The 5 best Beach Boys songs you’ve never heard of.

The Beach Boys are famous for a number of things. Most obviously creating that West Coast sound of summer that is indelibly burned into all our brains, I think – but most notably for natives of California, the sunshine state – for whose identity and legacy the band will always be the soundtrack. Then in 1966, they suddenly turned “arty”. They, in this case, being Brian Wilson, the musical genius behind their biggest hits – who created Pet Sounds, often considered one of the most influential and best albums of all time.

So, a few good-time summer driving tunes, Good Vibrations, Pet Sounds and then a seemingly light-speed decline into drugs, changing band members, mental illness, in-fighting, bad songs and eventually becoming their own tribute band through a number of nostalgia tours. What was once arguably the most creative band in the world was slowly driven into the ground by Mike Love and his completely addled belief that the band could somehow remain relevant to the ever-changing world by simply re-hashing songs about being teenagers in the late 50s/early 60s in California. Various points in their career have been described as their absolute nadir; Smiley Smile in 1967 – rescued from the aborted SMiLE project that eventually sent its creator into a destructive downward spiral from which he arguably never recovered; 1988’s “Kokomo”, from the soundtrack to the film Cocktail, and any album they released after Dennis Wilson’s death in 1981, but my personal choice for this award would have to be the album “The Beach Boys Salute NasCar.”

God help me, I wish I was joking.

But anyway, in between re-defining youth culture and Americana, completely overhauling the method by which pop albums were a) made and b) judged and then ending up literally re-recording a load of songs as 60 year old men singing about taking young girls out in their little deuce coupe (urgh), they actually came up with the odd song that wasn’t half bad. Mind, they didn’t half put out some gash as well during the decade between 1967 – 1977 but there are some in there that are well worth listening to. As with the worst Beatles songs, I have constructed a shortlist and will now pick the best Beach Boys songs that you’ve never heard of. They won’t exclusively be from the decade noted above but most of them probably will be. There are about fifteen thousand “Best Of” compilations, and so I have tried to pick songs that don’t feature on any of them – but obviously I may not have covered absolutely all the bases there. It’s a shame, because songs like Good Timing, Sail on Sailor and Please Let Me Wonder have to be left off, although they’re still not well known.

The shortlist.

1. You Need A Mess of Help To Stand Alone (Carl and the Passions/So Tough, 1972)
2. Marcella (Carl and the Passions/So Tough, 1972)
3. Darlin’ (Wild Honey, 1968)
4. It’s About Time (Sunflower, 1970)
5. Forever (Sunflower, 1970)
6. Time To Get Alone (20/20, 1969)
7. This Whole World (Sunflower, 1970)
8. Our Sweet Love (Sunflower, 1970)
9. Disney Girls (1957) (Surf’s Up, 1971)
10. The Night Was So Young (Love You, 1977)


The top 5.

5. This Whole World
This is only a couple of minutes long, but it harks back to the Beach Boys’ heyday, largely because of the brilliant backing vocals and airy lead vocal. It’s very simple, lyrically, but the music is interesting and complex, with a number of key changes sounding – as per usual – as if they were the only natural way to progress through the song. Brian was heavily involved in both the writing and recording of this song, and that tends to be a hallmark of a successful venture for the Beach Boys – despite the amount of musical talent in the band, there’s no denying that without Brian at the helm, they lack a certain degree of icing on the cake. This is probably the best song from the Sunflower album, which is itself the best album they made after Pet Sounds – but no more Sunflower excerpts on this list. But go and check out the album, it’s a cracker.

4. Marcella
The Beach Boys were never a great rock band – but this song does break the mould somewhat, it’s a fairly simple pounding rock song, but the melody and of course the vocal arrangements make it a stand out track. Brian Wilson still performs this live, and I can vouch from experience that it is a brilliant part of the set. The Carl and the Passions album is often dismissed as having been quite poor, but in fact there are two stand-out tracks on an album of very decent songs – the only album that can make that claim without having had Brian at the desk.


