The Smiley Smile Message Board

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Yeah, what a great song!

Fun is in
It's no sin
It's that time again
To shed your load
Hit the road
On the run again
Summer skies
In our eyes
And a warmer sun
It's one for all
All for one
All for all out fun

I actually prefer the slightly sped up 45 rpm single version - it just seems to have even more energy.

Back when the song was released in 1976 Dennis' Find a Ride tag really irritated me, as I thought it sounded like some old guy with a croaking voice that didn't seem to fit the youthful exuberance of the rest of the song.  But for many years now the tag seems to fit perfectly and It's OK is a song I still love to blast out, whether at home or in the car.

IN THE SHADE LEMONADE

Mike's vocal kinda grates me on that bit.

HOW COME, everytime a Mike Love fan wants to have a good time, another sect of Beach Boy fan's gotta come in an' ruin it! I for one adore Mike's phrasing in that moment specifically and was about to comment thusly.

Also the MiC mix has that super cool organ intro. That bit makes the song 2X better.

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Better than yours.

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The performance from the 1976 special is pretty awesome.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZmNSWxi1iI

I love the single version (the one on GH3:BOTBY). Probably one of the most frequently used songs on my mix CDs.

Also, I love it when it is performed live as part of the opening set, usually sandwiched in between Hawaii and Summer means fun. It's usually oriented at a faster tempo, much like the single version. But when it is performed on its own, like during the c50 shows, it kind of lacked energy because the tempo was slowed down a bit, like the album version.

I love this tune.  I wish there was more of this in '76.  This was the last great -- and true -- era of the Beach Boys.  Mid to late 70s.  Wish there was more.

I love the tailored jump-suit image, Hal   :lol

This was my JAM! the year I graduated!

Mike dancing on the edge of self parody, but miraculously never crossing the line. A great track that suggests an entirely different route for the band.

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I've always heard "fun to rock" instead of "find a ride". Hm.

Totally Bitchin'

Ha ! I've always heard "fun to ride".  ;D  Great song... if only they'd released it in 1975.

F*cking great song. Underrated as hell.  Mike sounds nasally cool plus Denny's tag is just pure awesomeness. It's OK = as good as Do It Again.

Yeah it's a fun-in-the-sun kind of 60s nostalgia but it works for me because the enjoyment feels so genuine. In contrast, something like the retro-kicks on Goin to the Beach seems a cynical and tired retread.

One of their better fun-in-the-sun tracks - but better than what comes afterwards (i.e. the sh*t on MIU). It's... okay.

It's OK is merely OK.

Naah, I *always* liked this one. Listening to 15 Big Ones for the first time (in about 1998) was a major downer for me... it seemed so shopworn compared to some of their other albums, the inspiration spread so thinly. But this one was one of the few tracks where I felt they were firing on all cylinders.

I've always liked it - just a great pop tune, superbly delivered. And as Bean says above, it's one of the last tracks released where a Beach Boys tune in any way resembles the feel and sheer joie de vivre of their early 60s output. After this, it's a long, strange ride out into the realms of the good-but-odd (Adult Child/Love You) or the bland MOR snoozefest that is, for me, their late 70s output, with just a couple of exceptions like Baby Blue. And then it's a long slow curve down the U-bend to the nether realms of Wipe Out! with the Fat Boys and Fun Fun Fun with Status Quo (weeps softly into sleeve)...

Actually, I find it better than DIA. I think the production values have something to do with this - DIA sounds a bit muffled to these ears, in comparison with 'It's OK'.

It's crisp, the 'Find A Ride' 'tag' (hm, that's understating it a bit) is a superb find, and Roy Wood's sax is another fine idea. Not for one moment does it sound outdated, or merely nostalgic.

Together with 'Just Once In My Life', it constitutes the finest performance(s) on 15BO.

Upshot: the very inspired cover and the lovely new track gave me real hope; that our boys found new options, new directions. To follow for, oh, the next decade, or longer.

Then came the quirky, cultish classic that is Love You, and hope continued.

