Little Deuce Coupe

[Rocker]

I never realized how cool the lyrics are..... http://www.smthop.com/articles1details.asp?NewsNum=812

[Reverend Joshua Sloane]

Yep

There's a reason Mike and Bruce did the thing for Nascar.

Personally I find cars boring, I don't own one, can't drive one, and never have driven one legally.

[NHC]

Only problem is, the "Original 1932 Ford Coupe" in the top picture is a c. 1938-39 Ford convertible.  Also, if I remember my 60's California hotroddding days correctly, the "Lake" in Lake pipes refers to either the manufacturer or the original designer. Could be wrong about that. Some of the best BB tunes of all time are the car songs, particularly appealing for those of us who were growing up as teenagers at the time, because cars and hotrods were the "in" thing. That was a huge part of our lives.  And, even if you take away the lyrics, the music arrangements are incredible on their own. A lot of people sniff at the car tunes as juvenile, but Brian was writing and the band was singing about the things that were important to us teen-age fans 40 years ago.  We could relate to each and every lyric. If some fans weren't around at the time and can't dig it as much, that's understandable, but for many us who were there and living it, well, it's no exaggeration when people say Brian and the Boys provided the soundtrack for our growing up, and that included cherried-out cars.

[Jonas]

great reply NHC, I gotta say LDC is my favorite car song by the Beach Boys...not just the lyrics but like you mentioned the music itself is great...

i even enjoyed tom cruise's acapella in 'the war of the worlds'

[Surfer Joe]

Rather than my love of cars enhancing my love of the songs, my love of those great songs has always enhanced my love of cars. I'm so music and melody-driven that I've never responded to songs based on subject matter.  I've always loved baseball, but beyond "Take Me Out TO The Ball Game", which is traditional, I've never really loved any songs about baseball.  I'm sure there must be some good ones I've missed.

I really love "Little Deuce Coupe", but my favorite is "This Car Of Mine", followed very closely by "Custom Machine".

[Ebb and Flow]

Even though a lot of the songs are on previous BB albums, Little Deuce Coupe is one of my favorite albums.  From the cover to the concept album quality of the album.  Favorite Song: Cherry Cherry Coupe.  Way better than 'Land Ahoy'.

And I like This Car of Mine too, Joe.  Even if the song is way too short. 

[NHC]

"No Go Showboat"!  Great composition and vocal arangement.  You can play this for someone "unlearned",  where they're not really listening to the words, but you know they like it, then spring "Beach Boys" . . . . . "hot rod song" and watch their faces just before they ask to hear it again.  And how many people who got to the show late were surprised to find out DWB was about a  . . . . . . drag race.  The thing is, finally getting that knowledge didn't diminish it at all for them - a great song about a guy and his girl - or a girl and her guy, who knows.  LDC, Shut Down, 409, This Car of Mine, the whole long list of them, every dang one a winner.  Good music and a story in each. We could realte to each and every one.  Like I said earlier, a lot of people dismiss this early stuff, but many of them do so from hearing it for the first times many years after the fact.  "Teenage" music.  Well, of course it was teenage music.  Brian and Mike were barely out of their teens themselves and who do we think they wre writing for? As they grew and the audience grew, the music grew.  But for me there's still nothing quite as exciting as those first three or four years through Pet Sounds (which I loved the first time I heard it the week it hit the stores in 1966).  I didn't see any radical departure, I saw a natural progression and maturity - the same guy listening to Pet Sounds in 1966 as was listening to Shut Down and Surfin' USA three years earlier.

Surfer Joe, have you ever heard any of the novelty-type baseball songs from the 409-'s-50's-early 60's?  There were some fun catchy ones, usually promoting a star player like Jackie Robinson or Willie Mays, or a team.  Not exactly Mozart-grade but fun to hear.  And I'm sure you're familiar with Terry Cashman's catalogue?  No, not George and Ira Gershwin but still cool for a life-long baseball nut (and SF Giants fan transplanted to Houston Astro country) like me.  I think you're right, though - nothing really tops "Take Me Out To The Ballgame"!

Amosario - any day that includes a Beach Boys tune is a good one!  Even at the end of the world.

[Surfer Joe]

The old Rolling Stone Record Guide identified "Don't Worry, Baby" as making brilliant use of a drag race as a sexual metaphor- wish I had it handy for the exact words.  Proves that critics will resort to anything to shoehorn stuff into their own silly standards of art.  The same book gave neither Pet Sounds nor Sergeant Pepper five stars.

NHC: yeah, I've heard some of the old songs on documentaries and such, and I love 'em simply because I love everything from that era, when everything was so great they could hardly miss.  (The Jackie Robinson song comes to mind as being particularly great).  I have a cheapy baseball music CD somewhere; I think it came with a book,  but I wish Rhino or someone like that would do a comprehensive anthology of the best stuff.  'Fraid I'm not a Terry Cashman fan.

I'll say it again- "Custom Machine" is one of the great overlooked classics of the catalogue.

