The Smiley Smile Message Board

Never cared much for this one, but all of a sudden I’m addicted to it!


Anyone else??

Yeah, I've always liked it, but something doesn't sit right all the same. First heard it in a little snippet (in An American Band doco) before I had KTSA album.

I think it would have to rank fairly well against most of their late 70s output. Not a lot of originality in it but pleasant nonetheless.

Summary - I can't make up my mind on it.

Not a huge fan of this one. It's pleasant I guess but it feels a bit uninspired to me, maybe due to KTSA's insipid production. I think they could've made a much better song out of this but I guess Brian wasn't up to it at the time.

I actually like Goin On, I think it had the potential to be at least a modest hit in the way Getcha Back or Good Timin were. It’s got a radio friendly vibe and some decent sax, too.

Always thought they were trying to imitate Supertramp on this one especially since Supertramp were a real hot band in 1980 and had some similarities to the BB’s

I really like Goin On and it deserved something better than #83 or whatever it reached. I think it's also one of the better produced tracks from KTSA. The vocals are great, too, as is the sax solo. The band seemed to enjoy playing the song live, too, back when they released the album. I guess I have a soft spot for Brian's Goin On vocal.

This has always been my favorite track on the album (which has a lot of duds) and over the last couple years has become one of my personal favorite Beach Boy songs in general. Carl kills it (such emotional delivery...), and Mike certainly doesn't phone it in (which I feel both men are kinda guilty of on this album in places). This is just my opinion, and can understand why others aren't as impressed with the track. I certainly think it ranks among their best 70s work. Shining diamond in an otherwise mostly rough album (with some other highlights, being fair).

It does seem to be undercut by the production a bit. The whole dang record is so flat and lifeless (I'm not the audiophile some are but I seem to recall this being blamed on the use of the Aphex Aural Exciter). "Goin On" has a fairly plodding rhythm track (except for the drums in the bridge), so you couple that with the flat sonics of the album, it just doesn't jump out at you. I agree that with just a few tweaks at the mastering level, or perhaps at the mixing board, this song might have done better. It's quite well realized, but you have to get past the overall tedious effect of the track. Besides the aforementioned vocal turns, the key change into the sax bit in particular is great.

Flat and lifeless, exactly. The song's a great song, but Bruce's production and mixing sucks all the life out of it. Everything has been compressed, and all the instruments and vocals all kind of converge into this one homogeneous sound.

The live take on the TV show "Friday's" in 1980 sounds much better. The main flaw with that version is the sparse group vocals (both because of the number of people on stage, and also because of how it's mixed for the show), but the instruments are much more punchy, with the bass more to the fore and Carl's syncopated guitar part on the bridge parts. And what vocals *are* there sound punchier, with more urgency. It all cuts through more.

I love this track, and would go as far to say it is, in my opinion, their best song post-Love You.

The vocal harmonies that kick off the track are brilliant and so BW. We know Brian had been playing around with that snippet since 1964's "All Dressed Up For School",  through "I Just Got My Pay", then in some of the many unreleased versions of "Heroes and Villains". He must have really believed in that snippet, and I don't blame him cause it sounds awesome. I love how it appears in half-time during the "I love you, I miss you, things won't be the same til I kiss you" section. Like Shortnin' Bread, it's one of those BW musical easter eggs that only the die hard fans will know about.

I think the production is cool! It's clean, not overblown, and uses pretty standard rock band instrumentation so hasn't dated badly like other synth-laden tracks from the same era. It has a tasteful arrangement (though admittedly doesn't sound like it was lead by BW - would Bruce have had a hand in it?).

The key change into the sax solo as someone else has pointed out is really quite inspired, musically.

Do people not like it because of the sax solo? Definitely the one element that dates it, but if you try to forget how we now in the 21st century perceive sax solos as cheesy, you can come to accept it... I have.

The chords are great. Love the dramatic, almost spooky sounding minor flat 5 chord on "Why is my love goin' on".

I love how they snuck in the lyric "awaken me beautiful dreamer" - my guess is Brian's input as we know he's a fan of the song it references, "Beautiful Dreamer" and the fact that Beautiful Dreamer Wake spells out his initials.

It's a rare Wilson/Love song from after the 60s that doesn't sound completely half-assed. As a (admittedly amateur) songwriter myself, I can tell that a lot of effort went into this one, from the music to the lyrics to the arrangement to the vocal performance from all members of the group.

It really baffles me that it quite often gets singled out by fans as a song they especially don't like. I don't think those people are wrong, taste is subjective after all, but still, it does baffle me! Maybe it is that sax solo after all...

I really do feel that the sax solo killed the possible success of the track. As much as I think it's OK, it's only that. Switch the sax to a killer guitar solo and you have a very Queen-esque track with a loot better chance at getting some radio play.

I don't think the instrumentation on "Goin' On" is particularly problematic. It's just how it was recorded/mixed/produced that is problematic.

A nice remix on it *might* be revelatory, depending on how flat the multis sound.

I have always liked this tune. I still play it a lot in my car. I think it could have been better produced which could be said for the entire LP. Bruce said in an interview that he was purposefully trying to UNDER-PRODUCE this album because with new wave, simpler records are what was happening. While that is true, this LP was produced extremely laid back. There was no real energy on any of the tracks. It was also around this time that Mike was quoted as saying that the group (back in the 70s) should not have done some of the more rocking numbers (like STUDENT DEMONSTRATION TIME) because the Beach Boys weren't a ROCK group. They were a middle of road adult contemporary group. Bruce seemed to think this way as well.

Listen to KEEPIN' THE SUMMER ALIVE on the studio LP then Live At Knebworth. The way they played it live should have been the way it was cut in the studio.

