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Yahoo
19-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Rolling Stones Made Their First Appearance on the U.S. Charts With This Cover Song 61 Years Ago
The Rolling Stones Made Their First Appearance on the U.S. Charts With This Cover Song 61 Years Ago originally appeared on Parade. Since the Rolling Stones have been one of the most successful and beloved rock bands in the world for over 50 years at this point, it's easy to forget that they were essentially a cover band when they started out, first gaining attention in the U.K. for playing sets featuring tunes from the likes of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. In fact, it was a cover song that first landed the Stones on the U.S. charts in 1964. Originally recorded by Buddy Holly in 1957, "Not Fade Away" was the Rolling Stones' third single in the U.K., where it reached number three on the charts after being released on Feburary 21, 1964. The track didn't enjoy quite the same level of success in the U.S., where it was released shortly thereafter — but it did land them on the Billboard charts for the first time on July 18 of that year, when it peaked at number 48. The song's popularity was likely buoyed by the band's iconic appearance one month prior on The Mike Douglas Show, where they performed "Not Fade Away" just two weeks after arriving in the U.S. for the first time, according to Rolling Stone. It was nearly a year later — on July 10, 1965 — that the Rolling Stones had their first number one hit on the Billboard charts with "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," which held its position for four weeks. 'It was the song that really made the Rolling Stones, changed us from just another band into a huge, monster band,' Mick Jagger said later, per American Songwriter. 'You always need one song," he continued. "We weren't American, and America was a big thing, and we always wanted to make it here. It was very impressive the way that song and the popularity of the band became a worldwide thing. It's a signature tune, really."The Rolling Stones Made Their First Appearance on the U.S. Charts With This Cover Song 61 Years Ago first appeared on Parade on Jul 18, 2025 This story was originally reported by Parade on Jul 18, 2025, where it first appeared.
The Irish Sun
05-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Irish Sun
‘We've no call girls in Sligo' – ‘Cheapskate' music icon's shock groupie & $10k cash demands to play 80s Irish festival
CONTROVERSIAL rock 'n' roll legend Chuck Berry demanded a groupie at one of Ireland's earliest ever folk festivals — and got one — despite being told: 'We've no call girls in Sligo.' The Johnny B. Goode star was a veteran of 50 when the Boys of Ballisodare organisers broke the bank to lure him in 1981. 5 Chuck Berry demanded a groupie at one of Ireland's earliest ever folk festivals Credit: Sunshine International/REX/Shutterstock 5 Van Morrison headlined Lisdoonvarna in 1983 Credit: Getty Images 5 Rory Gallagher also played the festival Credit: Fin Costello/Redferns The desperation to shell out on a superstar who didn't really fit the bill was typical of the early As attendances grew and competition between organisers heated up, festivals began looking outside of Ireland for their headline acts. This development convinced Philip Flynn to shell out $17,000 on the ageing Philip said: 'Just the idea of Chuck Berry, with Johnny B. Goode and, you know, like . . . Jesus! We decided to go for it.' READ MORE IN MUSIC Listen to Fields Of Dreams on Getting the fading star to a field in Berry — derided a 'cheapskate' and 'not a very nice man' by organisers — demanded two first-class airline tickets, for him and his daughter, and cashed in her ticket when she didn't make the trip. Flynn dispatched his dad-in-law to a bank to withdraw $10,000 in cash to hand over to Chuck as he disembarked at And it didn't end there. Most read in The Irish Sun Berry wanted a groupie, and was willing to wait in the Mercedes which was provided for him. Flynn said: '(Berry's minder) came to me, and this was a Sunday evening, and said, 'Chuck would like some company'. What REALLY happened with Harry Styles' Glastonbury kiss - and which new celeb couples went public? 'I'm standing there saying, 'You know where we are . . . even if it was possible . . . we don't have call girls in Sligo'. 'We know, as the country is a small place, where the car went and it came back an hour later. 'I mean, that's a fact. And so somebody got what they needed. Who knows what happened?' The pioneering events in the Seventies helped transform Ireland's For five years festivals run by people with big dreams and tiny budgets dominated until a different kind of event took over the live entertainment calendar. 'I'm standing there saying, 'You know where we are . . . even if it was possible . . . we don't have call girls in Sligo'." Philip Flynn Rory Gallagher played to 20,000 fans in tiny Macroom, 'NOBODY HAD DONE ANYTHING LIKE THIS' Festival historian Roz Crowley said: 'Nobody had done anything like this in Ireland. I mean, there was no template or anything for it. 