Category Archives: Beach Boys Songs

Beach Boys songs & covers: Acoustic cover songs – music videos by the songwriters of the Laptop Sessions video blog. Daily music blog with new indie rock acoustic songs.

“Disney Girls (1957)” (Beach Boys Cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Welcome to the Laptop Sessions on your Friday night!  It’s another late night for us here, as we’ve just completed a grand game of Trivial Pursuit Genus III, which I won, of course.  But, just barely.  I’d love to have them play with my father, “The Old Quizzmaster”, as he’d probably beat us in one turn.

Tonight’s song is from The Beach Boys, whom I haven’t done a song from in quite some time.  Actually, tonight, I’ll be doing a song written by Bruce Johnston.  It’s clearly the best song he’s ever written: “Disney Girls (1957)”.  Yes, he did write “I Write The Songs” (one of the most famous songs of all time, sung by Barry Manilow), but I think this really is his best song.

I’ve always identified with this tune from the great “Surf’s Up” album.  I’ve always wished for “better” or more pure times.  I’ve always loved older music and even the vision of Christmastime in the 50s.  Of course, now those values instantly are associated with political leanings, as Bruce has been vocal in the recent past about his political views.  I never really made the connection between “the good old days” and the politics of those days.  Personally, I believe that things were “simpler” back then only because that’s the way our memories work.  Things probably weren’t as rosy as they seemed.  But when you’re a kid, you don’t have to worry about money, taxes, property, family, etc.  You just get to have a good time and experience life.

Anyway, I think I gave the video my best Bruce tenor, and I think it’ll stand as one of my more ambitious videos.  I hope you enjoy my video tonight and I promise I’ll make up for this extremely short post next time!  Stay tuned for more Beach Boys cover songs coming at you right here on the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs music video blog!

“That’s Not Me” (The Beach Boys Cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

“That’s Not Me” is track three of the pivotal album, “Pet Sounds” from 1966. My family got into the Beach Boys back in 1990 or 1991 because of this album. Of course, we listened to the greatest hits, but we were more interested in this well-crafted, deeper music that “Pet Sounds” brought to the table. Seventeen years later, “Pet Sounds” doesn’t stand as my favorite Beach Boys album- that title goes to a couple of others, including “Holland”, “Sunflower”, and “The Beach Boys (1985)”. But, I still love every single track off of “Pet Sounds”. One of the reasons I like those other albums better is because of the contributions from the other band members. On “Pet Sounds”, it’s really a Brian Wilson solo album, featuring Mike Love, Al Jardine, Bruce Johnston, Carl Wilson, and Dennis Wilson on backing vocals.

But, then you get songs like “God Only Knows” that clearly benefited from Carl’s lead vocals and “That’s Not Me”, which benefited from Mike Love’s great lyrics and singing. This song is a great one to play on acoustic guitar and do a cover of because I didn’t have that feeling of stripping too much away from the song. This is a very personal-sounding song and I think it works great as an intimate cover music video. Of course, I plan on doing pretty much every song from “Pet Sounds”, but I arrived at this choice now because it’s the track that still hung on to that Brian Wilson/Mike Love writing tandem that put them on top in the early 60s.

I hope you enjoy tonight’s Laptop Session acoustic cover song and I hope you’ll come back to see another great cover music video from Chris Moore tomorrow!

NOTE: This video was remastered in 2020 for improved video and sound.

“Wouldn’t It Be Nice” (Beach Boys Cover)

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Welcome to another edition of The Laptop Sessions here on “Track 1 Week”!  That’s where the singers, songwriters, and musicians of the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs music video blog pick a song that started off an album (thus “Track One”) and covered it for the best music blog on the internet!

Today, I give you one of the best album-opening songs to one of the best albums of all time: Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys!  And, if you know me, you know that doing Beach Boys cover songs is one of my favorite things to do!

“Wouldn’t It Be Nice” is also a favorite song of Chris Moore and Becky Daly, two fellow MoU members.  We never attempted to do this song in concert, though I think we should’ve given it a shot.  I think with all of the production that the original version had, it’s daunting to try and recreate it live.  The members of Brian Wilson’s incredible touring band do that on each and every tour, but they have about 12 people on stage at one time.  When it’s just five people, that task gets a little harder for sure.  But, knowing the chords and the changes (and frankly, how well my cover video came out), I think we could’ve pulled it off as a band.

Tomorrow night, The Laptop Sessions Live plays a three-hour set at George’s II Restaurant in Wallingford, CT. We’re very excited and it oughta be an amazing event. I hope to record the audio for future release.  There’s sure to be mostly original songs, but some of our favorite covers.  You’ll hear plenty from the Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, the Wallflowers, and I’m sure we’ll sprinkle some Beatles cover songs in there, too!

I hope you’ll come back tomorrow for another album-starter from Chris Moore and check out Jeff’s last two videos, as well- they were great!

“Slip On Through” (Beach Boys Cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Welcome to day two of “Track 1” week here at the Laptop Sessions! This week, Chris, Jeff, and I (plus a possible new special guest) will be bringing you our favorite album-starters! This is the second in a series of specialty weeks to come. We’ll be doing “Title Track Week” soon, plus an album closer week, and another new bands week very soon!

This particular week is pretty big for me- but to find out why, you’ll have to visit the Blog at https://guitarbucketlist.com and read my entry that will appear in the next few days- trust me, it’s worth the click!

Today, I bring you the first of TWO Beach Boys songs because I haven’t done one for a couple weeks. Actually, this just kinda fell into place- I was going to do “Slip On Through” anyway (track 1 off of my favorite album, “Sunflower”), and it just fit into this week, so here it is!

I’m also happy to finally be doing a Dennis Wilson song here on the Sessions. We’re all anxiously awaiting Dennis’ “Pacific Ocean Blue” and “Bambu” collection to come out next month, and you better believe there will be Sessions done from those albums! We’ve had POB for years now and I’ve been itching to do a song from it.

Like I said, “Sunflower” is probably my favorite Beach Boys album (besides my guilty pleasure: the 1985 album), so ANY requests from this one will be fulfilled.

I’ll be back on Thursday with yet another amazing Beach Boys album starter: “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” from everyone’s favorite, “Pet Sounds”!! It’ll be my first Pet Sounds Session and I’m very proud of how it came out. See you then, but make sure to check out Chris’ first entry for “Track 1 Week” on https://guitarbucketlist.com!