[Emdeeh]

I love the LDC album, especially "Spirit of America." Brian's vocal is so over-the-top on SOA -- it's glorious and fun all at the same time.

[donald]

Regarding the origin of the term "lake pipes"; somewhere, years ago, I learned, right or wrong, that lake pipes referred to the open unrestricted side pipes that sat low below the doors on salt flat racers (thus the lake name) and early california drag racers and street machines.  I never questioned that explanation.  It might be wrong.

[Carrie Marks]

When David plays around New York, he's faced with the struggle between his own childhood dreams of playing the Blues in a  New York City club and people wanting to hear a Beach Boy song.  His solution was to combine the two with a new arrangement of Little Deuce Coupe.  If you forget about the words, I think the song really holds up. 

The video is on David's my sapce page - this should be a direct link:

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=722658310&n=2

[Jon Stebbins]

That's hot Carrie...I bet Brian would dig that too. Sounds like Clapton...in a good way.

[Don't Back Down]

thanks for sharing, Carrie.

"Little Deuce Coupe" is definately a blues tune, just listen to the chord changes and melody. I love listening to the LDC demo on Hawthorne 2cd set where Brian sort of slows it down.

[Rocker]

Anyone remember that quote abot LDC by Frank Zappa ?

[Jonas]

BTW, the writer of this article gives Brian credit for the lyrics in LDC...though Im pretty sure it was Roger Christian who penned them...

Id like to see that Zappa quote.

[Rocker]

BTW, the writer of this article gives Brian credit for the lyrics in LDC...though Im pretty sure it was Roger Christian who penned them...

Id like to see that Zappa quote.

In the twofer booklet it's stated that Brian wrote the "pink slip"-lyrics, but I doubt even that.

The Zappa-quote was some technical thing regarding chords. he said that Brian was very ahead of his time with some chord changes in LDC if I remember correctly...

[Olivio]

I like the baseball song from the Adult Child bootleg.

On the LDC album my favourites are the title track and Car Crazy Cutie. That album has some pretty extreme moments, I always have to smile at Brian's falsetto on No-Go Showboat...

[the captain]

BTW, the writer of this article gives Brian credit for the lyrics in LDC...though Im pretty sure it was Roger Christian who penned them...

Id like to see that Zappa quote.

In the twofer booklet it's stated that Brian wrote the "pink slip"-lyrics, but I doubt even that.

The Zappa-quote was some technical thing regarding chords. he said that Brian was very ahead of his time with some chord changes in LDC if I remember correctly...

"To me, II-V-I is the essence of bad 'white-person music.

(One of the most exciting things that ever happened in the world of white-person music was when the Beach Boys used the progression V-II on "Little Deuce Coupe." An important step forward by going backward.)"

From p. 187 of "The Real Frank Zappa Book," by Frank Zappa.

[NHC]

"Little Deuce Coupe" is definately a blues tune, just listen to the chord changes and melody."

Sure is.  It's a great one to play in that style, with some standard-type blues fills.  You can also change the IV and V chords to ninths and get a jazzy-bluesy feel.  Works best if you're in an "E" chord form, say G on the third fret, then playing a barrred C9 (based on the standard C position but adding the ninth on the B/ string and then the G on top) in the same place and then the D9 at the fifth fret. (If I'm making less sense than usual, look in a good chord book!)  I guess you leave the II where it is in the turnaround (A7 in this example? I don't know, this is getting more confusing and probably less accurate with each word.) Also works on 409. Just gives a cool twist and a new way to go with it without losing the original feel.  Probably nothing a lot of better players than me haven't already figured out in a lot better way, but what the heck.

I think Donald (earlier post) has the answer for the lakes pipes now that I think of it.  That makes sense.  it's been a while.

"Oh the baseball season's on, get your season tickets now":  The Beach Boys

[matt-zeus]

Cool version of this is the demo with Brian and Mike singing on Hawthorne CA.

[Surfer Joe]

BTW, the writer of this article gives Brian credit for the lyrics in LDC...though Im pretty sure it was Roger Christian who penned them...

Id like to see that Zappa quote.

In the twofer booklet it's stated that Brian wrote the "pink slip"-lyrics, but I doubt even that.

I've always guessed that the technical lyrics ("Just a Little Deuce Coupe with a flat head mill...", "...competition clutch",etc.) would have come from Christian and that Brian or Brian and Mike wrote the other stuff- "Well, I'm not braggin', babe so don't put me down"- pure Brian and Mike. 

To doubt that Brian could have written any particular line might be revisionism based on the lawsuit and based on some of Brian's much-later lyrics.  Just the stuff we know he did write, like half the words to "I Get Around" (according to Mike), shows that he could do it .  Some of the lyrics that sound the most like Mike might have been Brian, just like I had always figured over the pre-1993 years that Mike must have had a hand in lyrics like "California Girls" and "Help Me, Rhonda".

[Rocker]

Joe, don't get me wrong. I know that Brian can write lyrics, I just have a feeling that he didn't write that particular line.....