'A lot of people came from Cork, of course, and slept in doorways — they couldn't afford anything with the price of it. 'A lot of people had to walk because they didn't have a car and they couldn't afford the bus fare. 'And they walked for the best part of eight hours to get to the concert in pretty poor footwear. 'So the poor things arrived into Macroom a bit bedraggled. 'So much so that the locals who saw them arriving looking exhausted put on batches of scones and came out to their gates and fed them glasses of milk and a scone to take them into the town.' 'EARLY INNOCENCE QUICKLY LOST' The festival was a huge success, but like others which were being put on all over Ireland, the early innocence was quickly lost and it came to an end a few years later. Roz explained: 'A different element crept in. I would say that maybe they weren't all music lovers, you know. 'And then, as time went on, managers recognised that, my gosh, this is a kind of a cash cow. ''We could be charging more here for our artists', and it became a different 'And it probably killed it in the end.' Boys of Ballisodare founders Philip and Kevin Flynn saw their folk acts — including Christy Moore — tempted elsewhere. FEES BEGAN TO SPIRAL Major festivals sprang up in Lisdoonvarna in The fees — which had started out at a few hundred pounds at the Sligo event — began to spiral as rival promoters lured in the big name acts. Philip said: 'Lisdoonvarna, when they came on the scene, they were paying IR£600 for the same acts that we were paying IR£200 for. 'They had no idea. They just needed to get in. Whereas I had come to it from a relationship with the acts, at least. 'The parents of one of, I think, Jim Shannon, put up their farm as collateral for bank loans. And they lost money the first year. 'In fairness to them, I have great admiration for the fact that they stuck with it. They came back. "So they did actually make profit after that and did well for a few years.' TRAGIC ENDINGS Early Irish festivals were tinged with tragedy — the first at a punk event in The Radiators From Space were topping the bill in Belfield, where a young man was stabbed to death. Radiators star Pete Holidai said: 'We weren't involved in the actual stabbing incidents — what happened was a scuffle broke out early on in the night. "There were a couple of band members who were in, trying to break the scuffle up and get people to calm down. 'But unbeknown to us some fellow stepped in and stabbed someone and then f**ked off. 'No one realised what had happened and it wasn't until we were on stage later in the evening where we suddenly became aware. 'What happened was that the ambulances were called and it appeared then this guy had died.' A young man was later convicted of killing 18-year-old Patrick Coultry, from Cabra in Dublin. The biggest of Ireland's earliest festivals was Lisdoonvarna, which came to a tragic end in 1983. HELLS ANGELS DRAFTED IN The event was moved to the end of July to capitalise on the August bank holiday, with Rory Gallagher and Van Morrison topping the bill. A staggering 40,000 people attended, but a huge number turned up without tickets and tried to breach the fence. As a result, Hells Angels bikers were drafted in to lend a hand with security. Separately, eight people drowned while swimming on the hot Sunday afternoon of July 31. The dead, all men aged between 19 and 30, included three brothers from 'PART OF US DIED THAT DAY' Stockton's Wing guitarist Mike Hanrahan remembers: 'I was there and it was dark. 'There was a bad vibe at the festival all weekend because of the security. 'We saw the big fencing being knocked over. It was a bad energy at the festival. 'And to cap it all off the young people who lost their lives on the Sunday, to drown in a part of Doolin that we all know. 'It was like part of us died that day as well. 'I remember somebody saying that was the day the music died. I guess that was the beginning of the end of those festivals as well.' The first two episodes of Fields Of Dreams are available on s 5 Huge acts like Christy Moore became wanted by other promoters Credit:5 Hell's Angels Bikers did security at one event Credit: Getty Images
Chicago Tribune
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Column: Author's new creative outlet is writing songs, made into music via AI
