Brian's codas

[Mendota Heights]

Til I Die is the best tag.

[The Heartical Don]

Til I Die is the best tag.

No. Surf's Up is.

And I have more posts than you.

[FatherOfTheMan Sr101]

Til I Die is the best tag.

No. Surf's Up is.

And I have more posts than you.

Sorry, I agree.

[Mendota Heights]

Til I Die is the best tag.

No. Surf's Up is.

And I have more posts than you.

Sorry, I agree.

The Heartical Don has more posts than you and I combined, we'll never win this argument.

[Iron Horse-Apples]

Why is it with Don, I imagine a dishevelled Peter Falk type character tooting on a fatty-bom-batty in a dutch cafe? Making these funny posts and giggling to himself. Wearing clogs and living in a windmill under the stairs. Why is this?

[SMiLE-addict]

'When I Grow Up To Be A Man' - that's one coda that I wish lasted for a bit longer.

I was listening to California Girls today, and started to wish the same thing for that coda as well. At least another 15 seconds would have been nice.

[over and over]

'When I Grow Up To Be A Man' - that's one coda that I wish lasted for a bit longer.

Won't last forever.

Sorry man, I had to. But you're right, its one of the best codas.

[The Heartical Don]

Why is it with Don, I imagine a dishevelled Peter Falk type character tooting on a fatty-bom-batty in a dutch cafe? Making these funny posts and giggling to himself. Wearing clogs and living in a windmill under the stairs. Why is this?

Bummer. I've been found out! I need to see my therapist... 

[Wrightfan]

Celebrate the News is one of my favorites.

[The Heartical Don]

Til I Die is the best tag.

No. Surf's Up is.

And I have more posts than you.

Sorry, I agree.

 

[Ron]

I'm a big country music fan, and there's this realllly annoying thing going on right now with songwriters, where they end the song by repeating the first line of the song.  it's a kind of interesting way to do it, but when everybody's doing it on every song, it gets old quick. 

I've always noticed Brian's codas.  I remember somewhere reading about Paul McCartney or somebody bragging about how Paul made the reprise at the end of "Hello Goodbye".  They were talking about just how brilliant that was to do the end of the song that way, blah blah blah.

Have they never heard Brian Wilson?  Every damn song almost had the care and effort taken to have a distinct end to the song that was it's own mini-masterpiece.  Even the end of "Good Vibrations", I can't tell if it's just that the vocals are missing, but it sounds like a lot more going on in the fade out of the song than was going on when that theme was playing earlier.  Just a little touch like a composer would put in his instrumental music. 

"Salt Lake City" has a cool one.  "California Girls" is epic, you get this vision of the Beach Boys, somewhere, STILL singing that fucking coda.  There's something about a good fade in a great song like that, it's like it could go on forever if they just wouldn't have faded it out.  You almost want to go "NO, DON'T GO AWAY!" when you hear a song like that, it's incredibly positive, excitement, energetic music, you've got what sounds like 30 different Beach Boys and there's only 6 of them. 

A coda like that one gives the impression that the Beach Boys were 'effortlessly' great.  They're singing that great round, over and over again, and it sounds perfect every damn time.  It sounds like nobody else could sing like that, but they are, again, and again, and again, and it fades out so you don't know how long they were able to sing that great, again , and again, and again.

"God Only Knows" is of course the other great example of it.  I agree that the acapella mix is just stunning, and yes, it made me cry too the first few times i heard it.  Not because it's sad, because it was so damn perfect, just these fantastic musicians doing nothing more than opening their mouths and letting the warmth flow out.  A couple of those voices are still now.


I saw an old show, years ago, with Brenda Lee.  She sang an Elvis song, the way she introduced it was she said "there's been a lot of great voices over the years, one of those voices is still now"... and then sang "I can't help falling in love with you".  I never forgot the way she stated that.  I think the reason the coda to God Only knows strikes you so hard revolves around that.  Knowing that Carl's gone, but hearing him singing so awesome on that song, and knowing that Dennis suposedly stayed late at the studio with Brian and Bruce that day to record that acapella bit, that soon found itself on the cutting room floor... it's just all kind of overwhelming. 

