The Smiley Smile Message Board

How many of you love this Song?  This is my Opinion but this song reminds me of a heavy Metal song

I do. And I think it's heavy, too.

But not metal.

The chorus reminds me of the overworld theme from the first Final Fantasy game. Someone tell me why this is.

Bad Hearing?

When I first heard it...I thought that it was just OUTSTANDING.  A step forward for music.  The flip side was pretty other-worldly too.  These Beach Boys are leaders not followers.  This is where expectations really began to grow [for me].

When I heard the very first Led Zeppelin album I though...man!!!  THIS is new.  No one ever sounded like THIS before.  A gigantic leap for mankind.  This is something else.  Totally unique.  I LOVE it.

I Get Around. Don't Worry Baby and Good Vibrations also did THAT for me.  [albeit a few years earlier]  In THAT regard...I'd agree that I Get Around was like heavy metal.  So too is a large crowbar. ;)

Maybe stop hitting on me.

You know, Surfer, you seem to start new threads without 'concluding' your previous ones and seeing closure. You ask questions and don't thank or acknowledge the responders to your questions or comments or requests for further information. You leave them hanging with one opening post with no follow-up. On your previous thread, we wanted clarification and confirmation on your new "CD' that you received for Christmas. Now you start a new thread with the premise that a classic Beach Boys hit sounds like "Heavy Metal", which is really an off-the-wall statement. You make a vague comment without backing it up with why you think that way. The previous thread had no details, just a title. No track list, dates, or anything to give us some background. We salvage your threads anyway and make something out of almost nothing. This seems to be an on-going trend. We understand your condition, but we know you're capable of contributing better posts here, especially by following up after starting them. Some people would call it trolling, but we know you're not a troll. Hope you can understand what I'm talking about and please don't take offense, OK?

P.S. The band that 'Add Some' mentioned above was the first Heavy Metal one as far as I'm concerned, starting in 1969.

Nothin' new to add, other than I think IGA is pretty Avant-garde.  My first proper listen (in terms of actually listening) was around '83; punk, post punk, new wave, and even quirky hits like Ashes to Ashes by David Bowie were already vibrating around my pretty young head (especially my face) - yet IGA deglazed all songs I'd pedestalled, and remains a key song in my listening list.

For a guy who was yet to really get on the grass, Brian certainly came up with something out-there.  Those syncopated/staccatoey twists and turns during the VERSE - funny that years later, a session player had to suggest Brian take a staccato approach to resolve  the GOK break!

I too would like to hear Surfer come back into this thread and elaborate.  Not picking on you my friend, but what about I Get Around reminds you of heavy metal?  Or are you referring to a particular heavy metal song?  You've got me curious now....

My personal opinion of I Get Around is that it is an excellent song.  Perfect for the time it was released, and a great classic today.  I think there's a lot going on in this just over two minute slice of 60s California teenage life!

Maybe you should should say why it's not a heavy metal song.

If it's that important to you.

I am picking on you.

Have you heard the track-only on the recent KAEOS download release? That emphasises just what a heavy track I Get Around really is.

And what Mikie said. Would love to read more about your thoughts, Surfer.

Most people here know that before I became a fan in 1995, I used to dismiss the Beach Boys as some lightweight oldies band. Well, I Get Around was the exception. I fell in love with it upon hearing it in 1989 on the Look Who's Talking soundtrack. Blew me away. Sounded very punk to my young ears.  That and When I grow up made me a bit curious, although they were a guilty pleasure as it was uncool to like anything by the BB at that time. Plus my dad hated them( he was more about the blues and 70s classic rock, the kind you hear on the radio)

KAEOS is bottom end heavy . It sort of captures the spirit of those no-highs capitol 45's.

I find Little Honda to be the heaviest track.  That's the tune that makes me wanna shove people around like I'm listening to the Stooges or something.  We should form a moshpit at the RAH.

It features a absolutely punk guitar anyway! Wish that had been mixed louder.