Roll over Stephen Sondheim, tell Chuck Berry the news: Champ Clark has gone into the music business. There is little that surprises me about this creative man, who has had a career that has included writing for People magazine for decades; acting on local stages; writing a one-man play about Marlon Brando's ill-fated son Christian that was performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe; writing in 2005 'Shuffling to Ignominy,' the first biography of Black film actor Lincoln Perry, known by the stage name as Stepin Fetchit; delivering singing telegrams and on and on. Most recently, he has been writing novels, creating four fine books with a protagonist named Drake Haynes, a slightly jaded former news reporter now writing an advice column and solving crimes. Clark reminded me that he has some musical background, that he was again taking accordion lessons and that he has seven of the instruments. He also has banjos and says, 'If I add bagpipes, I'd have a trifecta of the most hated musical instruments.' He admits to being 'a terrible musician, a terrible singer. But I am a decent songwriter.' He started writing songs, he says, 'About a dozen years ago when I fell into an unrequited love, which is a great impetus for songwriting. I've since written about 100 songs, though none won over the object of my affection.' His musical career recently came back to life and the reason is artificial intelligence. 'That was almost by accident,' he says. 'I had 15 friends, most from Chicago, help me out on my new album, performing the first 15 tracks recorded live, and then I ran out of friends and went to AI and started using that. 'It is a little scary, I will admit that, but I have decided to embrace it. I give my lyrics and just select the kind of feeling I want, what kind of style, what instruments,' he says. 'Do I want country? Broadway? Rock? And then in an hour or so, I will be delivered basically what I heard in my head.' We talked about the questions surrounding artificial intelligence, and about creating music in a way that takes musicians out of the creative process (except in the way live musicians' work gets sampled and copied by AI websites). He tells me that there are a number of source sites he has used. 'Some have free trials and even when they do charge, it's only a few dollars and you can keep going, revising until you get the sound you want,' he says. 'Is it cheating? Are the results too slick and not human enough? Is it ethical? Who knows? These are the things currently being debated about all uses of AI. What I do know is that AI is not going anywhere. It's here to stay. So we might as well get used to it and learn how to properly and ethically use it. 'I believe I'm doing this with my songs. All the words and music are mine. They don't get changed. It's the performance of these that is AI, but carefully and thoroughly and creatively controlled by myself.' 'I've learned since completing the album that some folks object to the whole idea of the use of AI in music … and elsewhere. I get this. But for me, it's been a godsend. Now I can put down my words and basic melody on paper and, through careful thought and discernment, produce something that reflects what I have in my head … even at three in the morning.' On his latest album, 'Chicory,' there are 35 songs and I was especially taken with 'Last Night (Back in Chicago)' because it arises from his affection for the city in which he spent many of his formative years. He has lived in Santa Monica, California, for three decades, but was 16 when he moved to our area from the suburbs of New York City in the summer of 1969 with his parents and three sisters. The family settled in Kenilworth, that fashionable suburb befitting his father's position as the new chief of Time magazine's Chicago bureau. His father was also named Champ. It's a family name, passed down with variations from his great-grandfather, James Beauchamp Clark, who was speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1911 to 1919, and his grandfather, Bennett Champ Clark, who was a U.S. senator from Missouri. After a couple of relatively uneventful years at New Trier High School, he spent a semester at Ripon College in Wisconsin before coming home and working as a dishwasher, Christmas tree salesman and bookstore clerk. He studied dance. He taught an after-school program and developed a filmmaking program for kids. He was an artist-in-residence at the Art Institute and also made a living as a house cleaner, artist model, waiter and bartender. He worked for a summer with Cirque du Soleil around the same time he started working in the offices of the People magazine bureau here. He then began to act on the stages of various local companies and was for seven years an ensemble member of Center Theater. He got some good reviews and some not-so-good reviews. He fell in love with a woman. They got married and, after a couple of years, decided to move to California so he could try to make it as an actor. He became a father instead and worked as a reporter and writer for People magazine's Los Angeles bureau. He and his wife divorced and, since being laid off by People a decade ago, he has been freelancing, exploring whatever creative urge strikes. His daughter just got married. His music, he knows, is unlikely to make him rich. 'The songs are meant, of course, to entertain listeners,' he says. 'But maybe they might attract recording artists, and maybe one of them will want to record a song of mine. Making tapes and sending them to artists I admire would be a much harder road.'
The Guardian
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Hey aliens, here's our new album! How do you follow up a 50-year-old record that's hurtling through space?
