The Beach Boys – ‘Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!)’
The evolution of The Beach Boys did not happen overnight. The group that started out as a literal garage band of teenagers wasn’t all that far removed from its earliest incarnation in 1965. Al Jardine took back his rhythm guitar role from David Marks permanently, but the material that the band were singing about was still largely centred around surfing and cars. Brian Wilson, in particular, was looking to push the group into more sophisticated territory.
Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) is the nexus point of two versions of The Beach Boys splitting off for good. On one side are the lighthearted and naive sun and summer songs of youth. On the other is the sound of the future. As Wilson began assembling the group of sessions musicians that would later become known as The Wrecking Crew, a new layer of musical intrigue was revealed. Songs about amusement parks and beaches could sound like opera.
Still, there was plenty of shit to get through. Mike Love needs his simplistic rock songs with ‘The Girl From New York City’, an answer song to The Ad Libs’ 1964 hit ‘The Boy From New York City’. Wilson himself uncorks one of his worst songs in ‘I’m Bugged At My Ol’ Man’. The childlike wonder of The Beach Boys, the same kind that would make them catnip for the oldies circuit, is here in spades. But, so too are some traces of genius.
First off, the schlock: no amount of castanets is going to make the virtual copy of ‘Then She Kissed Me’ acceptable. ‘Amusement Parks U.S.A.’ has less substance in it than ‘Summer Means New Love’, a literal instrumental. Finally, there’s ‘I’m Bugged At My Ol’ Man’, an insane song that has to be self-parody. Wilson rattling off some petulant lyrics while trying on a bizarre Elvis vocal impression eventually came out so poorly that the singer wouldn’t credit himself as the singer. Instead, Wilson admitted to being too embarrassed by literally crediting “Too Embarassed” as the track’s singer.
The replacement-level tracks on Summer Days are generally elevated thanks to the cast of musicians bringing the arrangements to life. ‘Salt Lake City’, ‘Girl Don’t Tell Me’, ‘You’re So Good To Me’, and the finale lullaby ‘And You Dreams Come True’ are equal parts inane and charming in an early 1960s kind of way. They could have appeared on any of the previous Beach Boys albums without anybody noticing or caring very much.
And then there are brief glimpses of things to come. The ornate perfection of a song like ‘California Girls’ renders even the more basic lyrics profound. Love and Wilson each believed that they had the ideal vision for The Beach Boys, but the band’s most iconic material often came when the two were working in tandem. ‘California Girls’ is still a time machine back to California roughly two minutes before psychedelia took over. Wilson was ahead of the curve in that regard, even when he was dressing it up with The Beach Boys’ signature sound.
Jardine managed to convince the group to re-record ‘Help Me Rhonda’, the album track from their previous release, The Beach Boys Today. More streamlined and focused than the previous version, ‘Help Me Rhonda’ also twinkles with a louder tambourine and more committed backing vocals. If the “heavenly” qualities of The Beach Boys’ harmonies never came through as clearly or divinely as they did on ‘Help Me Rhonda’.
Finally, Wilson had a surprise up his sleeve with ‘Let Him Run Wild’. With melancholy floating through the dreamy arrangement, Wilson conjures up a surprisingly moving lament that doubles as a look into the hazier side of Wilson’s evolving musical instincts. You can practically smell the weed on the woozy track’s languid arrangement. That looser grip on voices and instruments would become integral to the band’s evolution into a band of cutting-edge boundary pushers.
Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) often leans too far into the lighter and sillier side of The Beach Boys. It was truly the end of an era: Wilson saw his path forward in songs like ‘California Girls’ and ‘Let Him Run Wild’. Bruce Johnstone was recruited to fill his role on the road as Wilson began to dedicate himself to the studio. The idealistic days of The Beach Boys were coming to an end, but Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) has just enough depth and quality to make it worth listening to.