[The Shift]

What I love about Calif Girls' tag is the way each repetition i delivered slightly differently, mainly thanks to Hal's rolls. Makes each bar worth an independent listen of its own. I agree, it could go on and on and on…  Glorious.

Now – any news anyone?

[Iron Horse-Apples]

Funky Pretty is one of my favourite tags. That melody Mike is singing is sublime

[SMiLE-addict]

Well said Ron!

I had never thought about the end of Hello Goodbye until you mentioned it here, but yeah, it's true.

I wonder if Macca had noticed some of BW's codas and copied the idea.

[Ron]

Probably.  I've heard this big fuss over how genius it is, although the BB's were doing a better job of it at the time.

Same thing with the Harpsichord in "In my life", I actually heard when I was a teenager that it was the 'first harpischord in pop music" or some nonsense, which I wholeheartedly believed at the time.  Then I heard "When I grow up to be a man", recorded a year or so earlier.  Whoops.

[puni puni]

There's some harpsichords in Spector tracks cut in '63 ~ '64 anyway

[Ron]

Just about anytime something is held up as 'the first' in music it's b.s. anyways.  Like "God Only Knows" being the first use of "God" in the title of the song, come on. 

It kind of dishonors all these guys true genius to try and come up with concrete reasons they're genius.  God Only Knows is genius not because of the song title, but because of about 20 other things... including the Coda.


Whew.  Back on track.  Almost let this one get away from us. 

[SMiLE-addict]

Same thing with the Harpsichord in "In my life", I actually heard when I was a teenager that it was the 'first harpischord in pop music" or some nonsense, which I wholeheartedly believed at the time.  Then I heard "When I grow up to be a man", recorded a year or so earlier.  Whoops.

The keyboard on In My Life isn't even a harpsichord, it's a speeded-up piano.

[Pet Sounder]

My favorite is the one on I Know There's An Answer.  It's been my favorite piece of music for quite some time now.  Followed closely by the tag on The Little Girl I Once Knew. 

[AndrewHickey]

I absolutely agree. Some fave examples of BW's codas:

- London's A Lonely Town;

That's not a Brian track -- he's not even on it. It's Dave Edmunds, Curt Boettcher, Bruce, Gary Usher and Terry Melcher.

[Amazing Larry]

I'm shocked and appalled that nobody mentioned At My Window.
For shame...

[SMiLE-addict]

I was listening to TSS in my car on my way home from work today, and it occurred to me the 2nd part of Holidays would make great coda for some larger song - starting at either 1:38 or 1:46. Perhaps overlay some more vocals (maybe some humming chords, not too much though) and it would be a good "mellow" coda, as opposed to his usual "go out with a bang" codas.

But for all I know, this is what it was intended for.

[Jeff]

A great non-BW coda is on Caetano Veloso's Maria Bethania  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvsAOZv-QYY.  Reminds me of the Veggies tag in that you get otherworldly sounds from the human voice.

[SMiLE-addict]

Well said Ron!

I had never thought about the end of Hello Goodbye until you mentioned it here, but yeah, it's true.

I wonder if Macca had noticed some of BW's codas and copied the idea.

I was listening to Sgt Pepper's today and realized McCartney also has a mini-coda at the end of Getting Better and a more obvious one at the end of Rita Meter Maid. Someday I should listen to all of Paul's songs prior to the Pet Sounds release and see if he added any notable tags (can't think of any offhand). If not, that adds to the evidence he was copying Brian, at least a bit.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

I was listening to Sgt Pepper's today and realized McCartney also has a mini-coda at the end of Getting Better and a more obvious one at the end of Rita Meter Maid. Someday I should listen to all of Paul's songs prior to the Pet Sounds release and see if he added any notable tags (can't think of any offhand). If not, that adds to the evidence he was copying Brian, at least a bit.

Drive My Car? Paperback Writer was recorded before Pet Sounds was released.