All Dressed Up For School

[TV Forces]

What album was this track to be apart of?

Or was it supposed to be a b-side?

[Jason]

It was recorded during the Today! sessions, but left unreleased until '90 due to its rather lecherous nature.

It's a fun little track, innit?

Quick trivia - the melody of this track ended up in a section of Heroes and Villains, as I Just Got My Pay, as Marcella, and finally, in the chorus of Goin' On.

[Fantastico!]

Recorded for Today.

Per Craig Slowinski -

"Left out of the running for Side One of "Today!", doubtless because the lyrics were considered too "risqué" (lines like "oh - she's so fine - what a turn-on!" were probably inappropriate for teenage pop records at the time), this is a slight yet neat little rocker that displays an inventive wordless break (heard at the beginning and again later in the song), great playing from Dennis (drums) and Carl (12-string rhythm and lead guitar), and no less than four bassists (one of them Alan Jardine)! "

[rb]

Was it considered to have been a finished track?

[Jason]

Yes, it's finished.

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

It wasn't really mixed though, until Mark did it for the twofer, right?  So in a sense, it wasn't entirely finished.

[Jason]

Well if you wanna be fuckin' picky, sure it was "unfinished", but what was there was certainly finished.

[Reverend Joshua Sloane]

fucking picky facts need to be.

[Alan Boyd]

There's an unreleased vintage Brian Wilson mono mix in the vaults, with some handclaps and vocal overdubs added during the mixdown.

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

Was Mark's mix just for the sake of having it released in stereo, or had that mono mix not been found at that point?

[Ebb and Flow]

Recorded for Today.

Per Craig Slowinski -

"Left out of the running for Side One of "Today!", doubtless because the lyrics were considered too "risqué" (lines like "oh - she's so fine - what a turn-on!" were probably inappropriate for teenage pop records at the time), this is a slight yet neat little rocker that displays an inventive wordless break (heard at the beginning and again later in the song), great playing from Dennis (drums) and Carl (12-string rhythm and lead guitar), and no less than four bassists (one of them Alan Jardine)! "

I think this is a nice little parallel to the Beatles facing a similar challenge on "A Day In The Life" with the lyric "I'd Love to turn...you...on", causing it to be banned by the BBC.  Though Brian had even more reason not to release it because of the climate in 1964 vs. 1967.  Still, pretty interesting.

And that mono mix is exactly the sort of thing that shouldn't be languishing in vaults.  I wonder what the vocal overdubs are, for a song already covered in vocals?

[MBE]

Goof vocal by Carl, man why don't the people who do reissues realise that we wanna hear what Brian did not what they do mix wise.  Mono is cool and if they have to do stereo at least release it both ways. If they could do it then they could do it now. AND PUT IT ALL ON VINYL!!!

[Billgoodman]

if it was recorded for the Today sessions
why is it an extra track on All Summer Long twofer?
Rewriting history?

I suppose it's because there already were cool bonus tracks for Today! and Little Deuce Coupe/All Summer Long
could still use a good track. And the BB were constantly making albums anyway. Still as a soon to be historian I would like to see a Today session track on a Today reissue.

[Andreas]

There's an unreleased vintage Brian Wilson mono mix in the vaults, with some handclaps and vocal overdubs added during the mixdown.

Wow. I really would like to hear that. Why on earth has this been unreleased so far?

[TV Forces]

if it was recorded for the Today sessions
why is it an extra track on All Summer Long twofer?
Rewriting history?

It's not.
It's on the Today/Summer Nights twofer.

[Cabana Boy]

It's on the Today/Summer Nights twofer.

Not on mine it's not.

[Cabana Boy]

if it was recorded for the Today sessions
why is it an extra track on All Summer Long twofer?
Rewriting history?

Tracking on some '...Today!' songs began before 'All Summer Long' was even released, but the sessions didn't really start to gather pace 'til the first month of '65. That's when the album took shape.

I wouldn't call 'ADUFS' (a doofus, haha!) a 'Today' out-take. It's probably best considered as some kind of a bridge between the 2 albums. That - plus it's obviously having more in common musically with the 'Shut Down Vol. 2'/'All Summer Long' material - probably accounts for it's inclusion on the earlier 2fer.

[c-man]

if it was recorded for the Today sessions
why is it an extra track on All Summer Long twofer?
Rewriting history?

It's not.
It's on the Today/Summer Nights twofer.

No it's not.  It's on the "LDC"/"ASL" twofer.
It was recorded in September '64, a full two months after "All Summer Long" was already released, but it's there as a bonus cut anyway. 

[Jason Penick]

Well if you look at the bonus tracks on the LDC/ ASL 2fer, with the exception of "All Dressed Up for School" they're all alternate versions.  The PTB already had "Graduation Day" lined up for Today!/ SD(ASN!!), so I'm guessing they added "ADUFS" to the former to bolster the value of that collection (as they also did by flip-flopping LDC and SDV2 chronologically to insure that none of the 2fers contained duplicate tracks).

[rb]

So, it has been determined that the version most of us are familiar with is not the finished version. The date of it's recording has also been established. This would place it on Today!, if it was to be used on that album. A few questions:

Is the contention that it was unreleased because of the language and lyrical content a true one? I mean, has it been verified?

Could it have made the cut? Would it have fit on Today!? The productions on that album were a little more fleshed-out and full-blown than that of the ADUFS we are familiar with, vocals notwithstanding.  (Maybe Alan Boyd can give some insight into this.)

Better still, what would it have replaced? Maybe 'Help Me, Ronda'. It definitely doesn't have the snapiness of the rest of side 1. Otherwise, I can't really see dropping any of the existing tracks in its favour, as good as it is.

[Cabana Boy]

'Today!' wasn't really underway by the time '...School' was tracked. Work had been done on a couple of the tunes that wound up on the album, but no definite tenor had been established.
I think the song was just written, tracked and left. It's being kind of a stylistic retrenchment (compared to where Brian was heading) is probably what contributed to it's non-release, as much as anything. They could always have re-written the words if they'd wanted to put it out bad enough.

Can't see that it was, or ever would have been, a candidate for inclusion on that album.

[TV Forces]

It's on the Today/Summer Nights twofer.

Not on mine it's not.

You're right.  I was mistaken on that.  Sorry.
I wrongly assumed it was because it was during those sessions.

[TV Forces]

Better still, what would it have replaced? Maybe 'Help Me, Ronda'. It definitely doesn't have the snapiness of the rest of side 1. Otherwise, I can't really see dropping any of the exsiting tracks in its favour, as good as it is.

I wouldn't miss the interview track 12.

[rb]

I wouldn't miss the interview track 12.

Me neither, but All Dressed would not have fit on Side 2. Would have destroyed the rock side/mature side concept. Better, perhaps, to have a piece of totally unrelated filler at the end.

Of course, there's always the possibility that Brian wanted to make the 20 minute version of Bull Session, Side 2, but Capitol nixed the idea, thus forcing him to record all that other crap.

[rb]

'Today!' wasn't really underway by the time '...School' was tracked. Work had been done on a couple of the tunes that wound up on the album, but no definite tenor had been established.
I think the song was just written, tracked and left. It's being kind of a stylistic retrenchment (compared to where Brian was heading) is probably what contributed to it's non-release, as much as anything. They could always have re-written the words if they'd wanted to put it out bad enough.

Can't see that it was, or ever would have been, a candidate for inclusion on that album.

Makes sense to me.