I completely agree with all of this.

Carl almost sounds like he's channeling Freddie Mercury in parts of this song, it's almost like the second coming of his voice. Carl always had a magnificent voice, but I feel like it wasn't until right around the time of this track's recording where his vocals started *soaring* in an entirely new and more powerfully confident way, probably aided by him getting sober.

As the 1980s wore on, despite the spotty quality of the songwriting the band put out, his vocals just kept getting better and better, and I feel like he was peaking as a vocalist just as their songs started getting very hit and miss. Another example of that might be "happy endings". There's an odd, ironic, very BBs nature to this weird phenomenon of his vocals becoming their absolute best right as the time of their songwriting and production declined. But it's also part of why I can still listen and appreciate some of that spottier material, because his vocals elevate it tremendously.

But to me, this song in particular can probably be called a demarcation line of that new era of Carl's voice being at its most powerful and almost operatic.

Also, I agree that a guitar solo probably would've taken this song to another level and perhaps given the band more credit amongst certain music listeners. The saxophone solo doesn't bother me, but it does make the song fit in more squarely with songs like "come go with me" and the other oldies the band had been doing in the mid to late 1970s. It's much more of a throwback 1950s type of sax solo in context, as opposed to a 1980s type of sax solo.

"Good Timin" was a top 10 record here in the NW (at least on KJR), had no idea at the time that it couldn't rise about #40 nationally. So I was surprised "Goin' On" didn't take off; I heard it at the time as kind of in same style as "Good Timin". I have to agree that a more dynamic production could have made a big difference. It's interesting, too, that when they were on Fridays in 1980, all three songs they performed had Carl leads: Keep the Summer Alive, Good Vibrations, and Goin' On. It's almost like group is saying "yeah, we know he's our best singer, so here ya go". And then the next year he was gone, and I've never heard anything good about those shows without Carl.
Anyway, that's another discussion.

The shows W\O Carl were pretty bad, sloppy, under rehearsed. I always remember the Queen Mary show Summer of 81, live on TV nationally for July 4th...absolute nadir if their career....performance was dreadful, seen by Carl who supposedly said same from his solo tour.

That performance of “Goin’ On” from Fridays is in-effin-credible!

Incredible song. Top-notch vocals, Brian's involved, and that key change/sax solo is a winner. One of their best late-era tunes.

I'm late to respond to this but one thing I noticed after a few views of the FRIDAY performance is I think the live arrangement actually relied on Brian as an integral part of the vocal arrangement, and it sounded like he was dropping in and out and perhaps having trouble hitting a few of the notes, leaving the other guys hanging up there (particularly at the end). It's not obvious but Brian is actually singing almost continuously throughout. Also, because Carl's on counterpoint and he's effectively out of the game (this was also a problem with "Good Timin'" which I suspect is why they experimented with other people singing it).

I always liked this song and thought it easily was one of their best later-period tracks.  For all the flack this album gets (and don't get me wrong, this is not a great album by any stretch) as well as L.A. (Light Album), if you compiled the best songs from both albums you'd have a pretty decent effort.  Something like this:

KTSA
Good Timin'
Some of Your Love
Full Sail
Angel Come Home
Livin' With a Heartache
Sunshine
Lady Lynda
Baby Blue
Goin' On

All of these songs are really good or, in one case, even excellent (Good Timin'); it puzzles me how "less than the sum of its parts" the band's work from this time feels to me. It must be the production! I mean, I absolutely love the M.I.U.-era video of Brian directing the band through "Mike Come Back to L.A." but "Some of Your Love" sounds so lifeless and contrived in comparison, to me anyway.

No "Love surrounds me"? That to me is one of the greatest later tracks the Beach Boys ever did.

Oh right.  I knew I forgot one of them.  You can swap it out with "Sunshine" or "Some of Your Love".  😊

Don't swap out "Sunshine" - that would be a travesty.

"Some Of Your Love" is pretty good, but these days I can't help hearing "Mike Come Back to L.A." and it puts me off that song a little!

Some Of Your Love also sounds like Summer of Love in the choruses; identical vocal melody of the title line.

And almost comically, the songs have nearly phonetically identical titles to boot.

In fairness, I think it has been acknowledged that "Some of Your Love" was a literal re-write of "Mike Come Back to LA." In that particular case, I don't think they just accidentally wrote a similar song. They were taking the old song and retooling it.

Conversely, the same wasn't said of "Summer of Love", which also borrows that same riff/melody line.

Of course, all of these stem from a riff even older, heard on "Child of Winter" from 1974, and I recall another song or two in their catalog that can be argued are also similar, but they're slipping my mind at the moment.

I assumed everyone knew this - I took it for granted. We've heard the Mike Come Back lyrics (chorus at least) which have been out there for decades.  I didn't mean to suggest they were two different songs, but just that in some ways I wish I'd never heard the original lyrics, because they've stuck in my head.

Maybe I'm using quotation marks recklessly in my posts??

How does "Wontcha come out tonight" fit into all of this? Was that before "Mike come back to L. A." or was the latter the first version of "Wontcha..."?

Oh fine then.  🤣  Assuming a single LP can fit all these songs on then we don't have to drop anything.  Or make one of these songs strictly the B-side for the "Goin' On" single if it can't fit on the album.  Then it could have served as the "bonus track" for the eventual CD release. 

"Some Of Your Love" is unquestionably lightweight, but I still enjoy listening to it whenever it pops in my shuffle.  And "Summer Of Love" definitely seems to borrow a thing or two from it. 

Alternate version of "It's OK" from the Made In California set. The little riff right at the beginning.