It's almost 50 years since one of the strangest records ever made was launched – not into the pop charts but into the farthest reaches of outer space. Known as the Golden Record, this 12-inch, gold-plated copper disc was an album compiled by astronomer Carl Sagan featuring everything from classical music and spoken-word greetings to the sounds of nature and a blast of Chuck Berry's Jonny B Goode. Humans could enjoy it, of course, but they weren't the target audience. Rather, a copy was placed on Voyager 1 and 2, the two space probes launched in 1977, in the hope that they would one day be discovered and listened to by an alien life form. The Golden Record came with various diagrammatic instructions on how to play it correctly. But as to what aliens might make of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto, the sounds of humpback whales and a greeting in the Chinese dialects Wu, we will never know. Both Voyager probes are still intact, currently hurtling through the Kuiper belt in interstellar space, but we are likely to lose contact with them in around a decade's time. This means we will miss the Golden Record's first realistic chance of being discovered – when it's expected to pass within 1.6 light years of the star Gliese 445 in 40,000 years' time. And yet the record continues to inspire. It's certainly the key influence behind Earth Rising: Messages from the Pale Blue Dot, the first in a series of three audio works by arts organisation Artangel that are being released on digital platforms in the run-up to the Golden Record's 50th anniversary. 'I visit artist studios and hear what they're grappling with,' says Artangel director Mariam Zulfiqar. 'They worry about what digital technology has done to human connection, this looming fear of climate, the state of geopolitics. Yet, within that fear, is also an enormous hope for what they believe humanity could be – and a desire to keep making new work that shows us a different perspective on ourselves.' Zulfiqar has been fascinated with the Golden Record ever since she was a child growing up in Pakistan. 'To send this out there without knowing what would happen is quite romantic, especially in today's outcome-driven world,' she says. So she came up with an idea: what if we made a modern version of the Golden Record that was less concerned with introducing ourselves to aliens and more about introducing humanity to itself? She got to work inviting artists from around the world to contribute. The result is a collection of poems and experimental compositions that grapple with our present moment. Sebastián Riffo Valdebenito creates a track from the sounds of rock carving at the petroglyph site of Valle del Encanto in Coquimbo, Chile, while Michel Nieva contributes The Alien Mother, a short story set in a future where humanity has colonised Mars. Elsewhere, there are poems about US turmoil, ethereal songs created using just the human voice, and what is described as a 'sonic invocation' that honours the calabash, a hard-shelled type of fruit used to make instruments. It's almost as diverse and confounding as the Golden Record itself which, along with its various audio recordings, featured 115 images encoded in analogue form (a circle, a track athlete, etc) and a condensed recording of Sagan's wife's brainwaves, captured while she thought deeply about the Earth's history and various human experiences such as falling in love (I'd like to see you work that one out, aliens!). 'What surprised me is the connections,' says Zulfiqar. 'There's a beautiful line in Nigerian poet Ofem Ubi's piece Family Tree that says, 'In my attempts at tethering, I have loved many people, countries, ghosts.' That sense of lost love is echoed in some of the other works. Similarly, Emilia Álvarez and Max Cooper both made music using sounds from the human body.' The latter's track, Rhythm of Harmony (A Representation of Music), is the contribution most likely to have worked on the original LP. Inspired by some of the more withering responses to the Golden Record by philosophers of the time, who mocked the idea that other life forms would have a clue how to read the instructions, never mind appreciate, say, the traditional Aboriginal song Devil Bird, Cooper set about making a record that would have the best chance of making sense to an alien. His piece is based on a series of rhythmic clicks that gradually speed up until they make the sound of a tone, at least to human ears. 'I've assumed the alien that discovers this is spacefaring, so they're probably more advanced than us and their transition from individual sounds to tones maybe happens at a much higher frequency than ours,' he says. 'So they won't hear these nice tones like we do – what they'll hear is the relationship in terms of the rhythms of the clicks. I wanted to break music down to the simplest source of sound that an alien might be able to understand.' Cooper has a science background – he holds a PhD in computational biology and previously worked as a geneticist – which he puts to good use when I ask questions such as: what if aliens haven't evolved hearing in the same way we have? 'There's a thing called convergent evolution,' he says. 'On Earth, the eye has evolved multiple times independently. It's the same with other senses like hearing. That gives us reason to believe that aliens would have similar senses. It's not watertight but you can definitely make that argument.' Cooper's track is embellished with huge 1980s synth chords that give it a brilliantly retro sci-fi feel, a concession to the fact that it's currently only going to be heard by humans. 