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The last :52 seconds of this thing is kicking my ass right now... great stuff.  I love the slide off the cliff as Mike sings... "...of ways that I can spend all my nights with you..." and then all those layered parts start stacking... the brass line kicks in... a classic Beach Boys "fade" as Carl used to say, like the end of Breakaway, At My Window, etc.

I LOVE this song

Me too.

One of the best 70's BB songs, definetely. Criminally underrated! It gives me chills goddammit, it's so great!

Count me in as a lover of Wontcha Come Out Tonight! It's a killer tune with great harmonies! I bet more fans would like it if it were on a different album.

Brian's smooth vocals-can't get enough of that.

I love MIU!

The "U" in MIU stands for underrated.

And "MI" stands for mostly isn't.

I agree it's probably even one of their best 70s songs. So catchy!

Not too crazy about M.I.U. as a whole but there are a couple of songs where Brian's input was really inspired.

LOVE this song....love Brian's vocals on it, and actually MIU is  my favorite album outside of the 1967-1972 period. Yeah...I said it.

MIU is an LP I can play in an entirely flat manner. It doesn't disgust me. It doesn't delight me. And I haven't played it enough. It's just... there.

Except HAY LITTLE HAY LITTLE.

Yes!!! Wontcha Come Out Tonight is a fantastic song!

I completely agree with those who say MIU is underrated. Tracks like She's Got Rhythm, Wontcha, Sweet Sunday Kinda Love, Pitter Patter, My Diane, and Match Point and all very under appreciated gems.

This song makes me cringe and come close to throwing up every time I hear it. "I find myself a singin' this little song...." Please kill me if I have to ever hear that again.

To be fair, given' how indifferent I am to the LP, I can't remember how the song goes bar the intro... You have given me motivation not to find out... Thank You :D

We need more songs from freddie! ;D

No, we don't.

To most ears it's just as garbage as pretty much everything else on MIU. I'll always respect fans for loving the music the BB's put out; quirkiness and all!

Haven't played this song in a long time. Whenever I've played MIU before, I've skipped over it.

There's one thing that I've wondered to this day since I first heard it when it came out. I've seen suggestions to an answer, but nothing definitive. Maybe I missed the correct answer somewhere along the way:

Why does Brian's vocal sound so clear compared to other vocals of his from the mid-70's on?  Has it been established that his voice went through a processor or other means when recording this song?

Let me guess. You want the album to self destruct and to f*** up Mike Love's meditation forever. Right?



I think this song just needed David Marks' axe on it. Then it would be a total classic! Kinda like if he rocked all over Wild Honey.

An equally good question might be why Brian never sounded as gruff again as he did on 15BO and LY, even in 1981.

And I've always loved Pitter Patter-now there's a candidate for a single. The song has a fabulous melody line, the vocals are spot on, and it just rocks along on it's merry way. 8)

I like the song,,,of course I always sing it to myself without the word "Out" in it... ;D

Yes!  I call it, "4-packs-a-day Brian"  How did he just vanish?!

He's first started to show up, I think on Mt. Vernon and Fairway, a bit... perhaps?  This is admittedly a very strange "Brian."  But I like this Brian.

Hell...yes. May have been produced by Al, but the way the backups play off each other rhythmically reminds me of Brian in his prime.


LMFAO


I've always held that Brian's raspiness was a bit put on, and his MIU voice was more indicative of how he really sounded at that point.

Seems to be my favorite subject, but you can hear his mid-period voice turn up several times in the backups on So Tough, especially He Come Down

‍

If you wrote the same thing about Belles of Paris I'd certainly understand it. M.I.U. has some cringe-worthy moments (much more so than any other BB album up to that point) but Come Out Tonight isn't one of those I think.

Winds of Change is the only song on there i actively despise, mistly because Al Jardine sounds like Kermit the Frog on Quaaludes on it.

Maybe...

Not a fan of this album at all. Having said that, I like My Diane, Pitter Patter and I can just about take Winds of Change (though one version sounds considerably better than the other) because at least it's trying to be something good. Wontcha is the best of the rest. Don't think it's any worse than It's Okay - both are evidence lyrical ability had gone south. On my attempt to revamp MIU and make it more palatable (to me), I still include it.

(http://i57.tinypic.com/1zmd0so.jpg)

BTW, That Same Song is the rollicking version from the TV special and Lady Lynda is minus the intro, in an attempt to replicate the version recorded during the MIU sessions.

Sorry to be pedantic but I thought that Lady Lynda was recorded some time before the MIU sessions and wasnt worked on in Iowa at all.

:-D Good one!

I love this song. I think more people would like it had it been on, say, the Surfer Girl album.



I assume that Brian's vocal cords had recovered a bit from the cocaine damage done before Landy's first stint. When Brian took on the cocaine habit again after Landy was gone, his vocal cords were ruined for good, I guess.

Thing is, though...he had resumed usage before the MIU sessions and was relatively clean a year previous.

You are correct. "Lynda" was not worked on at MIU.

Be pedantic away! You're right. My bad. It was recorded at Brother, I think, and turned up on Almost Summer - though not on the OST album, more's the pity. But I think it was considered for MIU. Either way, it's on my alt version.

The gruff Brian voice totally perplexes me.  I almost think he was sick or something.. like bronchitis or whatever.  He never sounded like this ever again.   Oddly his falsetto was still solid on songs like Sherry She Needs Me and Airplane.