3. You Need A Mess of Help to Stand Alone
Why this wasn’t a bigger hit is a mystery to some people, but not to me – and probably not to those people either if they thought about it. It’s a really good song, no doubt, but at the time of release, the band were arguably at their all time low in terms of public perception, their credibility and relevance both shot to hell by a number of poor commercial decisions and albums that were below average in both performance and quality. Appearing in the video like a load of North Sea fishermen who have got lost on shore somehow, the group no longer radiated Southern Californian charm and carefree youth no longer abounded. I've included this video from Brighton pier, in case you want to see how accurate my description was....


Here's the actual song.

But taking all that into account, this is a really good song – and if chart performance was based purely on the quality of the song in question, it would have done a lot more business.

2. The Night Was So Young
By the time “Love You” came out in 1977, the band had arguably reached breaking point, and some would say too late. For those of us who can’t see what harm would have been done by the band having broken up 10 years earlier, the decade after Pet Sounds reads as a massively frustrating and creatively ramshackle period in the life of what had once been a truly great, and important, band. In 1977, Brian decided (or was persuaded) to take the reins again at the desk and produce an album. The finished product is often called the Marmite of Beach Boys records – you either love it or hate it. I don’t really fall into either camp. Some of it is absolutely awful, but there are moments when you are reminded just why Wilson was once held in such high regard by just about anyone who had ever had anything to do with music, and this is one such moment. Although the lyrics are not his best (although he was never a great lyricist anyway), the music, mood, harmonies and Carl’s delivery of the vocal all contribute to make this a stand-out moment in a decidedly topsy-turvy album.


1. Disney Girls (1957)
It pains me to select a Bruce Johnson song as the best “hidden-gem” of the Beach Boys catalogue, as he wasn’t an original Beach Boy, although given the numerous people who have performed under the banner, and the considerable cheapening of the name, he’s as close to an original as anyone. But the other reason is that he tends to contribute the most sickly-sweet cheesy compositions to their work. For instance, he wrote “I write the songs” for Barry Manilow, which just about says it all, and for those Beach Boy aficionados amongst you, you will already be aware of things like The Nearest Faraway Place, or At My Window, Deirdre and Tears In The Morning – all of which are drenched in gorgonzolic mawkishness. Still, at least he didn’t write Take A Load Off Your Feet –probably the most ear-offendingly terrible dross that you’ll hear on a Beach Boys record. Well, no, sadly that isn’t true – but it’s morbid none the less. Anyway, he did write this, and while it is just as sickly sweet as his other work, it is fitting a genre that suits the style, i.e. the nostalgic 50s trip down memory lane. It’s a beautifully written song, both musically and lyrically, and on an album that is ostensibly about the fading of past glories (whether the band realised it at the time or not, it is) it finds its home particularly well here. There’s nothing particularly epic about the song, in fact, the way that it is relatively stripped down does wonders for it, and the feelings it invokes and the emotions it stirs are powerful and moving. Added to a melody that is simply gorgeous, and chordal structure that is complex and yet never forced, this song stands out, not only on the album, but in the entire catalogue of Beach Boys songs as one of their best.






PS. Just out of interest, here’s a quick reason why most Beach Boy fans hate Mike Love. This isn’t the only reason, by any means, but when I talked about still trying to be relevant – look at how he dresses, listen to how he speaks, and listen to the way he talks about cheerleaders. It is just embarrassing. On the flip side, listen to Brian Wilson’s “Lucky old Sun” album, to see how it should be done. It’s cringe-worthy, but still worth watching if you don’t know what I’m talking about.

PPS. In case that didn’t do it for you, and it should have, this should do it.

Please remember, that this guy sang lead on some of the most important rock and roll songs of all time and was part of a group that redefined the identity of an entire state – some would say the nation. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

PPPS. When Brian does Christmas songs – this happens.

You can’t fake class like that.