'Originally, the plan was for it to be made only with sounds made by the body, but the chords that came from just the body were pretty nasty,' he says. 'I love conceptual music but I wanted to make something that was nice to listen to as well.' Trying to empathise with the sensory evolution of an alien race is an act of optimism that chimes with the original spirit of the Golden Record. But other contributions to Earth Rising strike a bleaker note: dehumanisation, fascism and grief are all picked over by the various artists. Porsha Olayiwola's scathing In Alignment With the Women Before Me documents the horrors that have taken place on American soil in recent years, namechecking Amber Thurman, the 28-year-old medical assistant who died of septic shock in Georgia after a medical abortion. It also references Aaron Bushnell, the 25-year-old serviceman who set himself alight outside the Israeli embassy in Washington DC. 'I struggle with my role as a poet/writer/artist/witness,' says Olayiwola. 'Part of me always wants to do more than write – I want to organise and protest and mobilise. I ask, 'What can I do with my pencil? What can I do with my voice?' I thought, if anything, we must begin to speak about these things. Acknowledge and witness and document these atrocities. And perhaps we will begin to intervene.' I wonder if the despair of today is a little jarring considering the hope and optimism of the original project, but Zulfiqar disagrees. 'Even when somebody is saying something quite bleak,' she says, 'it reflects that they believe things could be better.' Olayiwola agrees: 'We only leave the bleakness behind if we elect to look it directly in the eye, and shape our future accordingly. My poem serves as a reflection of the abyss. May it be as dark as the night sky in which we may see a glimmer of a star.' Earth Rising: Messages from the Pale Blue Dot is out now
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
25 Essential Brian Wilson Songs
Listening to Brian Wilson's music was like growing up with him. Beginning with songs about teenage kicks like surfing, driving, and chasing girls, he matured into thoughtful and introspective meditations on young adulthood and the eternal quests for 'Good Vibrations' and 'Love and Mercy.' As a songwriter, arranger, and producer he blended the sensibilities of Fifties vocal pop, Wall of Sound girl groups, and a love of Chuck Berry's lyrical joie de vivre into the Beach Boys' unique sound, thanks in no small part to his ear for complex harmonies and unforgettable melodies. The Beach Boys were America's first great rock group, and their influence — and Brian Wilson's songwriting — has been reverberating ever since. Here are 25 of his greatest songs. More from Rolling Stone Carnie Wilson Mourns Dad Brian Wilson: 'I've Never Felt This Kind of Pain Before' Al Jardine Pays Tribute to Beach Boys Bandmate Brian Wilson: 'My Brother in Spirit' Elton John Calls Late Brian Wilson 'The Biggest Influence on My Songwriting'The Beach Boys' second single, and first for Capitol Records, was directly inspired by Chuck Berry's mix of simple chords and lyrics with a list of place names. 'Surfin' Safari' is one of the group's many tributes to California, with an open invitation to their fans to join them on the shores of Huntington, Malibu, and Laguna. Upon its release, 'Surfin' Safari' would prove to be a big surprise to the label: places like Phoenix, Detroit, and New York City (where there was notably no surfing) would be integral to the song's radio success. Giving the song its extra edge were the counterpoint harmonies that became the Beach Boys' signature, thanks to Wilson's brilliant vocal arrangements. It was the band's first song to feature them. —Brittany Spanos When one thinks of the California Sound, the Beach Boys' 1963 hit is the archetype. Building upon the previous success of their surf soundtracks, 'Surfin' U.S.A.' perfects the model. Wilson rewrote Chuck Berry's 'Sweet Little Sixteen' with lyrics about all the places one could surf while further emphasizing that California is the dream place to do so. The song peaked at Number Three on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, though Billboard would name it the Number One song of the year. An album of the same name would follow a few months later, one Wilson would describe as an example of his rapid mastering of the production skills that showcased the boys' voices. — Beach Boys were just beginning their run of hits that offered a utopian vision of life in Southern California, and Brian Wilson was already looking to write songs that communicated something more intimate and complicated underneath the sun and fun. 'In My Room' is his ode to the comfort and solace he can only find when he's alone in his private world. He was inspired by memories of times he'd spent as a child singing with his brothers in the bedroom they shared, which made Dennis and Carl's performance on the track especially poignant. 