing-Murray, but this starts off incredibly stripped-down and naked, a great vehicle for Carl’s sweet voice. And the record builds, but it’s Carl’s wistful vocal that makes the track.

BABY BLUE

Written by Dennis, Gregg Jakobson and Dennis’s then girlfriend, Karen Lamm (Dennis’s cool and charisma were irresistible), Carl takes the lead vocal on this 

“Baby Blue” sounds like the late night of the lyrics, but it’s the ending where the magic resides.

“Baby, baby blue

Baby blue eyes I love you new

I hold you in my dreams tonight

Hold you ’til morning light”

And then the coda…

This is the essence of adult Carl Wilson.

The marketplace was about to change completely. Rock had become corporate and then disco crashed and the entire business was depressed until MTV came along to rescue it.

And very shortly thereafter, although there were great albums, it was definitely about the single once again…which not only had to be great, you ultimately needed a great video too.

But before that, at the end of seventies, the album-dominant era… You could reach for the stars and if it wasn’t radio-friendly that didn’t matter, as long as you reached those who broke the shrinkwrap and listened at home.

Not everybody was listening to the Beach Boys at the end of the decade. But those who were realized it was Carl’s vision and talent shepherding their process.

You can’t find this sound anywhere today.

Will people study it years from now?

I don’t know…

But they should.