Tag Archives: the beach boys

“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!

“‘Til I Die” (Beach Boys Cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Hello everyone and welcome to another Beach Boys edition of the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs music video blog! Tonight’s song, “Till I Die” by the Beach Boys, goes out to everyone on the Brian Wilson message board, especially those who contributed to that great post about the Laptop Sessions.

Tonight’s song is ‘Til I Die, one of Brian Wilson’s most introspective and personal songs. I love the harmonies (Bruce Johnston once said that he believes it’s the last true Beach Boys song, with all the counter-harmonizing), but I think this paired-down version translates well. This performance shows how singularly personal this song can be.

If you’re a big fan like me, then I’m sure you’ve heard the alternate version of “Till I Die” that a producer made while mixing and mastering the “Surf’s Up” album.  That version of this great Beach Boys song is very unique.  It features almost the whole song with just the instruments playing.  It’s pretty spooky to hear the cool vibes that Brian Wilson put into the original song.  But, the most fascinating part of the instrumental section is how few instruments are used.  The Beach Boys’ harmonies in “Till I Die” are wonderful and they fill up the whole song.  It’s incredible to hear how Brian Wilson put it all together.

Of course, when you start listening to the lyrics, you realize how alone Brian felt while writing this song.  As a songwriter, Brian Wilson usually had other people write the lyrics for him.  But, I’m sure he contributed to the meaning of the song and knew the sentiment he wanted to get across.  As you can tell, Brian was feeling lonely and realized that his life wasn’t going to change.  And, yes, that was true for quite some time.  Even when his other band members/family finally got him out of bed a few years later, it was embarrassing (remember the “Brian Is Back” campaign?) and short-lived.  Instead of being the songwriter he was for the Beach Boys back in the early-mid sixties, he only wanted to play old songs he loved.  Thus, the cover songs you hear on “15 Big Ones”.  And when he actually went back to writing again, he was writing about pedestrian things like watching TV (“Johnny Carson”) and his family (“I Wanna Pick You Up”).  I guess the good part was that Brian was finally living his life again, but somehow I doubt the PR image we’ve all been given really reflects his life at the time.  He was neglecting his family members and I think there are some clues to that in songs from “Love You”.  For instance, in “I Wanna Pick You Up” is about how he still thinks his children were “babies”, even though he had essentially missed those important years of their lives.

I hope you enjoy tonight’s music video and thanks for watching this Beach Boys cover song here on the music blog!

“The Night Was So Young” (The Beach Boys Cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Welcome to your Sunday, Sunday, Sunday! edition of the Laptop Sessions with me, Jim Fusco.

I promised a new Beach Boys video today, and even though it took me until 10:30 to do it, it’s finally here. Actually, this is one of the rare Sessions that was recorded the same day I’m posting it.

I’ve been practicing this song for weeks now, as I needed to make sure it was perfect before I did a video. “The Night Was So Young” is my favorite track off the Beach Boys “Love You” album and shows the great songwriting skills of Brian Wilson coupled with the singing of Carl Wilson.

I love the minimalist approach to the recorded version of this song- it’s great in contrast to the terribly-dated synth-sounds of most of the tracks. This song also doesn’t have that cheesiness factor that some of the others have. Although, this song does tell of Brian Wilson’s lonely trip to the sink to pour some milk at 3 am…

I hope you like this toned-down Session. We’re still chugging-along at one-a-day here in 2008. I’d like to wish a Happy Birthday to my brother, Mike, who’s 22 today. Hope you had a great one!!