I remember hearing Wontcha Come Out Tonight on WREC, an AM radio station, back in 1978. It was particularly strange since the station was geared more towards talk radio, and most of the music they did play was geared towards old farts, my current demographic.

http://youtu.be/GSLclEJ0IAQ (http://youtu.be/GSLclEJ0IAQ)

This is a  strange yet really intriguing Brian video from 1978. His voice sounds very damaged here.

That does not look like 1978 Brian. It looks like this is 1981, post Keepin' The Summer Alive.

I agree with those who say Wontcha Come Out Tonight and She's Got Rhythm were cringe worthy.

That's what I assumed though, that he went back to cocaine the minute Landy was gone, and Landy was gone before the MIU sessions. But the reason for his cleaner voice on MIU might be the non-using of cocaine the previous year. Apparently the cocaine drippings on one's vocal cords take some time to have a bad effect, and it takes some time to recover. My take is that at the time of the MIU sessions, his vocal cords had recovered because of his cocaine hiatus, and the cocaine taken at the time of the sessions had not yet re-ruined them.

Maybe I'm totally off-track, but that's what I think.

Interesting vid, thanks for posting, but re the voice - it does note at 1.18 (or thereabouts) that Brian told the crew he had laryngitis

Check out the footage of Carl towards the end, looking a little ragged and crazy eyed - doesn't look like post KTSA Carl.

I like Brian's lead on the verses. Reminds me of Match Point of Our love, which has grown to be my favorite on MIU.

The chorus, however, conjures up a mental image of the guys in a recording studio strutting around in circles like chickens and flapping their wings. The chorus has always sounded like singing cartoon chickens to me, particularly on the last 30 seconds or so. If this comes on the car stereo at a traffic light, you can bet I'm turning that down.

There is an alternate version of this song that is quite different to the released version, if I recall correctly.

That footage is from the 1978 pm magazine segment. The footage was all filmed at a May 1978 appearance in Oakland. What I always notice is how calm and real Brian seems there.

Yes, I saw it the night it was televised on PM Magazine. I still remember my Dad, who was reading the newspaper at the time but glanced at the TV and said, "What's wrong with that guy?" I agree that Brian seemed "real" in the interview. He displayed emotion, thought about the question, and sounded articulate. However, I didn't think he was calm; actually he looks perturbed about something. It's one of the few times I have actually seen Brian "angry" in an interview. It remains one of my favorite Brian interviews, as short as it is. That Brian was so fascinating.

One quick thing on "Wontcha Come Out Tonight".... I haven't listened to it in years, but doesn't the vinyl Ten Years Of Harmony have a version of "Wontcha Come Out Tonight" which has a longer tag and a slightly different mix with the brass more prominent at the end. I could be wrong.

"That Same Song" should never have appeared ANYWHERE.  Awful.  THAT'S the tape that Brian should have burned.

Yes indeed, it sure does.

Is this on the CD too? Or just the original vinyl?

Just the vinyl.

 :lol

Yes, just the vinyl. Ten Tears Of Harmony lost a couple of cool mixes when it went from vinyl to CD. Why, I don't know!

Just relistened to this song a couple of days ago. Both the singing and the melodies still sounded very strong to me but once again it struck me how the backing tracks on the entire M.I.U. Album are just incredibly dull and pedestrian. There is virtually none of the old magic to these arrangements and this I think is what ultimately makes this record sound so corny. It's certainly not underproduced in a way that's charming, like Wild Honey.

Well, that can be said for everything after Sunflower through M.I.U. There are hardly any trademark harmonies on those albums. When Good Timin' was released, as soon as those harmonies kick in, there was no mistaking that that was The Beach Boys on the radio.

Dry, fat, and compressed. Typical record from 1974 to 1981 but I love how it sounds nonetheless.

The backing track for that is duller than anything on MIU though IMHO. I actually didn't notice how good a song it is until I heard the unplugged version on the SMiLE tour. The dull backing track totally ruins Good Timin' for me.

The vocals more than make up for it. One of those songs that always puts me in good mood. :)

Lucky you!

Classic tune!

What are the other alternate mixes on the Ten Years of Harmony vinyl?

I'm guessing this alternate mix was mistakenly released, as opposed to an intentional decision to release it this way? (Especially since the CD version doesn't have it). MIU seems to be the album that has resulted in the most goofs in terms of reissuing wrong mixes, like the multiple wrong mixes used on the 1990 CD version. And it's inadvertently good for fans that this has happened, of course - the more versions out there, the better.

I've often wondered if that's because less effort on a reissue was put into making sure that everything was done properly for songs on an album regarded by many (including many of the BBs themselves) as lower-tier BB material? Then again, maybe MIU just had the worst tape labeling of masters/mixes of any other album in the BBs vault. Or maybe a combination of those 2 factors.

This is from long ago memory; I haven't listened to it in years; I stand to be corrected:

Wontcha Come Out Tonight - a longer tag with more prominent brass
School Days - a different beginning and bell ringing I recall
It' OK - I think they used the single mix
Rock And Roll Music - I think they used the single mix
California Saga - I know they used the single mix

I admit Brian's verses are catchy, but that's the only good thing I can say about it. The MIU album is so bland it's ridiculous.

The songs on MIU which have stood *my* test of time are Kona Coast...I always appreciated the tip of the hat to Hawaii, Peggy Sue...neat Carl vocal/neat version, and Pitter Patter...just 'cause I felt it.

I suppose I can also include Come Go With Me as an honourable mention selection.

What is Orson Welles sober, driving a mini?

 :drumroll

Didn't Al sing Peggy Sue?

Carl sings the lead on the chorus, which is fantastic. If you listen to the 15 Big Ones mix, Carl's vocal is missing and the whole thing is played down.