But their style changed with MIU, although 'My Diane' is fantastic. L.A. had its moments too, but was unforgiveably marred by 'Here Comes The Night'. Had they done four new songs instead of that abomination, the LP could have been like Sunflower.

While we're on the subject of It's OK... I've occasionally wondered whether some of the lyrics are the result of Brian's mid-70s Landy therapy - but that's pure speculation on my part. In Brian's utterly discredited 'autobiography', 'he' (I know, I know... it's really Todd Gold/Landy) talked about 'Gene' getting Brian to write songs about ANYTHING during this period, just to get his creative juices flowing again. When I first read that, I assumed that's how we got great, uh, 'insightful' lines from round this time, like 'a cigarette butt when you throw it in the water goes phut', 'It's three o'clock, I go to my sink, I pour some milk and I start to think', the start of 'Still I Dream Of It' which *still* basically begins with Brian in bed waiting impatiently for his home-help to finish cooking him his dinner, and songs about Johnny Carson and chatting to a random woman on an aeroplane.

Think none of this applies to 'It's OK'? I mean, surely, it's about the opposite of how Brian was at this time, going out for lots of summer fun and maybe meeting new partners? Classic 'Spring Vacation'-style Mike Love on autopilot, isn't it? Well, yeeess... but consider also these lines:

It's OK to get out there and
Have some fun
By yourself maybe
Or else with a special one.
Good or bad
Glad or sad
I'ts all gonna pass
So it's OK
Let's all play
And enjoy it while it lasts

Gotta go to it
Gonna go through it
Gotta get with it

Like I said, maybe it's just me, but I've always wondered if those words were Brian's exhortation to himself, to get out there and do more after being locked away in his house for months. And reminding himself that he had to do it, even if he didn't really want to. Plus, it seems to me there's an edge to those words, an awareness that the fun is finite and should be enjoyed before it slips away, that seems much more 'Brian' than 'Mike' - if that makes sense.

I like this alternative interpretation, as it adds another layer of meaning to the lyrics for me, whether it's true or not.

Probably just me reading things in that aren't there, mind... perhaps Mike suddenly wrote the whole lot out on a yellow legal pad five minutes before the lead vocal sessions started, while chugging on a root beer and scoffing chilli dogs...!

"It's O.K." is the last Beach Boys song that can be described as anthemic. 

Love "It's OK". I think it's a perfect example of the type of song(s) that the group expected from Brian when he "came back". I was always curious how "It's OK" would've charted if it was released BEFORE "Rock And Roll Music". I hear a lot of Marilyn in the backgrounds and the song makes me think how, around that time, she was really trying to save Brian, her marriage maybe, her life.

Does anybody know the answer to this question...On the 1976 NBC-TV Special, when the group performs "It's OK", they sing the lyrics "gotta get with it, gotta go through it, gotta go to it", inverting the lyrics from the recorded song. Why did they do this and did they sing it that way all the time in those 1976 concerts? I mean, it's not like the song wasn't already recorded and they were singing an earlier unrecorded version.

I agree with you about the production. Plus I've always thought that Do It Again is missing something, it's sounds to me more like a demo. A really really great demo though. It's OK is one of the rare fun-songs that I never get tired of. I think it wipes out many of the early 60's hits.

As much as I like "It's OK" I think the song would have benefited from the falsetto tag line used near the end of  the Celebration version used on the Almost Summer soundtrack. That tag screamed out Brian! and would have fit the whole Brian's back mentality that they were trying to achieve.

http://youtu.be/PijTIJO5HyM?t=

Did they record any vocals (or write any lyrics) in 1974 or only a backing track?

i thought it was:

good or bad, glad or sad
it's all gonna pass away,
so hey, lets all play and enjoy while it lasts

am i wrong here?

Just the track. Same for "Honeycomb".

What's the deal with the punctuation? Doe & Tobler's Little Blue Book has "O.K." with full stops but just about everywhere else it's "OK", even on the 2fer. This 45 is an exception: http://www.45cat.com/record/rps1368 (http://www.45cat.com/record/rps1368). Makes you wonder which form Brian and Mike used when they wrote it.