'You're not afraid when you're in your room. It's absolutely true,' he later said. The beautiful melancholic song suggested new emotional possibilities for rock that also could be heard in the Beatles' 'There's a Place,' and it echoes forward through the years — in a sense, it might be considered the first emo song. —Jon DolanThe Beach Boys' omnipresent Christmas carol 'Little Saint Nick' is really just another Beach Boys song, 'Little Deuce Coupe,' with mistletoe. Brian Wilson conceded as much in his memoir, I Am Brian Wilson. But despite his dismissiveness, the song, which he co-wrote with Mike Love, has had as much staying power as anything else he wrote since its catchy 'Merry Christmas, Saint Nick' refrain and reminder that 'Christmas comes each time this year' have made playing it a yuletide tradition. It's at once a great hot-rod song, a great rock song, and a great Christmas song, which explains why it reached its Billboard chart peak (Number 25) last year, and will likely return to the charts when Christmas comes again. —Kory GrowThe impact that the Ronettes' 'Be My Baby' had on Brian Wilson can hardly be overstated. He told one interviewer that he'd listened to it 'more than 1,000 times' — probably a low estimate — and frequently recounted the story of how he'd pulled over his car when he first heard it on the radio in 1963, floored by Phil Spector's force-of-nature studio sound. 'I felt like I wanted to try to do something as good as that song, and I never did,' Wilson lamented. Make up your own mind when you listen to this 1964 Beach Boys classic, which he wrote with lyricist Roger Christian in the hopes that Spector would record it with the Ronettes (Spector wasn't interested). Wilson's vision of a drag racer who might be heading out to meet his doom, and the consoling words he holds onto, has a mournful power that goes much deeper than the cars-and-girls canon it's still technically part of. —Simon Vozick-LevinsonOn one hand, the Beach Boys' first chart-topping single feels pretty basic: If you don't pay much attention at first, it feels like the first surf-world bragging song ('Yeah, the bad guys know us and they leave us alone'), and that ridiculously propulsive chorus, driven by Wilson's falsetto, conjures the sound of a car shifting gears as it tears out of town. But this being a Brian Wilson track, 'I Get Around' is also multilayered. Was it his response to the British Invasion bands that were starting to home in on the Beach Boys' turf in 1964? ('Some people were saying we were even better, that our songs were more interesting or sophisticated or created more positive energy,' Wilson wrote about the song in I Am Brian Wilson.) Was it, as Love has said, their commentary on their newfound fame and fortune and how itchy it made them? Did Murry Wilson prod Brian into a fight during the recording by messing with the arrangement? Not so simple after all, but Brian wouldn't have had it any other way. —David BrowneA slow shuffling declaration of love, 'The Warmth of the Sun' benefits from Brian Wilson's elastic falsetto, his knack for vocal harmonies that support and elevate a melody, and the deep passion he sang with. 'My love's like the warmth of the sun, it won't ever die,' he sings at the end before oohing and ahhing his way into the fadeout like he's in ecstasy. You wouldn't know it from the song, but he and Mike Love wrote it the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated. 'I called Mike and he asked me if I wanted to write a song about it,' Wilson wrote in I Am Brian Wilson. 'I said sure.' He estimated it took all of half an hour to write, but it was special enough for him to rank it with 'Good Vibrations,' 'California Girls,' and 'Caroline, No' as his best songs. — just over two minutes, Wilson and co-writer Mike Love tell an ultra-catchy tale of teenage rebellion, parental retribution, and eventual salvation. Powered by Chuck Berry riffs, ace backing vocals, and forward momentum that makes everything feel like a speeding T-bird, the 1964 hit feels like another classic snapshot of California adolescence — even if the real-life T-Bird-borrowing teen who inspired it was from Utah. –Christian HoardTalk about a song that could have ended up in the scrap heap. Brian Wilson himself wanted to sing this song when it was first cut on The Beach Boys Today!, then decided Al Jardine was the best choice. ('I produced the Beach Boys so I decided who would sing lead,' Wilson later said.) In the studio, Jardine struggled with his new task. If that wasn't iffy enough, the first version felt cutesy and rinky-dink. But the guitar-heavier remake on the following year's Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!) doesn't just nail the arrangement at last — it also transforms what was once a novelty into one of the most jubilant songs in the band's canon. Wilson's instincts were right. Who can't sing along with that chorus, particularly the bow-bow-wow part? Even if the mythical Rhonda (or 'Ronda,' as it was first spelled) doesn't come to the rescue of the jilted narrator, the music does. — 1965, as the story goes, Brian Wilson took LSD for the first time, sat down at a piano, and wrote 'California Girls.' In subsequent years he'd clarify that he actually wrote it a little later, in the afterglow of that first trip, but the myth suits the grandeur of the song — an early hint of the orchestral majesty and spiritual yearning to come, draped almost comically over Mike Love's lyrics about cuties in bikinis. 'California Girls' was one of Wilson's favorite Beach Boys songs, and with good reason; it's something like the ultimate expression of the group's first golden era, and the beginning of everything else. Fifty years later, he told Rolling Stone he was still stuck on those chords. 'I can't write a song to save my life,' he said. 