The Smiley Smile Message Board

Lana Del Rey's new single contains a BB reference:


I miss Long Beach and I miss you, babe
I miss dancing with you the most of all
I miss the bar where the Beach Boys would go
Dennis's last stop before Kokomo


https://youtu.be/LrSX_OcpeJg?t=255 (https://youtu.be/LrSX_OcpeJg?t=255)


I guess she misses Chez Jay? Dunno.


Also: at 7:39 you can see "Pacific Ocean Blue" in the jukebox.

Pretty cool! I remember visiting Chez Jay a few years ago love that place.

Amazing.

Also really bizarre alternate universe type stuff to tie in any Denny reference to Kokomo, since those two eras seem so far apart, yet are really just 5 years apart in reality.

Apparently she lives in venice, so i wouldn't be suprised at all if a friend was like "hey this bar chez jay's is just down the street, its where dennis wilson went before he died, you wanna check it out?" and thats how she get into it...

As if I needed another reason to love Lana

Yes, new reason to hate Lana. :-D Tries to be next Nico but instead stays inferior by miles.

Why would Dennis be going to Kokomo? awful...

Is there a jukebox in Chez Jays and is POB on it?

FWIW, Chez Jay's is in Santa Monica, not Venice. I agree it's a cool place and has good food.

I don't know anything about this song. But it's *possible* the lyric was not written in ignorance as to the fact that Dennis died several years before "Kokomo." It may just be a general linking of two pieces of imagery/iconography related to the Beach Boys.

I'd say the weirder element of the juxtaposition is how diametrically opposed the two things are in band history/lore. The two things are tied together by being related to the Beach Boys, so if there was a poignant post-Dennis BB track that one could still link with some poignant Dennis imagery or motifs, I wouldn't be opposed to it. I'd even go so far to say that, had Dennis been alive, he may have been at least as "on board" with "Kokomo" as Carl was. But, having said that, in the band's history, the two things mean very different things and evoke very different things in fans and students of the band. It's undeniably an awkward link. There's no exact comparison, but think of someone evoking Peter Green and "Tusk" together, or talking about the original Jefferson Airplane and how they "built this city on rock and roll", or something like that. Or heck, like talking about Mike Love's "love and mercy" or something.

I think you guys are being a bit literal. I think she's using "Kokomo" to mean "heaven"... i.e. the Long Beach bar was the last place Dennis spent time here on earth before he left us. That's a lot more poetic (and with Dennis in mind, IMO some of those shots of her twirling on the speedboat at night take on a haunting resonance).

She was intended to work with Brian on No Pier Pressure, and the song is sprinkled with BBs/Dennis references, so I would think she is not wholly unfamiliar with the broad strokes of their history.

I think it has to be relatively figurative; "Kokomo" (as presented in the song) isn't a real place. I would imagine it is meant to mean some sort of heaven/paradise/idealized place. But what *that* song means to the band's history and fandom dictates it's still an odd piece of imagery to use, however poetic it may seem on some levels.

While I too mentioned above it's quite possible if not probably that Del Rey is aware Dennis died before "Kokomo" came out, I also wouldn't be surprised if she's *not* as familiar with how "Kokomo" is an arguably divisive song to evoke. It's not fondly remembered by music critics particularly. It's one of the focal points of the band's 80s cheese image. It's also well known as a song Mike relentlessly brings up in interviews, and he speaks of the song as it if stands toe-to-toe with the band's best work.

I'm not deriding the song; I think "Kokomo" is catchy and I don't have a beef with it. I can properly contextualize it in any needed fashion.

I dunno, maybe it's a bit like referencing Terry Kath in a song and then mentioning "You're the Inspiration?"

No jukebox in Chez Jay.

 :lol

She has a bit of Nico going on but I appreciate her for that old school 60s vibe she's bringing back.

Much better than most of the female singers out at the moment

I took it the same way you did

(https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/70835378_2464667616905998_8071005278813814784_o.jpg?_nc_cat=101&_nc_eui2=AeEdwmO-IeiCD2nAx1ICIRwx_qm8drDHaFqeq5rKPOEQIds5fy9ib23zdC7dN-tJY7cNJ9wz--_7_akupD5wB31lojTfYcvFEhmvq1P3UWBgWQ&_nc_oc=AQltJGl3yd8Lk1NQqTLzMjpJU5JETDiPYnSXHt8gNBiOaF2gJ2R4aC12Uwm3hCZVh3sUNbU1-kn3AfdbjT5OxWbo&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-1.xx&oh=51dc21216330cd10b2b302153e59046b&oe=5E030F5B)

^  Good catch!

Rich girl from the wealthy tourist enclave of Lake Placid, NY who used daddy's NYC connections to get a record deal...

So hard to respect any artist who used daddy's connections to get a record deal, oh wait...

I'm not as diplomatic as Jon...

But I have to ask, who the f*** cares? If people like her music and her voice, and count me as one, seriously who the f*** cares where she came from?

If weighing an artist's upbringing and background is relevant to opinions on the art they create, and anyone with "connections" in the biz or wealth in their family gets points in the negative column for those reasons, you can take roughly 8 (or 9) out of every 10 albums you own and dismiss them outright.