"All I Wanna Do"

[over and over]

I listen to this song like Brian listens to "Be My Baby". Its one of the best songs, but I'm having trouble with a few chords.
The part where it goes "My moon and stars shine nightly", are the chords    Em7   E7    Am    ? Is the bass line different from the chords?
p.s. This song sounds great played on an organ.

[Christoph]

Yeah it's a great song, one of my favourite Mike vocals.
The chords on the line you mentioned sound more like C/G - E - am to me

[MBE]

Brian and Mike did GREAT on this one. Desper and Carl also put a lot in the mix. Excellent song.

[Andrew G. Doe]

A highlight of the album, and of Mike's career. Magical.

[puni puni]

Tried to figure out this song using http://www.surfermoon.com/francis/sunflower.html as a guide but I don't have the ear for it. That bass is too weird and I can't make out the distorted guitar.

[filledeplage]

A highlight of the album, and of Mike's career. Magical.

Yes! Among the best woven harmonies!

Delicious to the ear.

Glad you're back, Andrew. 

[Andrew G. Doe]

You really need to hear it over four channels. Truly psychedelic in the strict sense of the word... and of course major props to Steve Desper.

[over and over]

Yeah it's a great song, one of my favourite Mike vocals.
The chords on the line you mentioned sound more like C/G - E - am to me

Your version sounds a lot better, thank you. Thought the "chord/bass line" pattern might be Em7/E - E7/B - Am/A , but it sounds a little off.

Brian and Mike did GREAT on this one. Desper and Carl also put a lot in the mix. Excellent song.

Cool, I never knew that. How was Carl involved?

[Sunflower Seed]

Quite possibly my no. 1 favourite Beach Boys song.
Mike's vocals are fantastic, what an amazing ambience.

[c-man]

According to the official "Sunflower/Surf's Up" songbook (Warner Brothers Publications), it's
F on "My love is burning brightly"
C on "like moon and"
E7-9 on "stars shine"
Am7 on "nightly"

I haven't tried it out to see...Adam Marsland could probably tell us for sure if this is right.

[over and over]

According to the official "Sunflower/Surf's Up" songbook (Warner Brothers Publications), it's
F on "My love is burning brightly"
C on "like moon and"
E7-9 on "stars shine"
Am7 on "nightly"

I haven't tried it out to see...Adam Marsland could probably tell us for sure if this is right.

Thanks for the chords. I got a lyric question. Is the line "My moon", "Like moon", or "Night moon"?

[MBE]

Yeah it's a great song, one of my favourite Mike vocals.
The chords on the line you mentioned sound more like C/G - E - am to me

Your version sounds a lot better, thank you. Thought the "chord/bass line" pattern might be Em7/E - E7/B - Am/A , but it sounds a little off.

Brian and Mike did GREAT on this one. Desper and Carl also put a lot in the mix. Excellent song.

Carl (with some help from his brothers) basically oversaw the whole album. For the transition to stereo he really helped get Brian's work mixed properly. I can't remember off hand what he did on this specific song, but from 1968-72 his touch was felt on almost every cut.
Cool, I never knew that. How was Carl involved?

[Amanda Hart]

Thanks for the chords. I got a lyric question. Is the line "My moon", "Like moon", or "Night moon"?

I've always heard it as "Like moon..."

This is a song I could listen to for an entire day straight. It is so beautiful.

[kwan_dk]

This song is the reason why you need to slap anyone who ignorantly claims the Beach Boys were limited to fun in the sun falsettos & Kokomo. This ranks among their very, very, very best & overlooked songs in my opinion. I'll listen to it again and again 'till my dying day.

You really need to hear it over four channels. Truly psychedelic in the strict sense of the word... and of course major props to Steve Desper.

Yeah, I've always felt that the song's overall greatness relied heavily on Desper's (and I guess Brian's?) mixing. Has Desper worked with other artists and achieved mixing results that soundwise compare to his work on Sunflower, Surf's Up, American Strping etc.? I'm crazy about the sound of the BB albums he was involved with.

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

According to the official "Sunflower/Surf's Up" songbook (Warner Brothers Publications), it's
F on "My love is burning brightly"
C on "like moon and"
E7-9 on "stars shine"
Am7 on "nightly"

I haven't tried it out to see...Adam Marsland could probably tell us for sure if this is right.

