The Smiley Smile Message Board

SO i know we all love singing the beach boys, whether we can or not.  Whats your favorite song to sing? (in the car? shower?)  and what do you think is the hardest?

Personally, i used to have a pretty weak range.  But after countless days/nights of singing loudly in my car, my voice has steadily improved over the past couple years.  and it used to piss me off that i couldn't sing "wouldn't it be nice" right.  but happily (as of like a month ago), i can now!  quite easily.

So i'd say that's my favorite, and one of the hardest just cause of how high in your chest you have to sing it.  But then "surf's up" also takes that cake.  I'd also put "we'll run away" as a difficult song just for how quickly it switches from chest to falsetto then back again. 

and even if you can't sing, who cares, keep doing it, can't describe how happy i am when i start hitting notes i couldn't before.

Please Let Me Wonder and Ballad of Ole' Betsy

I'd say the hardest one to sing is Feel Flows, just because the words are almost impossible to remember. There are also a lot of "tongue twisters" in it.

We'll Run Away is super hard to sing without going all falsetto  (especially the bridge) and that's why I've been trying for the last 25 years to nail it. Still, I fail...
 Wouldn't it be nice is also great for really stretching out those vocal chords (even brian has to shout it on the record!).

Favorite: God Only Knows or Forever
Hardest: Surf's Up

One of the tougher for me is "Don't Worry Baby". The 'she' in "but she looks in my eyes" is "outside" of the chord so I tend to miss it sometimes (ok, almost every time).

Favorite: "Darlin'", at least on the days when my voice doesn't break on "to let you know what you meant for me".

Oh, and also "Shortenin' Bread"! I do a killer bass vocal!  :)

I often tend to sing Mike's parts as I can't reach the high notes very well.
"I'm picking up Good Vibrations, she's giving me excitations" :)

Me too. I can't sing high at all so I often focus on Mike's parts when singing along. I'm getting pretty good at it if I may say so. I can also do a fair rendition of Dennis's 'husky' vocals esp his parts on "Baby Blue". I can't really sing but I can impersonate other singers if that makes sense.

We're a couple of guys who get together frequently to harmonize on BB songs and have found 'I Can Hear Music' to be a song we always return to. It's really cool to lock into all the harmonies that underline the lead.

After singing quite a few of the more challenging songs we got a little cocky and thought we'd try out 'Our Prayer', just for fun. Hah, we were fools!  :-D A few tries later we had to give up after reaching only about 15-20 seconds into it. So otherworldly complex and really makes you realize how sharp Brian & the guys were.

If you're interested in hearing our own stuff, have a listen here:

http://www.myspace.com/surfschooldropouts

Of the songs I've sung, live, to an audience (mostly as part of a four/five piece):

Most fun - Sail On, Sailor or Trader
Easiest - Solar System
Most satisfying - Forever
Complete bitch - California Dreaming
Least advisable - Goin' South
Most screamingly obscure - Bells Of Madness

I can't sing at all, but I'll be damned if I don't try to sing every part of a five- or six-person vocal blend! (I don't subject anyone else to it, however, unless they ask.) "Ding Dang" is obviously the winner here though on all counts, sorry y'all.

Shortenin' Bread, obvs. It's also pretty much the first thing i go for every time i set down at a piano too....  :lol

for this song "everything will turn out alright" is the tough, particularly the "everything", just cause it's in that high chest, JUST below falsetto area.  


gosh i love doing that bridge on we'll run away.  it's one of those where you can't tighten your vocals on like WIBN, especially on "if our LOVE is that much stronger", you just have to let it loose and completely open up.  hard but fun. 

I love singing along to the Boys and have a fairly good voice but when I get to falsetto parts I stop because for some reason I cannot sing falsetto to save my life. I tried singing the words to In The Back Of My Mind over the backing track that a fellow Smiley Smiler kindly sent me and it was incredibly difficult, I was all over the place! I also find that sometimes I'll be singing along to a harmony part in say, Surfer Girl and I'll completely lose my place and start singing the wrong part and just sounding woefull off-key.

Sang lead on Forever and Surfer Girl in my old band. My falsetto is better now than it used to be.

Wouldn't It Be Nice is a real son of a gun to sing.  I used to be able to sing higher, but recently found myself not able to hit them. Don't Worry Baby was another tough one even when I could sing higher.  I Can Hear Music is one I just could never get the right tone.
I tend to grab Mike's parts too, as someone else mentioned as I think they are the easiest. I enjoy singing Sloop John B and California Girls the most.

Wouldn't It Be Nice is a good one.  I'd pick that because I can sing it pretty well now, so it's kind of fun and triumphant to do, but I didn't used to be able to.  And yeah, it is a bitch to sing.

