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Which BB song can you never hear too many times?  Which tune can you just never get enough of?


For me, it comes down to a 3-way tie:


IKTAA (that is, the tag - in my opinion, it's Brian's most beautiful sonic creation)

Here Today (more specifically, the backing track)

The Little Girl I Once Knew (the interplay between the organ and saxophones is exhilarating)

Cabin Essence. That backing track is phenomenal and the vocals in the fadeout are some of the Boys' best. I can listen to  that song anytime, any day.

For me, it's a tie between I Just Wasn't Made For These Times and Let Him Run Wild. The play count on those two are the highest of all the songs in my iTunes.

Good Vibrations, Cuddle Up, Girls on the Beach, Good Timin'.

I can put the "Walk on By" snippet on a loop and listen endlessly.

Dance Dance Dance always makes me feel good.

It's Gettin' Late. Been listening to Shelter a lot lately tho.

Beach Boys solo: Let's Go to Heaven in My Car by Brian and Tricia by Mike. 2 songs i never get sick of.

Darlin & God Only Knows are the big hits I never tire of...as far as personal favorites...This Whole World is the first one to mind.

Do You Like Worms. When I first heard SMiLE, this was the song that made me really go, WOW!

Don't Worry Baby, Sufer Girl and God Only Knows. Other great songs became boring o "skipable" at some point, but never these three.

Please Let Me Wonder.

Somewhere, there's someone whose answer is Wrinkles.

Do It Again....

Papa oom Mow Mow<if my 7 year old is in my room and Brian to be singing> I can Hear Music for me.  Though the first 45 I hear was Surfin' Safari and 409 and I played 409 on my record player all night long.

TWGmTR (song)
DYLW
Summer's Gone

I Can Hear Music
Breakaway
This Whole World
'Til I Die

Aren't You Glad!

Probably "Heroes and Villains".

Smile (TSS disc 1). Rarely a day goes by when I don't listen to at least some of it. My wife now hates it, my kids sing smile songs without realising it (son was singing You're Welcome yesterday). If I had to narrow it down to one song then I'd opt for TSS Heroes and Villains - It's like a sampler of Brian's best melodies and vocal arranging and never grows old for me. I think Linett and Boyd did a great job with the compiling and sequencing of this Smile and all attempts at mixing my own went out the window when it was finally released.

It changes, I get obsessed by songs at the moment - Midnights another day

Today it is the vocals only of Wouldn't it Be Nice and Please Let Me Wonder-sublime

In general, it's IJWMFTT or I Get Around

"Don't Worry Baby"----it manages to say so much with so few means. All the ingredients are there but stripped back to the essentials. The Boys' big "Less is More" moment... 

"Help Me, Rhonda" single version and the instrumental track.

I love the chorus, Al's voice, and I love the blend. I definitely like the vocal sessions from the Murry meltdown.  Hearing the blend during the verses and the resolution into "... help me get her into my heaaaaart" make me want to cry almost. So beautiful.

Definitely one of my favorites to listen to when I'm feeling blue.

Breakaway- never get tired of it, no matter which released version, the demo, the Hawthorne take or the single version.

Love Surrounds Me

Hushabye.  Used to play it over and over again to the point my college roommates were ready to kill me.

I guess it's "Wonderful" (Smile version).

Wouldn't It Be Nice- Whether the original mono, the stereo mix or the In Concert version, I probably listen to it once a day. It is the one song that makes both my mind and body feel good after each listen. It is my daily meditation. ;)

It's not single songs, it's a custom playlist consisting of the Wild Honey, Sunflower, and Surf's Up albums, plus some other contemporary tracks.

The one BB song I put on repeat play was "Soul Searchin'" (the BB version, not the BW album version), when I first heard it. Carl's singing -- OMG!

The one album I put on repeat play, and still do to this day, is not a BB album at all. It's Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick.

Surfer Girl, Surfin' USA, Surfin Safari, Shut Down, 409, Don't Worry Baby, Darlin', I Can Hear Music (maybe my favorite of all and it's not even a Beach Boys song, go figure), Add Some Music To Your Day, All Summer Long, Girls On The Beach, I don't know, pick any of those. Or two.  Or three. Or . . . . I could listen to any one of them repeatedly at any time.