I see this LP has the full stops as well:

(http://ring.cdandlp.com/all06/photo_grande/115134876-3.jpg)

Duplicated by mistake----it's not that important!

That look Dennis gives Brian at 0:55 is priceless. Cool dude that Dennis.  You know what he's inferring don't you?

I figured he was rolling his eyes at the sight of Mike mincing around stage like that.

BINGO!

Yeah, what a douche Mike was for writing such a great song!

What should he have done, just stand there and belt out such a happy, fun song to a massive crowd of partiers and mope?

Bon Scott did a lot of those same stage moves, BTW.... Just sayin.... So does Iggy Pop, Jagger, etc etc...

Wow, it's the first time I listen to this version,
Who is singing lead and backing vocals? Is that Brian on lead??

The deal would seem to be, I'm right. This should come as no surprise. #humor

And for years, until I read the lyrics somewhere, I heard it as "fun to run".

Edit:  Just listened to the Celebration version for the first time in many years and noted the tag on that version is "fun to run, in the sun", which probably reinforced my presumption that the tag on the BB version was "fun to run".

Do you know when vocals were cut for "Honeycomb"?

Iggy also used to slice himself up on stage, can't see Mike really going for that. And Jagger often looks a fool with those moves too.

Hear hear!  Whilst rediscovering the music of the Beach Boys a couple years ago one of my first observations was the differences in production and sound of certain songs, particularly DIA and It's OK.  DIA does sound like a rough cut or a demo.  I love the song but I only add the 2012 version to my playlists.  I've always wondered why that track sounds so muddy (I know the word 'muddy' gets some people here up in arms; sorry, I can't think of a more fitting word).

On the other hand, It's OK sounds wonderful and clear.  The first time I heard it I was confused because while I recognized the younger voices (+Denny), the track sounds as if it was recorded in the mid-nineties.

Also, I was unaware that there were versions of the song aside from the album version and the alternate version on MIC.  Just how many versions are there?

Mike also keeps his shirt on these days, thankfully!

Didn't Brian take his shirt off at a show, recent years?

I always thought that was some amazing filming; to capture Brian making eye contact with Dennis from Brian's perspective. Super cool that they captured that. The cameraman even zoomed perfectly to capture them both in a good way.

Because they used the original "Rendezvous" demo as the foundation. Check it out on Endless Harmony.


Just one more, and it's not strictly a different version, just the album track sped up 2% for single release. On the Best Of The Brother Years comp.

Yes.  :)

I can think of a few after that.

Keepin the summer alive
Spring vacation
Kokomo (to a degree)

DIA is a stylish and wonderful, melancholic rocker from someone who knew that an era was passing but who was still within touching distance. It's Okay is a pastiche that might have been better had someone else done it.

OK (no pun intended). To each their own, I suppose. Does it help if I add "and joyous"? Probably not. :=)

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It has found its place on most of my customised 2-CD BBs compilations for other people. Good song.

Personally I find that even when performed by the C50 band It`s OK doesn`t sound great in a live setting.

I agree that for whatever reason it doesn't sound good in a live setting. Maybe it's due to the absence of the synth bass.

Like we were discussing in another thread about California Girls, I think they play it a tad slow. I know when they add Dance, Dance, Dance in the set, that sounds a bit slow too.

Agreed. That was basically the only complaint I had about the C50 I saw, It's OK and a couple of other songs played late in the set (like Rock and Roll Music) were a little slow and lacked punch.

Isn't it a Brian thing to slow down tempos, too? That may have been why the C50 songs were slower, or both sides of the band agreed to it.

In the 1976 It's Ok special most of the songs were slowed down too

Tempos have generally been slow since Dennis's death.  ( One of my favorite aspects of Dennis's drumming was his ability to push the tempos) Carl's return brought a keyboard heavy sound and eventually slowed down tempos.

I agree that it was not a highlight of the c50 shows. But at the m&b shows leading up to c50, it was often performed at a much faster tempo as part of the opening set, and sounded great!

I saw the same in Hong Kong ^_^

I have a recording of a concert from 78? where they absolutely fly through It's Ok! Super fast tempo...kinda like Roller Skating Child at that time.