One of the hardest vocal parts on a Beach Boys record is the closing falsetto on "California Girls," and also the ending of "Catch A Wave."  Grab your nuts, everyone.

"God Only Knows" is wonderful to sing.  It isn't terribly difficult range-wise, but it requires good pitch because of all the medlodic shifts.

"Wouldn't It Be Nice" is a pain in the you-know-what to sing.  I've got a pretty good range (about 3 octaves), but that lead is right at my breaking point, and I really have to shout it out, which makes it hard to stay in tune.  Singing the harmonies to that one is a blast though.

"Wonderful" is pretty tough as well, just due to all the leaps and the fact that I try singing it like Brian with no discernable break in my voice.  No easy feat.

I agree with you guys who have mentioned "We'll Run Away" as well.  I can hold it together pretty well until the bridge, but it gets somewhat strained after that.

I actually do okay with "Don't Worry Baby," oddly enough.  It's funny, I recorded a version of it when I was 18 and sang the lead really well, but I had to jump into falsetto a lot more then than I do now.  When I sing it these days I can use a good strong head voice like Brian, even though I'm not as good as he was at making it sound seamless.

My favorite to sing is probably "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times" (it's hard to choose just one).  I can really let loose on the lead, and there are so many parts in the chorus to sing along to it's dizzying. 

I can sing a lot of songs beautifully, but for some reason, Beach Boys songs are my Kryptonite. I just can't sing them very well.

This thread certainly makes me respect/appreciate Al and Carl, they had to sing most of these challenging songs in concert and made them seem easy.

Trying to disassemble and identify each of the harmony parts in "'til I Die" is pretty challenging.  Singing them all is even harder.

Even before I read any of the posts in this thread, when I read the title, I immediately thought "Hard song to sing? Wouldn't It Be Nice!"  That song, as much as I love it, rarely, if ever makes any of my car mix compilations.  The Live In London version is much easier to sing along with.

Favorites to sing: These have changed over the years, but Hushabye, Lonely Sea, Please Let Me Wonder, The Trader, Sail On Sailor, Surf's Up, It's About Time, Disney Girls, Little Deuce Coupe, Shut Down, Still Cruisin, Keepin The SUmmer Alive, It's OK, All This Is That, I Just Wasn't Made For These Times, Sail Away (OCA), One More Night Alone, Givin You Up,  Full Sail, Lady Lynda, Love Surrounds Me, What Love Can Do, all come to mind as songs I've really gotten into at one point or another. 

yeah, i actually feel like singing beach boys has taught me how to sing more than anything.  You learn a lot of control trying to sing them, there's so much subtle stuff going on. 

Brian, I didn't know you posted here!

Eh, it's not like you guys haven't been warned - People always say the 'powers that be' post here, you just don't know how high up  ;D

Favorite to sing:  Warmth of the Sun (hard to keep the emotions in check when singing this one)

Hardest to sing:  Let Him Run Wild (trying to sing along to the Stack-o-Tracks track is humbling experience)

BBLB

I've told this story before, but I'll do it again for this topic. My cousin and I once sang Little Deuce Coupe together, just he and I doing five part harmony. I did three parts simultaniously. It wasn't easy.  :lol

I think Guess I'm Dumb is insanely hard to sing. Something about the way the melody fits over the chords, it sounds so amazing, but singing it is so hard.  I've often wondered to myself if Brian himself had trouble singing it to his satisfaction, and that that's why it didn't make it onto the second side of the Beach Boys Today. 

There all hard pretty much!  I'll say "Wild Honey".  A step or two down, it would suit my voice, but even Carl sounds like he's straining as is!

yah he sings that too angry for my tastes lol

Yeah, but it's actually a very controlled shout.  If you listen to the single-tracked lead vocal by itself, you can tell he's not "actually" shouting, he's just so good he can make it sound like he is with good technique.


I'm about to do this Beach Boys gig, so I'll be singing a bunch of Beach Boys songs in public for the first time.

The one that I really don't want to sing is God Only Knows.  It's hard to sing properly--most people drive it too hard.  Carl just floated it.

I'm most happy singing Brian's very high leads.  Let Him Run Wild is awfully fun.

Hardest to sing: Wonderful & Surf's Up. The way these songs go in and out of head voice.. you need some serious control to pull it off! Since I quit smoking cigarettes about a year ago, it's becoming a little easier. Imagine, Brian was a smoker when he cut these! Some people are just blessed like that.

Most fun: Little Deuce Coupe. Super comfy range, no strain. Also pretty easy to slide into the falsetto part in the chorus.

