Deep Tracks: The Beach Boys, Post-1966

Earlier this week, Rick Simmons brought us a list of deep tracks from the Beach Boys’ early years. Coming up with Beach Boys “deep tracks” can be a difficult task: as Rick remarked in his piece, if you’re a Beach Boys fan, at this point, you’ve probably heard everything that’s available to hear. If I used this space to share what I thought were world-premiere recordings of a ten-year-old Dennis Wilson belching the alphabet, I can guarantee that in no time at all, the comments section would be full of people telling me that they’d been trading those recordings around since the early days of the Internet, asking me why I’d shared the stereo version instead of the vastly superior mono version, and debating whether or not Dennis’s melodic deviation on the line, “L M N O P” foreshadowed the musical complexity of later solo compositions like “Thoughts of You.” I know what Beach Boys fanatics are like. I’m one of them.

But this article isn’t for Beach Boys fanatics.

It’s for my Uncle Bill.

1) “Little Bird,” Friends (1968)

A few years ago, on a family trip to Ireland, I picked up a copy of the Friends/20/20 reissue during a stop in Kenmare, and we popped it in the car stereo as we drove back to the cottage we were renting.

“Who’s this?” my Uncle Bill asked, while Dennis warbled Stevie Kalinich’s hippie poetry over an instrumental bed of cellos, banjos, and trumpets.

“The Beach Boys,” my husband and I said.

“I used to love the Beach Boys,” Uncle Bill said.

*pause*

“This doesn’t sound like the Beach Boys at all.”

2. “I Was Made to Love Her,” Wild Honey (1967)

After the SMiLE sessions and the release of Smiley Smile, it was pretty clear that even the Beach Boys themselves didn’t know what they sounded like anymore — which is exactly what makes their late ’60s output so fascinating. Every album — every song — finds them trying on new personas. While Friends is full of easy-listening waltzes, Wild Honey is a homegrown soul record, with Carl Wilson pushing his angelic voice into brand-new R&B territory; you can practically see him shedding his baby fat and “little brother” status in the group as he swaggers through Stevie Wonder’s “I Was Made To Love Her.”

3. “I Went To Sleep,” 20/20 (1969)

“When did this record come out?” Uncle Bill asked midway through 20/20, while Brian sang about falling asleep to “a musical song.”

“1969,” my husband and I chorused.

“The Beach Boys were still making records in 1969?”

Yes, the Beach Boys were still making records in 1969. Were people buying them? Well, that’s another story. While 20/20 was more successful than Friends, its sales were still a far cry from the sales during the band’s heyday — which is unfortunate, because 20/20 is full of great songs, mixing the grit of Wild Honey with the lushness of Friends to create an unpredictable but almost always rewarding listening experience.

4. “All I Wanna Do,” Sunflower (1970)

5. “‘Til I Die,” Surf’s Up (1971)

“All I Wanna Do” and “‘Til I Die” are probably my favorite tracks to share with people like my Uncle Bill, who aren’t familiar with later Beach Boys recordings, because they’re both so different from the stereotypical image of the band. Even as someone who loves making fun of Mike Love, I have to admit that his performance on “All I Wanna Do” is beautiful — although I can’t help but wonder what it would be like if Love always approached his vocals with such gentleness and honesty. “‘Til I Die” is one of Brian’s masterpieces, and if there’s anything more chilling than hearing the voices that brought you “Fun, Fun, Fun” singing about soul-killing feelings of alienation, I don’t want to know about it.

6. “Hold On, Dear Brother,” Carl and the Passions –“So Tough” (1972)

7. “The Trader,” Holland (1973)

Remember when the Beach Boys were racially diverse and socially conscious? It happened in the ’70s, with the brief addition of Blondie Chaplin and Ricky Fataar from South African rock group the Flame. Chaplin and Fataar reinvigorated the band’s sound, pushing them to further explore the soulful sounds they’d flirted with a few years earlier. “Hold On, Dear Brother” is a particularly gorgeous, gospel-tinged track, and with Blondie Chaplin joining Brian Wilson on tour this summer, maybe it’s not too much to hope that it might find its way into Brian’s setlist rotation — especially after Nate Ruess’s impassioned performance on the recent Brian Wilson and Friends PBS special.

8. “Johnny Carson,” Love You (1977)

Post-Holland, my enthusiasm for picking one song from every album for this article starts to wane. I’m not sure anything from 15 Big Ones needs to be revisited, let alone any of the tracks from M.I.U. Album. Love You is generally accepted as a quirky little piece of brilliance, and “Johnny Carson” is a perfect example of why, if anyone lesser known than the Beach Boys had recorded the album, it would probably be considered a piece of outsider music on par with the Shaggs’ classic oddity, Philosophy of the World.

9. “Baby Blue,” L.A. (Light Album) (1979)

I think every Beach Boys fan has their guilty pleasure, whether it’s (shhh!) rocking out to the band’s 1980s music videos or (double shhh!) coveting Mike Love’s extensive hat collection. For me, that guilty pleasure is L.A. (Light Album) in all its cheesy, melodramatic 197os glory. The 1970s were the perfect time to be a songwriter like Dennis Wilson, whose personal excesses were matched by the excess in his musical compositions. “Baby Blue” is as lush as lush can be, with the raggedness of Dennis’s vocals perfectly complementing the purity of Carl’s.

10. “Summer’s Gone,” That’s Why God Made The Radio (2012)

There’s probably no better way to end this article than with the closing track from 2012’s reunion album. “Summer’s Gone” echoes many of the songs we’ve already mentioned: the lyrics recall both the resignation of “‘Til I Die” (“We live, then die/And dream about our yesterday”) and the hope of “Hold On, Dear Brother” (“I’m thinking maybe I’ll just stay”), while the arrangement has the Pet Sounds feel that lingered through much of the band’s late-’60s output. It’s a sad and beautiful song, and one that a casual listener  might never guess was actually by the Beach Boys.

Limiting this article to 10 songs was the only hope I had of ever finishing this article. There are so many more wonderful deep Beach Boys tracks that I regret having to leave out, and I hope you’ll share your favorites in the comments.

Carey Farrell

Carey Farrell is a writer, musician, and teacher from Chicago. She enjoys collecting vintage books and records, watching terrible movies, and telling people about the time her band opened for Peter Tork. Find her on YouTube or Bandcamp.