That is more or less correct, though it is especially critical that that C chord be in the 2nd inversion, i.e., the G is in the bass.  The flat 9 isn't really necessary in the chord as the vocal line is already singing it and I'm not certain that any instruments on the track play that extension.

It is indeed a fascinating mix--another reason why I'd like to hear the individual multi-tracks.  Supposedly, according to the track sheet or console tape (I don't remember which) there is a string bass on there.

[king of anglia]

What multitracks did you get to hear Aeijtzsche?

[AllIWannaDo]

One of my Fav BB songs of all time - i love the mix
but, if you play it on guitar it still sounds fantastic, great melody, and the guitar hook is perfect

i asked a while back if this has been played live as I'd love to hear a live interpretation of this but lookd like it's not been done - i cant find any live version by BB or BW.

this is true - to replicate the recorded version live correctly would be hard - however when you strip the song back to the melody, guiatr line, harmonies and build it up it's defo got the potential to be a swooning classic live song

if this was played live i'd be over the moon!

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

What multitracks did you get to hear Aeijtzsche?

The only bare, straight-up discrete single track of a multi-track I've ever heard is probably one of Brian's leads on Wouldn't It Be Nice, which anyone with UM can do with a balance knob.  The drum track from It's About Time, which is also in circulation, is probably the next best thing.  Other than that, nothing.  When I become an eccentric quadrillionaire, my first order of business will be to buy the multis. 

[ghost]

All I Wanna Do is way ahead of its time. It's still ahead of its time. No one has caught up to that overall sound yet that I've heard. The thing fucking FLOATS.

[The Madcap]

A highlight of the album, and of Mike's career. Magical.

Agreed. Easily one of Mike's best vocal performances.

[Andrew G. Doe]

If your PC/laptop has something called an SRS WOW widget in the CD player, try patching that in while listening to "All I Wanna Do" - not exactly quad, but it opens stuff up. Need to play around with it a bit first...

[Heysaboda]

I listen to this song like Brian listens to "Be My Baby". Its one of the best songs, but I'm having trouble with a few chords.

It is a fantastic song.

Believe it or not, it's only been the past 3 years or so that I've finally gotten seriously into the Boys' Sunflower, 20/20, Friends, Wild Honey era and my god, that part of their catalog is pretty freaking impressive and awe-inspiring!

[Alex]

The BBs invented both shoegaze and chillwave with All I Wanna Do.

[adamghost]

According to the official "Sunflower/Surf's Up" songbook (Warner Brothers Publications), it's
F on "My love is burning brightly"
C on "like moon and"
E7-9 on "stars shine"
Am7 on "nightly"

I haven't tried it out to see...Adam Marsland could probably tell us for sure if this is right.

LOL, and here I am drinking wine at 1 a.m. and browsing this thread.

My keyboard won't work with the computer anymore, but I'll give it a shot on guitar and see if I can figure it out.

[adamghost]

aeijtzsche had it about right, I'd say.  An Fmaj7 sounds better against the track to me than a straight F, but I can't prove the major 7 is on there.  It's not like I hear it.

F(maj7?)
C/G
E7 (I'll buy the flat 9 tonally but I agree I don't know that anyone is playing it)
Am (I don't hear the 7 either, sounds wrong to me against the track.  Though in BBs land, when was the last time they didn't use a minor 7!)

I'm glad no one asked about the next part!  It's all bass line and echo...it's pretty awesome, but I wouldn't lay money on knowing what the exact chords are.  One thing that's hitting me about this as I listen to it is that the bass has to be drop-tuned to D (did they have 5 string basses in 1970?) to hit the great deep notes there.  I'd buy Carl's involvement behind the board...this sounds very similar to the production on "Feel Flows" to me.

My best guess on the progression on this next part as Dm/G, Am/E, G/D.  Which is pretty out there...would definitely help create murky tension in the track...which again is very Carl (though Brian certainly did his share of this on PET SOUNDS).

I have one thing to offer on how this thing was produced:  when I went to college there was an enormous old moog synth from around '69 in the music department.  As part of a term project I did some recording with it and one of the things I experimented with was running an electric guitar through the moog.  The sound it made was VERY similar to what I'm hearing on parts of "All I Wanna Do."  Since they were messing around with a moog on SUNFLOWER, I gotta wonder if this isn't a big part of the soundscape we're hearing.  I've never read Desper's book, I'm assuming he would have mentioned this?