4th of July is one HELL of a song.

[SMiLE Brian]

Agreed Mike's beard, POB was DW going all out with his songbag that he built in the 1970s.

[retrokid67]

my side is--people don't have to love everything Dennis ever wrote, but attacking him with whatever Brian has done is pointless because 1. Brian and Dennis had two different styles.

But what keeps cropping up in your arguements is you claim Dennis is a genius just like Brian, then when people disagree with that statement you say it's unfair to compare Dennis to Brian - you can't have it both ways.

  2. Dennis is gone now and his talent never reached it's full potential thanks to battling personal demons and insecurity due to the lack of support from the band at the time.  

Again I'd disagree and say he reached his full potential with POB, no way was he ever going to better that.

I said that he was the closest one who came to Brian's level and I said that Brian himself stated that Dennis is a genius in his own right.  "takes one to know one" right?  and what about Bambu?

[Shady]

4th of July is a good song that obviously never reached it's full potential

Same could be said for a lot of Dennis's songs

[bluesno1fann]

4th of July is a good song that obviously never reached it's full potential

Same could be said for a lot of Dennis's songs

To be fair, it was never completed.

[bluesno1fann]

Why are you guys getting so defensive, I call it as I hear it. BW wrote whole albums of classics, while DW made the best BBs album never made (POB)

never really got all the hoopla over POB. Love You is where it is at for me.

[retrokid67]

4th of July is a good song that obviously never reached it's full potential

Same could be said for a lot of Dennis's songs

thank you

[SMiLE Brian]

Why are you guys getting so defensive, I call it as I hear it. BW wrote whole albums of classics, while DW made the best BBs album never made (POB)

never really got all the hoopla over POB. Love You is where it is at for me.

I was expressing my opinion since love you is one of my favorite albums from any artist.

[Niko]

Is the scheduled freakout over Denny finished? Got it you love him so do most of us.

I really want to hear the version of 4th of July with the guitar playing the lead. Sounds pretty nest.

[Disney Boy (1985)]

Can we get back to talking about 4th of July please?

Listen, different people have different tastes. Sometimes when you really love something/someone, it's hard to comprehend when others feel differently (I've a friend who loathes the Beach Boys and - I've discovered - nothing I ever say, do or play him will change his mind).

Some of us rate Dennis incredibly highly - equal to or almost equal to his big bro - and I rank as one of them. When I listen to River Song or Thoughts of You and then listen to the music Brian was making during the same period... get outta here!! No contest. But this is just my opinion.

Whether i like it or not, other people are always going to feel differently on such matters, no matter how incomprehensible their tastes may seem to me. But that's just the way it is. So just be confident in your own innate good taste, everyone, and don't get so offended by the opinions of strangers. 

[bluesno1fann]

Can we get back to talking about 4th of July please?

Listen, different people have different tastes. Sometimes when you really love something/someone, it's hard to comprehend when others feel differently (I've a friend who loathes the Beach Boys and - I've discovered - nothing I ever say, do or play him will change his mind).

Some of us rate Dennis incredibly highly - equal to or almost equal to his big bro - and I rank as one of them. When I listen to River Song or Thoughts of You and then listen to the music Brian was making during the same period... get outta here!! No contest. But this is just my opinion.

Whether i like it or not, other people are always going to feel differently on such matters, no matter how incomprehensible their tastes may seem to me. But that's just the way it is. So just be confident in your own innate good taste, everyone, and don't get so offended by the opinions of strangers. 

Totally agreed. Let's move on.

[retrokid67]

4th of July really is a nice song

[halblaineisgood]

.

[bluesno1fann]

4th of July really is a nice song

Totally agreed. Let's move on.

You can't move on from the original topic, which was about the song 4th Of July...

[halblaineisgood]

4th of July really is a nice song

Totally agreed. Let's move on.

You can't move on from the original topic, which was about the song 4th Of July...

Totally agreed. Let's move on.

[RioGrande]

I hear in Denny's songs a "golden touch" like Brian had, though in a different way. That includes 4th of July.

[pixletwin]

Wen I first started liking the Beach Boys I scorned anything that was post-Smile.

I got the GV 30 year boxset because I heard it had Smile tracks on it, but I gave the whole thing a courtesy listen.

I was ho-hum about everything post-Smile and smirking to myself until I heard 4th of July. I had no idea who wrote it, but it demanded my attention when it came on. I still remember precisely where I was driving when I first heard it back in 2006 (3300 south and 500 east in Salt Lake City). I programmed the cd player to repeat and I listened to it over and over again for the next 45 minutes; my jaw fallen to the floor. yeah, it made an impression.