Easily one of the best rock songs of the 60s. Mike's hook sets you on a ride that you will never forget. The music of the verses is so funky and Carl's guitar solo is exciting. The acapella breaks bring it all home. In fact the single may be one of the greatest 45s ever.

This song reminds of a Heavy Metal song is because of the Guitars and those Guitars sound like Metalic in sound

I hated this song since the first time I heard it as a toddler in the late '70s.

I Get Around and Little Honda both have that cool distorted guitar fuzz which make it sound heavy and/or punk. The intro to Little Honda is just as blistering as a Ramones song.

Blue Cheer was the first heavy metal band. They were around before Zeppelin.

IGA: Personally I prefer the live in Sacramento and TAMI versions. They're played a bit faster and the verse arrangement is more driving. If you could combine the isolated fuzz bass from the studio recording into those, that'd be perfect.

Mikie, Surfer's a lot like Brian in this respect. Gets easily bored, moves on. I can dig it. At least he's making positive contributions to the board.  :)

I told a non-fan buddy years ago that "I Get Around" features "the greatest guitar solo ever recorded." He immediately listed a dozen or so other guitar solos that he regarded as superior. It occurred to me later that I misspoke. What I should have said is that the guitar solo in "IGA" is set up brilliantly by the preceding chorus and that it then takes the song perfectly into the key change (up a half step) of the third/final verse and choruses. Sure, the solo itself may not be amazing from a technical perspective but it helps direct the song so perfectly that the point is moot.

"IGA" seems to me to be proto-proto-punk, instrumentally, but it isn't heavy metal. That overdriven baritone guitar (a similar sound is also featured in "Fun, Fun, Fun", "Dance, Dance, Dance" and "Little Honda") that chugs along throughout the song gives it an edge that just screams early punk rock. And that electric harpsichord that's in there... it's quite prominent in the mix of the track on the 30th anniversary box set "Good Vibrations"... disc five, I think... is just played balls to the wall, too. Love it!

Understood, AGD, and I was concerned that no matter how my "friendly advice" was interpreted, it would come out wrong. That wasn't my attention.

AND, between you, me, and the wall, "I Get Around" doesn't remotely sound like Metal to me. Even with the twangy Fender Strat/Tele lead guitar.

Given that there was NO metal back in '64...well maybe Link Wray...how could it have been so?  Impossible...except for one thing Mikie...and it's true of all of us.  We all hear different stuff...with each and every song.  Our perspective is the ancient one.  We were there.  Looking from a different angle...it likely sounds different.  There are guys here who HEAR punk in some of the ditties.  :o  I don't.  THEY do.

So it goes.  I guess what the Beach are and what they mean to each of us individually...is just that...an indivudal perspective.

Some folks love Smiley Smiley and Love You.  I don't.  I REALLY like everything from Pet Sounds to Holland [except Smiley Smile] MOST...and I LOVE the early stuff...even Surfin Safari...my very first Rock 'n' Roll album...others don't really like the early 70s stuff as much.  So it goes.  We're all right.  Even Surfer.

"So it goes". Remember Linda Ellerbee use to say that?

 :) That performance from the TAMI show is my favorite BB performance from that time period!  Up to that point they had other filmed performances but they weren't as exciting to me.  Compare the TAMI Show with that earlier concert they did back in March of '64, huge difference (even though IGA wasn't in that setlist).  Another great performance of that was the Knebworth show.

I think the reason for the "Lost Concert" being comparatively lame is that the audience was a bit lame that day. On the Sydney concert in January 1964 they sound as great and powerful as at TAMI.

Yea I see what you mean.  I was talking about all of the performances they did that year caught on film, the TAMI show is the best I've seen.  Hopefully, up the road we'll get to see more lost footage from that year  :-D

From the BW/JB Tour Program: 
>>
Interviewer:  Give me an example of a song that means more to you now than when you first wrote it?

BW: Well I didn't think much of "I Get Around" until God, ten, eleven years ago when we started to tour and played it. Then for some reason I started really liking the song a lot more. I'm not sure why but I didn't originally like it that much. I never really cared for it back then, but now I listen to it more carefully and really dig it. It stands up <<