'I sit at the piano and try, but all I want to do is rewrite 'California Girls.' How am I gonna do something better than that?' — Wilson came up with 'Girl Don't Tell Me' on his honeymoon, committing the idea to memory so he could write it down and finish it when he got back home. Taking huge inspiration from the Beatles, especially 'Ticket to Ride,' which the song mirrors lyrically and musically, he wrote a lovely ode to the dejected feeling that comes when a summer crush fails to turn into something more. He handed the vocal to Carl Wilson, who sang it minus any backing vocals, upping the song's sense of stark teenage romantic betrayal. — people experienced more bad vibrations than Brian Wilson, but even by 1966, he was still able to create the sound of sunshine. 'Good Vibrations' is a monumentally complex, cut-and-paste masterpiece, a series of mini compositions recorded in pieces, with a nonlinearity that feels decades ahead of its time. Wilson brought his sublime creations, and his bandmate Mike Love brought the ridiculous — rhyming vibrations with the nonword 'excitations.' Somehow, the song needed both. —Brian HiattThe cresting harmonies and exquisite arrangement of 'Wouldn't It Be Nice' help transform a narrative of teenage longing — potentially saccharine in other hands — into an existential, universal quest for a 'world where we belong.' Wilson dictated every bit of the recording, going as far as to sing the opening fill to master session drummer Hal Blaine: 'It's like this … Boom, ba-doom … first beat of the last bar of the intro.' The result was one of the most perfect songs ever made. —B.H.'God Only Knows' is widely considered to be one of the greatest songs of all time, so beloved that even Paul McCartney hailed it as his favorite. Despite its dazzling musical complexity, it came together fairly quickly. 'I could say that I really worked forever on it, that I spent a year imagining how the melody would work and another year on the lyrics,' Brian Wilson said. 'But the facts are that Tony [Asher] and I sat down at a piano and wrote it in 45 minutes.' The Pet Sounds masterpiece contains sleigh bells, French horns, and Carl Wilson's finest vocal performance. It was a daring and unconventional love song at the time, from its starting line ('I may not always love you') to its use of the word 'God.' It concludes with vocal rounds, giving the song a heavenly quality. 'That's the feeling,' Wilson said, 'That it could go on forever.' —Angie MartoccioAl Jardine was tuned into the folk revival when he suggested to Brian Wilson that the Beach Boys should cover this traditional West Indies shanty about an awful boat ride. Wilson wasn't impressed: 'He said, 'I'm not a big fan of the Kingston Trio,'' Jardine later recalled. 'He wasn't into folk music. But I didn't give up on the idea.' After some structural tweaks by Jardine, Wilson warmed to the song, giving it a sprightly arrangement full of flutes that showcased his brilliance as a studio maestro. He ended up giving 'Sloop John B.' prime placement as the last song on Side A of Pet Sounds — the only non-original on the track list, and an effective counterpoint to the profoundly personal expressions all around it. —S.V.L.'God Only Knows' might be the best song on Pet Sounds, but Brian Wilson's favorite was always the final track, 'Caroline, No.' 'I did it all by myself,' he said. 'I wrote the music. I sang the vocal. I even wrote the title, in a way.' It's a devastating closer: 'Where did your long hair go? Where is the girl I used to know?' he sings with his voice sped up, making him sound younger than he was. The whimsical flourishes — featuring two barking dogs, a water jug, and a passing locomotive train — only make it sweeter, like some LSD-fueled fever dream. 'Her hair gets shorter,' Wilson said. 'But most of the change is in how the guy sees her. She doesn't seem as happy to him, and when she doesn't seem as happy, then she doesn't make him as happy. It was a cycle that kept going.' — man Tony Asher gave voice to Brian Wilson's feelings of alienation in the lyrics to this Pet Sounds highlight, and Wilson matched them with one of his most sensitive arrangements. 'Sometimes I feel very sad,' he sings with exceptional candor as the Beach Boys' haunting contrapuntal harmonies rise up around him, along with shuddering harpsichords, clarinets, and timpanis. (The song also features the first-ever use of a theremin in a pop song. 'I wanted it to sound eerie, and that ended up with a situation where I introduced a new instrument to rock & roll,' Wilson would later write.) 'I Just Wasn't Made for These Times' sums up so much about Wilson — all the pain, all the beauty that came from the knowledge that he wasn't like everyone else. — his odes to Johnny Carson and vegetables to 'She's Goin' Bald,' Brian Wilson wasn't afraid to let his obsessions and oddball infatuations run wild. But when it came to blending what-the-hell? imagery with an arrangement that felt like a trip into a musical funhouse, this Smile (and later Smiley Smile) sonic contraption can't be beat. His first collaboration with Van Dyke Parks, 'Heroes and Villains' hustles and bustles out of the gate with lyrics that suggest an Old West homage. But its shifts — into a wordless vocal chorale that sounds like the hippest barbershop quintet and elliptical lyrics that don't adhere to that initial storyline — are both baffling and uplifting. At his peak, no one packed more into a few minutes of pop