[Disney Boy (1985)]

Wen I first started liking the Beach Boys I scorned anything that was post-Smile.

I got the GV 30 year boxset because I heard it had Smile tracks on it, but I gave the whole thing a courtesy listen.

I was ho-hum about everything post-Smile and smirking to myself until I heard 4th of July. I had no idea who wrote it, but it demanded my attention when it came on. I still remember precisely where I was driving when I first heard it back in 2006 (3300 south and 500 east in Salt Lake City). I programmed the cd player to repeat and I listened to it over and over again for the next 45 minutes; my jaw fallen to the floor. yeah, it made an impression.

Yep, sounds about right. I'd liked the BB's for a while when I first bought the GV box but not yet enough to know all the history and who was who etc. So to me 4th of July was just another unreleased track on CD 3. Games Two Can Play and I Just Got My Pay - yeah they were light-hearted melodic fun but pretty throwaway, I could see why they hadn't made it onto an album. Same with HELP. And then.... then 4th of July came on. It just floored me. I was instantly smitten and have remained so ever since. The gorgeous melody, the lyrics and Carl's vocal have - I'm not ashamed to admit - been known to bring tears to my eyes. Ah, it kills me how much this should have been on Surf's Up!!

[Ovi]

Great posts, Pixletwin and Disney Boy, I can totally relate.

[Don Malcolm]

Wen I first started liking the Beach Boys I scorned anything that was post-Smile.

I got the GV 30 year boxset because I heard it had Smile tracks on it, but I gave the whole thing a courtesy listen.

I was ho-hum about everything post-Smile and smirking to myself until I heard 4th of July. I had no idea who wrote it, but it demanded my attention when it came on. I still remember precisely where I was driving when I first heard it back in 2006 (3300 south and 500 east in Salt Lake City). I programmed the cd player to repeat and I listened to it over and over again for the next 45 minutes; my jaw fallen to the floor. yeah, it made an impression.

Yep, sounds about right. I'd liked the BB's for a while when I first bought the GV box but not yet enough to know all the history and who was who etc. So to me 4th of July was just another unreleased track on CD 3. Games Two Can Play and I Just Got My Pay - yeah they were light-hearted melodic fun but pretty throwaway, I could see why they hadn't made it onto an album. Same with HELP. And then.... then 4th of July came on. It just floored me. I was instantly smitten and have remained so ever since. The gorgeous melody, the lyrics and Carl's vocal have - I'm not ashamed to admit - been known to bring tears to my eyes. Ah, it kills me how much this should have been on Surf's Up!!

Really good stuff, guys. And Jon (as usual) nailed it. Dennis' gifts to us are arguably more precious because they were so much more unexpected in the wake of the BBs massive success. While the chance of a "second act" spearheaded by Dennis' songs was always remote, most of us grant him the actual, viable possibility of such a phenomenon as the lost artifacts of his work finally become accessible to us.

It's clear right from the get-go, with "Be Still," that Dennis had a separate path in his songwriting that would prove to be as ambitious in its own way as Brian's. We see glimpses of it from time to time, and "4th of July" is another major manifestation of that. It's a terrible shame that such a work, with the depth of feeling, with such a wonderful melody, and with all of the ingredients to be a dynamic ballad (fill in the BBs harmonies inside your head and extrapolate along with me...), is only extant in such a cobbled-together version. We're so very lucky to have that, and we should thank the powers-that-be from the GV box set timeframe for going the extra mile to make it available to us.

[Dudd]

Swedish Frog is a genius.

You can't block me.

[Please delete my account]

Again, great song. I must be lucky, I hear no sloppy vocal, I hear no unfinishedness.

[Niko]

I love how well 4th of July fits with the other SU tracks. The whole band was really on the same page with that album, and it is a damn shame neither of Dennis' songs made it...the album is much better with 4th and WIBNTLA in the tracklist.

[RangeRoverA1]

Whenever I read these kinda debates about 2 sides convincing one another, I can't help finding 'em funny (no irony). You all did that with so much effort, in a life-determining way.

Dennis is by no means a genius & drastically differs from Brian. The fact that the latter gets compared to Mozart says sth., even though some would find it silly as well.

[Disney Boy (1985)]

Again, great song. I must be lucky, I hear no sloppy vocal, I hear no unfinishedness.

Ditto. If it weren't for reading about it on here, I'd never have had any indication that the song was unfinished or that Carl's vocal was 'rough'. I think sometimes people readjust their radars once they learn extra info about a song i.e. 'oh, it was just a demo was it? Hmmm now that I listen to it again I can hear that...'

[Niko]

Carl's delivery bothered me the first time I heard it. Learning that it was a scratch vocal, things made sense.