The Smiley Smile Message Board

Beach Boys songs, official and otherwise, that you know you're not supposed to like, but do anyway.  Let the tomatos fly:

"Our Team"

Just a fun song for me, captures that 1964/65 spirit in a good way.  It would have fit nicely on Shut Down Volume 2

"Hey Little Tomboy" (released version)

(And, honestly, most of the MIU album) Sorry, but Brian's just not very menacing to me- lyrics are pretty dodgy, as usual, but love the chorus.  I wish they'd done something with it about six years earlier and sung it a little better.

Brian's Back

Guess I'm just a sentimental sap.

Now- purge thyselves!

Agreed.  Believe it or not, I'm REALLY digging Mike's new version of Brian is Back.  His voice really sounds aged in it, no winey winey, but hey it sounds really sweet. 

"Summer of love" from SIP (and yes, I like the whole album, though I don't know which version I have). When I first heard those "sum-sum-summer summer of love" harmonies, I felt like I was in heaven, that was 1999 when I was 14/15. And I still dig it....

I also have a soft spot for Brian's Back...Carl's voice adds to it immensely.

I can't think of any one song which I would consider a guilty pleasure. Most of their career is widely considered one big fat blemish on music so it makes little difference which song I name drop to people ---- it all gathers the same response.

 :'(

Screw em'

 :D

Yeah, I like the MIU "Hey Little Tomboy".  The other one, on the other hand...

Guilty-pleasure wise, I'd probably have to pick "Do You Like Worms".  I just love playing that on the piano (or attempting), banging out the opening "THUMP, THUMP, THUMP-THUMP-THUMP..."

I made a top 25 of my favorite Beach Boys songs recently, and I'll admit it included Winter Symphony, Soulful Old Man Sunshine... and... (*ducks for cover*) Kokomo.  8)

Brian's Back is a good song, I like it too. 

How She Boogalooed it
Funky Pretty
Lady Lynda
Cotton Fields
Let's Go To Heaven in my Car

and for a non-BB catalog guilty pleasure:
Sugar Sugar -Archies-  :-* :-*
The Monkees Headquarters album
Down by the Lazy River-Osmonds (LOL, don't ask,  I don't know why)  ???

-the whole MIU album
-Here Comes the Night (LA version)
-Hold On Dear Brother
-take good care of your feet

I LOVE MIU (except Winds of Change).  Not so hot on the disco HCTN.  Love Hold on Dear Brother, but don't think the world at large would consider it a guilty pleasure -- it actually sounds like a pretty hip slice of 70s country rock to me.

I also adore Take a Load off Your Feet.  Probably most BB/BW fans don't even like it, but I think it's very catchy, funny in a light hearted way, with cool production, and a beautiful vocal from Brian on the bridge.

I feel no guilt about deriving pleasure from listening to At My Window, Student Demonstration Time, and He Come Down, which are songs that get some flak from time to time to time

I can't believe "At My Window" catches it (though I know you're right)- I love that song.   To me it distills the spirit of the whole Sunflower album, as diverse as that album is. 

Funny how sometimes one song seems to catch the feeling of a whole album; that song does for me.  Give 'em hell, Al!

At My Window is a really nice song, but what does that little bird say, in French is it? Haven't figured that out yet.  It would be a cool kids' song. I play the whole Surfs Up/Sunflower 2fer while on my walk through the park every day. 

I want to see a list of BBs songs I'm not "supposed" to like and then see how many of them I DO like.

At My Window - check
Take a Load Off Your Feet - check
Hey Little Tomboy - check...

Kokomo is my guilty listening pleasure. Mike is way corny but Carl helps save the song from total lameness.

"Tears In The Morning": masterpiece of being whipsawed from intense rage and to sickening sentimentality by lost love.  Kick hiney production too.

I like every Beach Boys song I've ever heard, so I guess all of them are guilty pleasures.

Ones of note include Here Comes the Night (disco version), Wipeout, and Forever with the Stamos lead

More:
In my Car
Sumahama
Still Cruisin
Too Much Sugar
Sunshine (both KTSA & Imagination)
all of GIOMH, especially Saturday Morning
Walking Down the Pathway
Save the Day (kinda)
Smart Girls (kinda, without the BB hits, if there was such a  mix)
Turning Point
Heavenly Bodies
In my Moondreams
Just Say No
male Ego
Oh Darling
Getting Late
California Calling
The TM Song (the song, not the arguing)

I actually love Smart Girls, and it never fails to put a huge smile on my face. The first time I heard it, it was on the Dr. Demento show. Brian stopped by the studio and chatted a bit with the Dr., and he brought a tape of Smart Girls with him. That's why he stopped by! I nearly fell out of my seat hearing Brian's "rapping" and knowing that Brian knew that the song was funny enough to be on Dr. Demento (which features funny, strange, sick, and/or demented songs). So the track wasn't to be taken seriously, it was supposed to be funny! If you try to take the song seriously, it's a miserable failure. But on the Dr. Demento show, it blew my mind, and I love it to this day.  :afro

Couldn't have said it better myself!

The entirety of that Dr. Demento interview is the most demented thing he's ever broadcast.  Brian's reminiscences about child abuse are about the farthest out I've ever heard him get.

worse than the Wouldnt it be nice book?

Brian provides sound effects during his vivid description of a typical beating: "WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!  WHAM!" It's pretty uncomfortable listening.  All touched off because  Dr. Demento plays him "Two-Step Side-Step".  Kind of like waving a torch at the Frankenstein monster, I guess.

My BB's guilty pleasure is "Shortnin' Bread."  ;D

No reason to feel guilty, I think that's an excellent song! :3d

Do you got a transcript or even an audio of that interview?

Afraid not, Rocker, it was played for me years ago off a vinyl copy of the show.  Any chance you're in L.A.?

what about the sound effects in IJWMFTT documentry? same?

I hate to admit it, but it's been around ten years in either case.  I have the Was documentary on DVD- I'll check it out.  In the Demento interview, as I remember, he gave a really graphic, extended description of being abused that makes me uncomfortable even to recall.

Wow, I didn't know about all the other stuff discussed in the Demento interview. I must have heard an edited version around 1996 or so, which I still have on tape. In it, Brian says hello, introduces Smart Girls, they play it, and then that was it. Interesting!

According to TheMadMusicArchive.com, it was a two-part thing:

January 12th, 1992:

Brian Wilson interview (part 1): Smart Girls, Brian Wilson; Day By Day, The Four Freshmen; Two Step Side Step, The Bachelors.

Brian Wilson interview (part 2): I'm Bugged At My Ol' Man,  The Beach Boys; Vegetables, The Beach Boys; Do It Again, The Beach Boys.

Interesting playlist, esp. I'm Bugged At My Ol' Man, perfect! for Dr. Demento.

MIU is the cat's ass.

Thanks, idigworms- that matches my memory.  I guess in 1992 they were still sending out radio shows for broadcast on vinyl, because I think that's what I heard.  If anyone's in the area, it was played for me by the owner of Ear Candy Records on Sepulveda in Van Nuys/Sherman Oaks, which I assume is still there, by the proprietor- a great guy and a knowledgeable Brian fan and collector.

I'd love to, but I have to sit in snowy Germany and wait for the spring.... ::)