Baby Blue. Just... Baby Blue

For a few days a while ago, my choice was Dennis Wilson's Mexico.

Let Him Run Wild.

Bwoy!!!  That's a tough call...  And I'll bet it'll be a different 3 next month....Well...maybe after the first one...

'Good Vibrations'...re-invigorated by adding to it with about 30 seconds of extra 'value' in the improved and bettered 'final' version included on the Smile box.  Perfection got even better...'cause there was MORE perfection.  The best single ever...by ANYBODY...up to and including the fall of 1966.  Hasn't been bettered since [except with the afore-mentioned box-set] ... ... ... although Bohemian Rhapsody was pretty darned interesting.

This Whole World.  Positivity caught in a bottle...and sweetened.

Tied for 3rd...about a minihair off of 2nd place...Cabinessence and Time to Get Alone...and God Only Knows.

But In My Room ain't far behind.  Only With You too.  The Smile version of Wind Chimes also takes me there.

And then there's the absolute brilliance of Add Some Music to Your Day and "Til I Die.  [and the Balad of Ol' Betsy...and Sail On Sailor]
Geez.  If it was only one song...I wouldn't be here. :lol

Did I mention No Go Showboat and Little Bird?  Our Sweet Love?  Feel Flows?  The Trader?  DON'T GET ME STARTED. >:D

The almost religious, sweeping, lump in the throat "Til I Die".   :angel:

Really? I used to love that album back in the '70s but I haven't heard it in decades...

Crap, Add Some reminded me about "Only with You." Ok, so it's "Baby Blue" and "Only with You."

And sometimes "Marcella"

When A Man Needs A Woman
This Whole World
Busy Doin Nothin
Wonderful/Look/Child/Surf's Up (my edit)
That's Not Me

Wouldn't It Be Nice

Hushabye
God Only Knows
I get around

Perhaps, rather predictably, Brian's answer song to Be my Baby:

Don't Worry Baby

runner-up:

This Whole World (something assuringly old-fashioned about it, but still it rocks)

Don't Worry Baby is so good it shouldn't be compared to Be My Baby, that travesty with awful vox. Who can compete with our Boys? They are 2nd to none. :3d

"Good Vibrations", "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times", "Darlin"

Country Air!  :love

Rhonda.

"You Still Believe in Me" gets repeated more than any other Beach Boys song, for me anyway.

Lonely Sea
Farmer's Daughter
Hushabye
Never Learn Not To Love
I'll Bet He's Nice

My "Be My Baby" would have to be a few songs...

"All I Wanna Do" from Sunflower

"Cottonfields" Al's single version

"Caroline, No" from Pet Sounds

"Lookin' At Tomorrow" from Surf's Up

"Wake The World" from Friends

"Heads You Win, Tails I Lose" from Surfin' Safari--- It's just so catchy!

Kiss Me, Baby in stereo from Endless Harmony and it's not even close!

Tough one. Push comes to shove? Sloop John B.

No Moodies song? ;)

Nice to see this song get some love. Manson connection or not, it's a brilliant production, and seriously underrated rad track. If no Manson connection, it would probably be hailed as Denny's earliest masterpiece.

This is a BEACH BOYS thread, bruh. Read the title! :lol

Dammit :lol

Darn Brianistas can't even read, man...tsktsk. :)

Are you in an uncomfortable seat? ;)

I asked you first!

Just don't say Duke of Earl is also your "be my baby"! :lol

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell...you'd be wrong.

Be True to your School then since you drag out words starting with a "W" :smokin

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen SMiLE Brian's braggin' tries to put me down...

You are "The Real Beach Boy"! :lol :lol :lol

Accept no substitutes. The O.G. of Luhhhhhhhhhhv.

Just don't have Bruce pistol-whip me!

I can't guarantee that the H.P.W. (Historical Pistol-Whippin') Johnston won't.

Then I will get K.I.C (Keep It Clean) Jardine to produce your solo album.

After rockin' the man in the boat, methinks the K.I.C. will demand the innocence.

Straight out of Hawthorne. ;)

Kings of Gangsta Surf. Bustin' caps at the Foster's Freeze.