than Wilson did. — collapse of the Smile sessions in the spring of 1967 was a major setback for Brian Wilson, but that narrative sometimes obscures the fact that he was back to creating some incredible pop songs by later that same year — like this sparkling garage-R&B gem from Wild Honey, released that December. Reusing the verse melody he'd written a few years earlier for a forgotten 45 by teen singer Sharon Marie, called 'Thinkin' 'Bout You Baby,' and tacking on an ecstatic new chorus with help from Mike Love, Wilson called in a barn burner of a lead vocal from his brother Carl and came up with a mini masterpiece. Many years later, a trio of young French musicians called themselves Darlin' in its honor before slimming down to a duo and picking a new name: Daft Punk. — Love and Brian Wilson were one of the all-time great songwriting partnerships in the first half of the Sixties, and though Wilson's genius eventually sent him searching for other collaborators in the decade's second half, the two very different cousins reunited in 1968 for one perfect throwback. ''Do It Again' was written at Mike's house in Beverly Hills,' Wilson would recall later. 'He and I wrote that song together in about 45 minutes. It came very fast. He came up with that lyric so fast I couldn't believe it.' Though the good old days they were writing about were only about three years in the rearview at the time, Wilson and Love conjured just the right sense of dawning nostalgia to set up decades of feel-good vibes for fans. —S.V.L.A gem from the abandoned Smile album, 'Surf's Up' is one of the earliest songs Brian Wilson wrote with Van Dyke Parks, when he famously put a sandbox around his living room piano for inspiration. Officially released five years later as the title track to their 1971 album Surf's Up, it's one of the Beach Boys' most stunning songs, featuring references to short stories by Edgar Allan Poe and Guy de Maupassant, a Moog synthesizer, and backing vocals from the Wilson family (even Brian's wife at the time, Marilyn, sang on it). 'Once someone told me that someone they had met said that 'Surf's Up' was important and really great,' Wilson wrote in his memoir, I Am Brian Wilson. ''Oh,' I said. 'Who?' My head was turned when they said the name so I didn't really hear. 'Say it again,' I said and turned my head the right way. The person who thought it was great was Leonard Bernstein. Can you even imagine?' — Wilson returned to the Beach Boys touring lineup in 1976 for a successful run of 'Brian's Back!' shows, and the next year he oversaw the creation of a new record, The Beach Boys Love You, for the first time since Pet Sounds. The original title was 'Brian Wilson Loves You,' since it's a solo album in everything but name. Wilson wrote nearly every song himself, and played practically all the instruments, including a state-of-the art synthesizer. The highlight is the gentle ballad 'The Night Was So Young,' which is supposedly about Wilson's relationship with his mistress, Debbie Keil. 'The moon shining bright on my window sill,' he wrote. 'I think of her lips, it chills me inside.' Much like 'God Only Knows' a dozen years earlier, Wilson gave it to his kid brother Carl to sing. And once again, Carl made the words sparkle with tenderness and longing. —Andy GreeneThe late Seventies were not an easy time for Brian Wilson. He was drinking heavily, doing cocaine, going through a divorce, and was briefly institutionalized at a mental hospital. In his memoir, I Am Brian Wilson, he describes 1978 as 'one of the worst years of my life.' But despite his despair and deteriorating health, he still made music, like this highlight from 1980's Keepin' the Summer Alive. It's a euphoric, unabashed outpouring of love that borders on doo-wop, with layers and layers of harmonies that the Beach Boys shed off like a sweater on the beach. Even Wilson, who said those years were painful for him to think about, admitted he liked the song. 'Most fans of the band don't like those records,' he said. 'Some fans don't even know about them. There are only a few songs on those records that I like when I think about them, like 'Good Timin'' and 'Goin' On,' but mostly they aren't worth thinking about too hard.' — Brian Wilson's third solo album got a lukewarm reception, its lead single, 'Your Imagination,' ended up becoming a radio hit. On the track, Wilson is in a nostalgic mood, referencing the types of early songs he made with the Beach Boys. 'Another car running fast/Another song on the beach/I take a trip through the past,' he sings on the song's first verse, adding a touch of sadness to the summery references, nearly 40 years after Wilson's lyrics and arrangements helped define what a summer song should sound like. — Brian Wilson sings that he was 'sittin' in a crummy movie' in the opening lines of 'Love and Mercy,' the song really came to him where they usually do, at his piano bench, in about 45 minutes. 'I was sitting there with a bottle of champagne, kind of buzzed, thinking of a song by [Burt] Bacharach and [Hal] David, 'What the World Needs Now Is Love,'' he wrote of the song in his memoir, I Am Brian Wilson. 'I wanted to write a song about what the world needed. It needed love and mercy.' The track is a moving, gentle ballad — as good as Wilson's Sixties ruminations — and its message resounds today. —K.G. Best of Rolling Stone Sly and the Family Stone: 20 Essential Songs The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked
