Discuss & Rate Beach Boys Songs Day By Day Vol. 2

Perhaps the words of a man steeling/preparing himself for his offsprings upcoming teenage years.

As a very young child, I fell in love with the earliest Beach Boys records -- 45s and albums. While I lived nowhere near any beach, the images intoxicated me. And the music was different -- much beyond anything else I heard.

I enjoyed the more adult albums -- Surf's Up, Holland, Sunflower, etc. -- as I became older. I mean "adult" in a thematic sense. And for a couple years they dominated my listening experience. But I retained an almost guilty pleasure in returning to the early records, marveling at how moved I was by the kaleidoscope of sound and imagery.

As I became as close as I am likely to be to whatever we might refer to as "mature," I discovered a new truth about the first few records. The music and lyrics were every bit as relevant and emotionally honest as anyone ever laid down on vinyl.

They chronicled, in a glorified but emotionally truthful way, the lives of ordinary teenagers and young adults. I never surfed, but I drove hot rods and rode motorcycles. More than that, I knew exactly what Fun, Fun, Fun, In the Parkin' Lot, Help Me Rhonda, I Get Around, Wendy and In My Room felt like. O knew what each of those records had to say was relevant to me.

As an uninteresting aside, All Summer Long was the soundtrack to my mourning when an injury forced me to confront the fact I would never play catcher for the Yankees. Something about that record helped me understand that life would continue. To this day, when I hear another record -- Don't Worry Baby -- I think about a girl who helped me through that dark time. In dreams, sometimes, I still hear the snap and crackling of broken bone and cartilage. Don't Worry Baby.

Pet Sounds is a soundtrack for love affairs go wrong, and for maturation. Shut Down Vol. 2 is a snapshot of one hot, exciting summer. Both are relevant to my live and to the lives of many others.

I have made it a goal since then both to remind my fellow Beach Boys fans that the music, ultimately, is exciting and Fun, Fun, Fun and to highlight essential truths about those earliest records.

Save rare exceptions post-Holland, the music became more about capturing a new audience, a lost sound, an elusive "hit." Of course, it was still made by people who mega-talent created some amazing moments.

But those early records weren't about anything except a band's desire to tell its story in the only way it could -- by employing the images and imagery of what the band members were and wanted to be, what they lived and wanted to live.

Brian Wilson's hopes and dreams, tears and fears, joy and sadness were remarkably congruent to those many of us experienced. His hyper-sensitivity and massive talent allowed him to describe our lives as accurately and honestly as Steinbeck described the lives of the itinerant and the downtrodden.

Mike Love's lyrics and those of others were honest, in our world, and were no doubt imbued with the stardust of Brian's inspiration.

I don't want to forget that records like All Summer Long are both magnificent and wholly honest.

Everytime I have a date, there's only one place to go.

OK, technically we have 2 official releases to go.

The 50th LIVE CD and the LSO mash-up.  Shall we? I must confess to not paying a lot of attention to LSO album, my skin still welted from the torture of 1981's Hooked On Classics, K-Tel's ultimate revenge - thus I'm vaguely interested.  

But lets face it, neither really offer nothin' new, bar a bar or two here and there.

Let me know your thoughts, taking into account I'll be away next week possibly with limited internet connection (I hope), so it will be a slow burn into xmas, with the emphasis on burn.

LOL , we'll need something to help us stay awake until Feel Flows shows (up).

Were we to go down that path, I have a very rigorous scoring matrix in mind (ie, to rip off from a non-BB site), to ramp things up a tad.