(http://s10.postimg.org/e0r2ad5vd/10472423.jpg) (http://postimage.org/)

The woody was a low rider with tinted windows a decade before they were cool.

Can't pick just one, but here's a few Beach Boys songs I never get sick of..........

Surf's Up
Warmth of the Sun
Don't Worry Baby
Surfer Girl
All Summer Long
All I Wanna Do
Strange World
From There to Back Again
In My Room
Til I Die

In answer to the thread title,   I assume you mean the BB song I listen to the most and is my favorite.    One song?   that's hard.     To pick one I'd have to revisit the 2 best albums, Today and Pet Sounds.   and after very careful consideration,  I would have to choose the soaring and  joyful expression of youthful hope and anticipation,  The musical triumph, Wouldn't It Be Nice.   

Wouldn't it be nice...everything I love about the BBs is in that song

Songs I rarely get tired of:

Do it again
It's OK
Darlin
Getcha Back

Favorite songs:

All This Is That
God Only Knows
Do It Again

As you can see, I sometimes get tired of my favorites.

The original question in this thread has ended up being answered by a lot of people as if it was 'Which BB song do you like the best'. The original question was phrased differently: "Which BB song is your 'Be My Baby'?" and "which one do you never get tired of".

I have to answer that in two different ways, as to me it's two different questions. I now never seem to get tired of listening to 'God Only Knows', but I wasn't instantly taken with it; it took quite a few plays for it to have that effect on me, and seemed to wash over me at first.

By contrast, we all know the story about the effect that Be My Baby had on Brian; he was supposedly so affected by hearing it on the radio while driving that he had to pull his car over, and he experienced an instant rush of astonishment at how good the track was which got stronger and stronger as the track was still playing. Has any Beach Boys track had THAT effect on you, the first time you heard it? That's a different question to answer.

For me, two Beach Boys tracks had that effect on me the first time: You Still Believe In Me and Heroes and Villains (the 45 version). The open-piano string and vocal intro to YSBIM hooked me instantly, then Brian's heartfelt vocal added to my interest. The unexpected chord change under the word 'fail' in the first verse lifted my interest higher, and when the Beach Boys came in on the refrain a few seconds later, it felt like the top of my head was coming off. I was so excited at the end of the song, I just wanted to hear it again.

Heroes and Villains was similar: the track hits you like a train going at 150 miles an hour, Brian is belting out a tremendous vocal, descending over an octave as he goes, and garnering accompaniment from one of the Beach Boys' most brilliant barbershop backing vocal arrangements along the way. Then it all drops away for the chorus, this moody, thrumming, minor key Greek chorus masterpiece that sounds like a hive of angry wasps stuck inside a harpsichord, decorated and punctuated with the Beach Boys' percussive vocals. And then THAT's gone too, everything fading back to a single electromechanical organ drone — before the original verse backing track bursts back in, blowing you away again. If that wasn't already enough to hook you (it was for me), there are a couple of passages featuring extraordinarily beautiful, economically written vocal harmonies before coming to a dead-air dead stop that had me wondering for a second if my CD player had stopped working, before the track plays out on that evil-sounding, droning chorus again. I think I played the track four times in a row the first time I heard it. I couldn't get enough of it for a few days, for sure.

I think a lot of posters here have experienced that excitement of wanting to play Beach Boys tracks over and over after hearing them — perhaps oddly, that has also happened to me with 'Catch A Wave' and (true confession time) 'Johnny Carson' — but not the very first time I heard them, so for me they don't qualify for this thread. So who else can tell a tale of completely being blown away by a Beach Boys track on *very first listening*, just like Brian with Be My Baby?

"At My Window". I thought it was immensely beautiful. Most people don't want to admit it (weird!), but I know they like it either. You can't escape such tremendous beauty.

I admit it.  Love that song. 

Although there's not a track from Sunflower that I don't love. 

Nice to see some love for Getcha Back.  IMO the best Beach Boys song from the 1980s. 

Can't Wait Too Long. 

I've listened to every fragment, track, bit and piece I can find of this gem.  I listened to it on loop for a 16 hour drive once.  Not kidding.  Was never tired of it.