Mike Love of The Beach Boys picks five songs to make you happy
Mike Love by name, make love by nature. The Beach Boys lothario is a bastion of good tidings, encouraging the masses to roll around in the waves, frolic, and have fun. He is more happy-centric than the entire catalogue of Ikea wall posters. “Keep a cool head and a warm heart,” is this fellow’s motto for life. “If we all take the time to listen and love each other, this world would be a better place,” he proclaims.
Who can argue with that? Not many of us, especially when we’re listening to the lilting tones of the ever-upbeat Beach Boys. As a band, they literally extolled sunshine. As a man, he looks to spiritually collate it under his capped head. Good vibrations, for him, are a way of life—he bloody loves them, in fact.
Thus, it seems more than fitting that he teamed up with Red Bull, to tell them about the tracks that make him happiest of all. With a Beach Boys bent to proceedings the self-proclaimed “ladies man” of the seaside picked out tracks that he would later help turn into hits like ‘Sloop John B’ and ‘Barbara Ann’, alongside the early rock ‘n’ roll that first inspired him.
Below are the tracks that make Mike Love happiest. Listen to good music, it helps to “hasten the peace process” which Love is quite simply cock-a-hoop about. Enjoy…
Five songs that make Mike Love happy:
‘Sloop John B’ – The Kingston Trio
The Beach Boys themselves would go on to lift this melodic folk tune and make a seafaring anthem out of it, but not before The Kingston Trio brought its timeless chant to their attention. “We were inspired by all the doo-wop groups with their harmonies, the bass guitar, the lead and all the harmonies,” says Love.
Continuing: “Those were fun songs – like Sloop John B, which my cousin Brian Wilson did an incredible arrangement and production for, and our version ended up on the Pet Sounds album. This is the original—a beautiful song with close four-part harmonies.”
‘Devoted to You’ – The Everly Brothers
Love’s Beach Boys cohort, Brian Wilson, said, “The Everly Brothers were a big influence on us, and we learned a lot from their beautiful harmonies.” This was an early lesson that Love also took to heart. “The Everly Brothers were a great inspiration to Brian and I growing up,” he added.
Explaining how they became a personal touchstone for the pair. “we would walk home from Wednesday night youth night at Presbyterian church singing their songs, harmonising, taking their two-part harmony, making it into three with my sister, Maureen,” he recalled. “The Everly Brothers did many beautiful songs, but this one is particularly close to my heart.”
‘Sweet Little Sixteen’ – Chuck Berry
“We learnt so many things from him which led us into a dream world of rock & roll music,” Paul McCartney once said. “Chuck was and is forevermore one of rock ‘n’ roll’s greatest legends all over the world.” Berry inspired a generation with his fun thrills, and The Beach Boys were just another of many.
“We could not be respectful if we didn’t point out how much ‘Sweet Little Sixteen’ inspired Surfin’ USA,” Love admitted. “We were on the same flight one time and Chuck said: ‘I like what you did with Sixteen.’ That’s having the blessing from a master. However, my uncle Murray assigned the writing credit to Chuck and Brian, and left me out – even though I came up with the lyrics.”
‘In the Still of the Night’ – The 5 Saints
“The doo-wop music of the fifties was a huge inspiration for us. This group, called The 5 Saints, did ‘In The Still of the Night’, which is just beautiful,” Love said. “We would actually sing that and many others. I would take on the bass part, Brian the high parts, and we had a lot of fun that way. ‘In The Still of the Night was one of the great songs of that era.”
The R&B vocal group formed in New Haven, Connecticut in 1954, and this 1956 single launched them towards fame after selling over a million copies. With luscious tones, it creates a swarm of atmosphere that The Beach Boys later tried to load into their own music as they captured the spirit of summertime.
‘Barbara Ann’ – The Regents
“Jesus that ear,” Bob Dylan once declared of Brian Wilson. “He made all his records with four tracks, but you couldn’t make his records if you had a hundred tracks today.” The layered vocals of ‘Barbara Ann’ are testimony to this glowing assertion. Wilson has an inherent sense of melody that is literally unrivalled in music. They took something old and transfigured it into something new and vibrant.
As Love declares: “Our hit Barbara Ann was a cover, as they call it. My cousin Brian did that arrangement as well, and we used it on our Beach Boys’ Party album. We didn’t even expect it to be a hit record for us, but it was. It was high on the charts, just before Pet Sounds came out.”
