In no particular order ...

Jefferson Airplane - Surrealistic Pillow, Takes Off and Volunteers to a lesser extent
Beatles - Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt Pepper, Help, Hard Day's Night and MMT. White album and Abbey Road to a lesser extent
Fleetwood Mac - Rumours and Fleetwood Mac (album)
All 5 Simon and Garfunkel albums
All 5 Police albums
Led Zeppelin IV, some other Led Zep
CSN (1st album) and CSNY Deja Vu
Carole King - Tapestry
Tribalistas (Brazilian supergroup, did just 1 album)
Monkees first album
Linda Ronstadt - Heart Like a Wheel, Prisoner in Disguise, Hasten Down the Wind and Simple Dreams
Neil Young - After the Gold Rush, Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, Harvest
John Denver - Windsong, Rocky Mountain High (well, about half of it), Back Home Again
Todd Rundgren - Something/Anything

Tons of classical music, plus various Sinatra and other Swing/Big Band stuff.

Probably forgetting some.

Joni Mitchell - To the extent that I thought she had died ages ago. Maybe the insane hype surrounding Blue? I'm not so scared of hyperconfessional songwriting as I used to be, so maybe I'll give it a go.

Presuming you're a straight male, this video might get you a bit more interested in Joni.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zp3lJg07u4w

I used to dislike her, but even before I saw that video (and similar ones) I took a liking to her. Not a big fan, mind you, but I've gained some appreciation of her stuff.

As for classic bands, I can't believe I used to buy Styx records when I was around 14-15, now I can't stand them.

[here]

Somewhat off-topic (but not really) ...

Several years ago I found a website filled with photos taken by a guy who did a lot of traveling in the 40's-60's. They don't know much about the guy, but when he died he bequeathed his entire photo collection to Indiana University. They've put them online here.

Back on topic, he was living in San Francisco in the 60's and took some photos of hippies in '67. This gives you a really good idea of 'authentic' hippie clothing, worn by real hippies! The stuff you see in a lot of stores these days (such as the store Love Culture) are highly stylized and not like the real thing. If you do a search for the word "hippies" you get 24 results which look like this.



And this. The shirt the 2nd guy from the left is wearing looks very similar to the shirt Brian was wearing in one of the pics I showed before.

You should get this shirt instead!



And I *know* I used to have shirts like this when I was a kid, too bad I didn't save any of them.

I just bought the remaster of Summer Days and overall I definitely like the results. The exception is California Girls. The mono remaster sounds OK, but the stereo remaster sounds a bit sterile. The un-remastered mono sounds nice and warm in the intro, but something funny happened during the remastering process. It sounds like they moved the brass instruments from a living room into the bathroom. Don't really like that.

The other songs sound great, though.

Surf's Up. The lyric should be simpler explaining how this is about them leaving surf music forever.

I've always thought Surf's Up should have described someone going surfing, and at one point he gets wiped out by a wave and almost drowns, and after that happens some seagulls are laughing at him from above, but he recovers and makes it back to shore and then wonders if he should go surfing again. But the whole thing would be metaphoric about society trying to do something, but things go really wrong, but it recovers, and then afterwards society reassesses whether it was the right thing to do or not. Or something like that. At first glance the lyrics would sound literally about a guy going surfing, but there would be clues that one should not take the lyrics literally and there was really a deeper meaning behind the whole thing.

Got it! Thanks!

guitarfool's comments are spot on, I hadn't caught the no-chord segment and it works just beautifully! The  G#dim-C#-C#min segue is even easy to play on guitar since it's all on the same bar. Toying around with that segment I discovered if you only play the C#min once it adds just a wee bit more suspense before the next verse kicks in.

If you want to go all with the key of B throughout and make it all sharps:

D# min 7 / G# min 7   x 3

C# min 7 / F#7  x 3

B  /   E/B   /  B  /  G# dim / C# / C# min / no chord

repeat

OK, somebody help me out with the chords in the transition from the refrain to the verse (the part with the sax solo and the "Guess you know I waited for you"). There's a C# minor in there somewhere but that's all I've been able to figure out. Disclaimer: I'm more accustomed to referring to chords in terms of sharps than flats, so bear with me.  

With some help from aeijtzsche's comments above my guitar chord sequence for the song goes as thus:

The first 3 lines alternate between this):


And this:


The 3rd line goes to an E, then until the refrain it's just alternating E and F#.

Then the refrain is just B and E, each chord taking up a whole line.

Then there's the transition which isn't obvious to my ear what the chords are. HELP!  

I think sometimes people try to over-analyze lyrics. When you're writing a song, you've got to not only tell some sort of story, but have that story fit into so many beats per line, or beats per verse, while also (usually) making the words rhyme. More often than not it's close to impossible to have this perfectly consistent message and wording fit into the notes you're trying to sing; lyrics writing is usually a compromise. So if a song doesn't make total, perfect sense, it's probably because the composer had difficulty finding the right words given the number of notes he had to work with, or maybe he was under a tight deadline and rushed the writing of the song, or something like that, and the listener should probably be satisfied with the general message of the song without getting caught up in the details of the words.

8/1/64

US - A Hard Day's Night
Same in the UK
Same in Australia
Canada - Rag Doll, The Four Seasons
Germany - Liebeskummer lohnt sich nicht, Siw Malmkvist, which sounds like this.

@aeijtzsche

Thanks! As I said I wasn't sure about the chords, was just trying to figure them out on my guitar, which can be an inexact science. My guitar might also be out of tune.

After I finished writing that I noticed the refrain seemed to mostly dwell on C (which, as you just noted is really C-flat, I need to tune my guitar!).

I have ambitions to turn this thing into a folk (or "folk-y") song, maybe I'll do it over the long weekend.

[The melody isn't all that great]

I hope it's OK to bump up this old thread because I've been listening to this song almost nonstop for the past two days, and want to add some things that haven't really been mentioned. I think I understand why some people think it's great, but others find something lacking.

I hadn't heard this song since probably sometime in the 70's and had pretty much forgotten about it, then I recently bought Summer Days (I'm pretty new to this BB fandom stuff) and within about 3 seconds after this song started, I was like, "WOW!" It's completely unlike any of the other songs on the album, and that hits you right away.

One thing I've always been good at is figuring out why a particular song is a good song. Some songs really jump out at me why they're good songs, and this is one of those. I always like to go line-by-line and analyze the thing.

First of all, I don't know if Brian did this deliberately or whether it was just intuitive, but this is a song which really goes out of its way to toy with the listener. From the outset it has the listener expecting, expecting, expecting, then finally delivers by slapping them across the face with the refrain. It's got this great tension which builds up, then is released. Lots of my favorite songs do this, but this one is especially effective.

Here we go. Song lines are in yellow, the chords to the best of my figurings are next to or in the middle of each line in white ...

Em When I Am watched you walk with him
Em Tears filled Am my eyes

OK, the first 2 opening notes of the song (on the keyboard, or xylophone, or whatever it is) already grab your attention ("knock knock When I ..."). Pulling out my guitar it kinda sounds like E-minor, but I'm not sure. Are we in a minor key? Sure sounds like it! We've got alternating E-minor A-minor on each of the first 3 lines.

Em And when I Am heard you talk with him
F I couldn't stand his G lies

So all of a sudden we've gone from all minor chords to all major chords. Maybe we're in a major key after all! What he's doing is dwelling on those minor chords to build up tension ... then teases you with the major chords. One might normally think the tension would be released *at* the unveiling of the major chords, but ... nosiree! For two more lines he's elevating the opening melody but in major chords, just for the sake of making you hang on a bit longer! At this point you just KNOW the song is going to explode at some point ... but not yet!

F And now be- G fore he tries it
F I hope you G realize it

I haven't even talked about the instrumental and vocal layering, which should be obvious and is always an effective way to build up a song. So in addition to toying with the listener via the transition from minor to major chords, you get even more anticipation via the layering. Then the ascending notes on "re-al-ize it" finally tell you the song is about to EXPLODE, which it does:

Let him run wild
He don't care
Let him run wild
He'll find out
Let him run wild
He don't care

(Guess you know I waited for you)

After the explosion occurs, which the saxophone line winds up, we get this sneaky little line "(Guess you know I waited for you)" which just oh-so-stealthily eases you into the next verse as if nothing had happened at all!

I won't repeat the other verses and the ending because it's just the same thing.

So, that's why this is such a great song! It's all about building up anticipation, and releasing it, done brilliantly!

And, here is why the song can be a bit frustrating: The melody isn't all that great. I'm referring to the one in the verses, mostly. The vocal "explosion" in the refrain works fine - after all, it's supposed to explode! - and I even find Brian's screeching in the refrain to be effective because, again, the refrain is supposed to be this massive release. People scream to release tension! But I can definitely see why some people might find this song a bit sterile because it's easy to expect more from the main melody. On occasion I find Brian's falsettos to be a bit overdone, and this is arguably one of those cases. But IMO that doesn't detract from the song - this is one of the occasional songs where a nice melody isn't really necessary, because the design of the song and the arrangement "do all the work," so to speak.

Anyway thought I'd add my thoughts to this old thread.

EDIT: BTW I just figured out that McCartney's Every Night is structured similar to this, albeit a little more drawn out. Maybe more on that later.

It just occurred to me that the background strumming in "I Am the Walrus" is basically the same thing as the background harpsichord in "Caroline No."

But supposedly Lennon got the idea for the strumming on Walrus from the sound of a police siren in England so I won't accuse him of plagiarism.

Huh? You mean to tell me I'm required to like every song on the album, or else I'm not up to snuff?

I did say I liked other songs than the singles.

Maybe it's my mixed feelings about "Don't Talk" which makes my tastes too pedestrian.

BTW I'm not religious.

I'm not crazy about "That's not me," the 2 instrumentals I usually skip over (though the 2nd one is better), and I've got mixed feelings about "Don't talk" - the refrain is nice but I always find myself wishing the verses were somehow different.

In addition to WIBN, SJB and GOK, since I started listening to Smile I've grown to really like "You still believe in me" and "Caroline, no" especially. "I just wasn't made for these times" is close behind. So that's 6 really good songs, 3-1/2 "meh" songs, and the others are good but not great.

So anyway I just ordered 3 copies of Smile and Pet Sounds from amazon.com to give to each of my 3 sisters for Christmas. Have no idea if they'll like them but it's worth a try.

I've also recently told 2 old friends from high school about Smile, one of them said he would definitely buy it. I feel like an evangelist spreading a religion. 

Interestingly, for me it was the other way around. I bought Pet Sounds somewhere around 2004/05, and liked a few songs (WIBN, SJB, GOK) and a few of the other songs seemed OK, but not great. I listened to it once in a while, but it wasn't a big deal.

Then this past spring I read about the Smile sessions somewhere, including the fact that it was "the most famous unreleased album ever," which was enough to pique my interest, so I bought it and became obsessed. Soon after I started listening to Pet Sounds again, and now that I've gotten accustomed to the BB 'progressive' stuff through Smile, Pet Sounds now sounds a lot better. Instead of just 3 really good songs, there are now about 6 or 7.

Let them give Pet Sounds a go and if they dig it, tell them there's something out there EVEN BETTER _maybe. Then make them listen to the Sessions 2CD set or any number of fanmixes.

Rubber Soul, in part because this album IMO featured Lennon's best 3 songs:

1. Girl
2. Nowhere Man
3. In My Life

I've probably listened to this album a hundred times over the past 25+ years and have yet to get sick of it.

Thanks Stephen!

OK, I left a question on Al Jardine's question form on his website. Don't know if he'll respond, but it seems like a harmless question so let's hope he responds.

[According to Wiki]

The other one I was wondering about was Al Jardine. According to Wiki he played:

guitar, bass, double bass, piano, keyboards, synthesizers, banjo, ukulele, mandolin, drums, saxophone, percussion

More often than not, when someone has a musical repertoire like that, there's a certain amount of musical sophistication, often including being able to read music. But not always. Maybe I should ask on his website! 

[this one]

Thanks!

Somewhere I saw a photo similar to this one (probably taken at the same time as that one) where you can see Brian sitting next to Dyke Van Parks at the piano, and it looks like Brian is writing down something on the music rack on the piano (though you can't quite tell exactly). Plus, listening to his directing in the various session tapes, it's obvious Brian was musically educated.

I was just wondering about the other guys, however.

Hi everyone, new to the board. Have a question I've been dying to ask cuz I can't find the answer on the net anywhere!

I get the impression Brian could read music and it seems he actually wrote down the notes on paper when he was writing his songs, unlike most rock songwriters of the time (and today, for that matter). Correct me if I'm wrong!

But I'm wondering about the other Boys? Did Brian write down each of the guys' harmonies and show up at the studio and say to them, 'OK, sing this,' and they could sing the notes from reading the score Brian made for them? Or did he have to teach them each of their parts orally? Or some combination of the two?

It seems that, given the complexities of many of the harmonies they sang, they must have had some degree of musical sophistication/education, but ... maybe I'm wrong. Anyone here know anything about this?