zmanbarzell's Full Review: Little Deuce Coupe/All Summer Long [Remaster] by T...
Just one month after The Beach Boys released their "Surfer Girl" L.P. it's follow-up "Little Deuce Coupe" was issued.
This was hastened by Capitol Records' quickie cash-in L.P. "Shut Down" which was promoted as a new album by the group but actually featured only two cuts by the band. The group retaliated by quickly compiling a complete set of hotrod-themed songs and putting it on the market as quickly as possible.
The finished record features their four road-tested drag classics already released; the title cut, "409", "Shut Down" and "Our Car Club". It also contains 8 new recordings, all supposedly cut on the same day (!).
Ironically, foremost among these is the only song on the L.P. without a car-themed lyric, the classic "Be True To Your School", although in an early version and different arrangement than the hit 45. The major differences between the two versions of the song is the lower key of the arrangement and the lack of cheerleading by Brian's pet girl group The Honeys on this cut. Brian was very smart to recut this one but it remains a standout track on the album.
The remaining songs were mainly cowritten with Brian's car-lyric collaborator Roger Christian. The best of these is the gorgeous Brian-sung ballad "Spirit Of America". To hear Brian sing in his most heartfelt "Pet Sounds" voice lyrics about racing times and breaking the land-speed record may be a little odd, but the stunning beauty of the melody and track itself cannot be denied.
The other cuts on the album ("Ballad Of Ole Betsy", "Car Crazy Cutie", "Cherry Cherry Coupe", "No-Go Showboat" and the spiffy "Custom Machine" ) all contain predictable grease-monkey lyrics but also showcase incredible melody lines and almost bizarrely intricate arrangements that make up for the poetic deficit.
The album is filled out with a reworking of their acapella concert staple, Bobby Troup's "Their Hearts Were Full Of Spring". Here the lyrics are changed to memorialize James Dean and retitled "A Young Man Is Gone". It's lovely.
This album may be tough going for the non-fanatic because of it's lyrical content but any true fan will love it.
*****
When the Beach Boys' "twofer" series was released, their 3rd and 4th L.P.s were split onto different discs because of the duplication of 2 songs. The correct original release order was "Surfer Girl", "Deuce Coupe", "Shut Down Vol 2" and "All Summer Long". See my review of the "Surfer Girl"/"Shut Down Vol 2" twofer for details on those albums.
*****
The Beach Boys' second longplayer of 1964, "All Summer Long", represents a huge step forward for the group qualitatively in their album output. Here, the incredible songwriting and arranging blend with the sunny and silly lyrics into an atmosphere of acute bittersweetness, almost as if Brian was planning this to be his last carefree summer excursion.
Brian stuck compositionally on home turf, composing most of the songs with Mike Love, who wrote some of his best lyrics. Unfortunately Mike was not credited for most of these (as well as his contributions to their next 2 proper albums, "Today" and "Summer Days" ) which led to a nasty lawsuit 30 years later.
The record jumpstarts with 4 great cuts in a row, beginning with their 1st #1 single, "I Get Around". Truly innovative and totally electrifying, this song needs no further explanation here. The almost unbearably poignant title song was famously and brilliantly chosen by George Lucas for the end titles of his classic film "American Graffiti". This song stands as an elegy for a world and lifestyle now passed, that maybe never even existed. The Boys' cover of The Mystics' doo-wop classic "Hushabye" surpasses the original in beauty and feeling. One of Brian's biggest commercial blunders was in not issuing "Little Honda" as a full-blown single. This truly infectious rocker was covered note-for-note by Brian's old writing buddy Gary Usher under the nom de plume The Hondells and became a huge hit.
Coincidentally the next song on the album, "We'll Run Away", was cowritten with Usher. This is a lovely 50's-styled ballad with a particularly sweet vocal from Brian.
Three of the most overlooked jewels in The Beach Boys' canon are also on hand; "Wendy", which sports one of the oddest intros of pre-psychedelic Rock, the wild "Don't Back Down" which is ostensibly about the challenges of surfing but sounds more like a subconscious admonition by Brian to his own fragile ego, and especially "Girls On The Beach". This song features a stunning melody, kamikaze key changes and a vocal bridge that may be Dennis Wilson's finest vocal moment on record.
There is also the hilariously goofy "Drive-In" and the good-time tribute to Rock's forefathers, "Do You Remember?".
It wouldn't be an early Beach Boys album without it's fair share of filler, although the quantity of such here is much reduced, especially in comparison to their previous L.P. "Shut Down Vol 2". The chaff here includes the requisite guitar-instro "Carl's Big Chance" and the retarded studio-chatter collage "Our Favorite Recording Sessions".
Overall Brian was hitting his stride as a recordmaker and this is the first Beach boys album that can be counted as truly impressive. But the best was yet to come...
This C.D. also features 4 bonus tracks; the immortal 45 version of "Be True To Your School", a truly lascivious '64 outtake entitled "All Dressed Up For School" that was later reworked by the band twice ( the outtake "I Just Got My Pay" and finally the glittering "Marcella" on the "Carl And The Passions" L.P.) and alternate takes of "Little Honda" and "Don't Back Down" (which sounds like a completely different song entirely).
If you're a true Beach Boys fan, snap this C.D. up pronto for the "All Summer Long" L.P. alone, but if you're a casual fan you might want to stick with the "Good Vibrations" box set, which contains a fine selection from these albums ( except for the stupid non-inclusion of "Girls On The Beach"). A fine portrait of a troubled genius as a young man and The Beach Boys at their sunniest.
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