Okay, I shall preceed this post with a clear statement - I CAN'T SING!
However, this does not stop me enjoying the action of it, and multi-tracking my self is just so much gosh darn fun!
so, without futher ado, I present to you 'I Get Around' - Freddie version!

http://soundcloud.com/frederickjamesfrench-pounce/i-get-around-freddie (http://soundcloud.com/frederickjamesfrench-pounce/i-get-around-freddie)

And if you find this comedic etc - feel free to explore my soundcloud!

Cool that many people are interested in singing the songs!

I try to master GOK, SU and IJWMFTT, very hard all three of them.
I love singing most of the Love You tracks
I sing only post-Pet Sounds era songs, only!

The hardest songs to sing however are the ones from Wild Honey. How did Carl do that I wonder... :o

i was going to put exactly those two!

I find Wendy incredibly tough, just out of my range, I'd have to go almost full falsetto and that just sounds bad.

That took me ages to nail singing and playing on the piano, i think it was the E to F# (would that be called a diminished 6th??) drop in the first phrase.

I am not anywhere close to a good singer, but who doesn't love singing along to Beach Boys songs?

I've seen a couple of "I Can Hear Music" mentions as hardest to sing, but that's one I feel like I can stay in key on and have a lot of fun singing.

The hardest for me is "Wouldn't It Be Nice", so difficult. I feel like I can't keep my breath.

"Columnated ruins domino" always wrecks me, so I'd say Surf's Up.

I also have difficulty on one particular note of God Only Knows.  On the line, "Though life would still go on believe me", I almost always hit "on" flat. :(

I always sing along while I'm driving in the car.  Very fun.  I can't sing well, I'd be a fool to think I can, but I hit the notes good enough for my ears. 

Once about 5 or 6 years ago, I was sick with the flu, and had a little thing going on with my voice that week.  I always sing along like an idiot with everything on the radio,.... and they played "Jailhouse Rock".  I couldn't resist.  So I'm singing along with Elvis, and I can just hear my voice shredding to pieces, which at the time I thought was cool "Hey! This is how Lennon sang Twist & Shout!". 

So the next day, my voice was completely gone, I couldnt' even whisper properly.  I have no clue what I screwed up, but for about a week I couldn't speak.  for the next YEAR! I had no falsetto voice.  If I sang false, no sound came out.  I figured it probably wasn't permanent, but it was the strangest experience... after a year or so my falsetto slowly came back.   I wasn't aware though that you could just completely lose the ability to sing falsetto. 

Again I'm not saying I lost the ability to sing falsetto GOOD, I'm saying I couldn't actually make any sound at all falsetto. 

Same thing happened to me, but only for about 10 days, last winter.  I was actually worried that I wasn't going to get the falsetto back.  I can't imagine going a year without.

I've been singing along with the records since the early 60's, but have lost a lot of range so if it's not in the right key for me . . . . and even then . . . . .

One of the hardest for me is Sail on Sailor, not because of the key (I play it on the piano in G like I found it on a chord chart, a very easy key and the chords stack up well for the melody, but because I simply can't hit the right notes for the "sail on sail on sailor" part.  I know what they are (I THINK) but struggle with it every time.  When I do hit them they sound too low.  Please don't tell me I should change the key, because everything else fits very well.

Favorite to sing: "Surf's Up"
Hardest to sing: "Wouldn't It Be Nice" (although I can do the Live In London version)

I think all of the Blondie leads are really hard to sing with. He can do something with his voice that I just cannot. I always end up with a sore thought when I try to sing those songs. Hold On, Dear Brother seems to be the main culprit.

A really hard one to sing for me is "Let Him Run Wild".  I can sing the high part, I just can't the normal, pad in the background that the rest of the guys are singing.  I can't figure out the notes.  Everytime I try to sing along with it I'm off, it's a very strange song... I don't know what the hell's going on there.  There's a couple others that don't come to mind right now... but they also have something similar going on, it's like each voice is singing something you wouldn't expect, so it's hard to sing along and be 'on'. 

For me it's don't worry baby. I can get it full voice, but using falsetto in the verses is a nightmare.  There's a trick to Surf's Up. Go into falsetto in the "ins Do-OOmino" and you'll hit it. And yes wouldn't it be nice is hard. Put it this way, it's never been done in its original key live, even now it's in E (Original F). Same with I can hear music. I remember hearing it in Db once, but its stayed in C whenever performed. (Original D)

It's a touchy subject... but I think Brian had an uncanny ability to switch between head voice into falsetto and back into head voice... mostly illustrated by Don't Worry Baby.  Without the ability to sing falsetto with the strength you can sing in full voice, it's almost impossible to sing that properly, if you're not female.  A woman can sing her full scale in full voice so they can easily sing a song like that, Brian had to switch into false and then back, very hard to do. 

(BTW, I realize many people will come on and say he's not singing any notes in falsetto on Don't Worry Baby, we'll just have to disagree)

eesh this happens to me often, as i am a full-time (poor) musician who drinks and smokes a lot.. starting to become such a concern that i might have to pack the vices in :'(

I used to struggle a lot with "Wouldn't It Be Nice," but oddly enough, as I've aged, it's become easier.  I can do "Don't Worry Baby" decently depending on the day, but that "columnated ruins domino" is by far the toughest thing in the whole Beach Boys canon for me.  I have to be having a really good voice day to get that one.

I think my favorite to sing is Somewhere Near Japan.

Here Today is really hard to sing because it's hard to distinguish the notes the bass is playing in the intro are hard to distinguish from the notes being sung.

Yeah, that's one that I can't pick out the notes either.  I still sing along but I'm off. 

I forgot to mention my favorites, but probably the second half of Today all tie for my favorites to sing.

I've never heard of such a thing eith(http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/8319/53694560.jpg)

I always thought he just lost the ability to sing falsetto GOOD, though.  Not that he completely lost his voice.

The only vocal exercise I've ever done before singing anywhere in front of people is to run through Surf's Up a few times. "Collumnated ruins domino" is a complete bitch and when (if) I nail it, I feel good to go!!!!

I think it's because there's such a huge jump there, it jumps like an octave doesn't it?  He did the same damn thing in the chorus of "California Girls". 

Oh.  Well that's not anything very special at all, then, lol. 

Well, in my opinion, what actually happened is that, since Brian rarely had to resort to pure falsetto in his prime, when he started to really abuse his voice he lost the ability to sing well above the staff without using what was in effect an underdeveloped falsetto.  That's why his higher voice sounds so different even today, because he's using a lighter mechanism.

So I would say he didn't lose his falsetto, rather that he was forced to use it and it just wasn't very good at the time--and of course, also compromised from the various abuses, as was Brian's whole voice.

I agree, I'll bet he could have still actually sang false (hell he may in that video, haven't watched it in a while) he had just lost the ability to do it well.  I (and a few others) were talking about actually losing the ability to make any noise at all falsetto. 

Didn't Mr.Doe state that a few years back, a friend bet Brian a steak dinner that he couldn't sing the "Columnated ruins domino" part as originally written and, well, Brian had steak for dinner that night?

Brian surprises us sometimes.  If the backstory behind this album is true, then anything is possible.  Anything.  Brian saved "Summers Gone" to be the last Beach Boys song on the last Beach Boys album, but at the last minute changed the title of the album, so it didn't have to be the last one if they didn't want it to be... he continues to sing amazing from time to time just to show he still has it, he may consider it a project someday to blow us away with his 75 year old falsetto, we'll have to wait and see. 

No question, but I wonder if he can still sing, say F4-D5, without resorting to falsetto.  That is what I doubt.

Word on that.  I can probably sing about 90% of the BBs canon, but that line defeats me.

I asked one of the BBs band about Brian's high falsetto a year or two ago. They said something along the lines of, "he still has it, but it's like a force of will to do it, and when he goes for it, it's louder than God...it'll plaster you to the wall."

I got chills just reading that.  Brian's falsetto is one of the best things in the world.

He does it for a second in one of the videos that they released to promote "GIOMH" or one of those, somebody could find it.  I can't even remember the song, but they're jamming, and somebody sings something falsetto, and Jeff or Darian goes "That's not how you do it, show 'em Brian" and Brian sings this crazy little squeaky falsetto line, pretty funny stuff. 

I'm able to hit all the highest notes on the 60s stuff, but what gets me is that after about 30 minutes or so my voice is so tired from having to be that high for so long. It's remarkable that these guys were able to go that high so often and sustain it night after night in a concert. "Surf's Up" is my favorite to sing because it's the best song they ever did.

Also, I think Brian's falsetto now is a lot better than it was in the '80s, from what little I've heard of him doing it in the '00s. On like his first solo album and the Paley stuff it sounds like it's coming entirely out of his nose, which is a little too Frankie Valli for my tastes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNV-eve42M0 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNV-eve42M0)

Yeah, that crossed my mind as well when I said it. Ye gods.

My fav? probably Don't Worry Baby.. for many reasons.

Hardest? has to be Surf's Up, tried to sing over the record, jeez..

The most fun to sing is definitely "I'm Bugged at My Ol' Man" .
 ;D

Oh god, I always knew Adrian Baker was SUPPOSED to be bad but that.... That makes me want to fucking murder him.

I agree. It used to be my favourite BBs song for a few months during a weird phase of mine.  :3d