The Fendertones are an informal group of white guys from the Philadelphia area who have so far blessed the world with 17 YouTube videos and a Facebook page. They occasionally get together to reproduce the complex sound Brian Wilson created for the Beach Boys. It’s one more win for the Internet.
They posted four videos yesterday, including “Sloop John B” (a big hit for the Beach Boys in 1965) and “Kiss Me Baby” (a relatively unknown but brilliant album track from the same year):
While we’re at it, two performances from a 2004 charity concert: 1965’s “California Girls” and its flip side, one of my favorites, “Let Him Run Wild”:
There is an ongoing discussion at Brian Wilson’s website called “The Battle of the Bands”. Every week someone selects four songs from YouTube that have something in common (say, songs about food or songs with great bass lines). At least one of the songs has to be related to Brian Wilson or the Beach Boys. Then the 20 or so regular participants rank the four songs (gold, silver, bronze and tin).
Opinions are offered, other videos are posted, stories are told and at the end of the week, the votes are tabulated. It’s an enjoyable pastime, since the participants are into music and extremely well-mannered (although they tend to be a little long in the tooth, like a certain blogger).
This week’s theme is Soul Music. The artists represented are Etta James, Otis Redding, Solomon Burke (singing the Beach Boys song “Sail On, Sailor”), and Barbara Mason (doing her big hit “Yes, I’m Ready”).
I voted a couple days ago, giving gold to Otis Redding. This afternoon, one thing led to another (I believe that’s the definition of “the Internet”) and I ended up listening to and sharing several YouTube videos more or less associated with “soul music”. You might find some of them of interest.
First, some related philosophical observations:
“There is two kinds of music, the good, and the bad. I play the good kind.” – L. Armstrong
“You blows who you is.” – L. Armstrong
“Without music, life would be a mistake.” – F. Nietzsche
Whether it’s gospel-influenced, doo wop, R&B, soul or whatever, this one is pretty damn amazing. The Chantels, featuring lead singer Arlene Smith, from 1957/58:
James Brown sings it’s “It’s a Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World” in Paris. He launches into a bit of a medley around 6:40 or so:
Which doesn’t really lead to Bill Medley talking about Brian Wilson, Phil Spector, Carole King or Eric Burdon, or “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” or some famous songs he had the chance to record but didn’t:
The #1 “blue-eyed soul” record that he and Bobby Hatfield did right after they split from Phil Spector:
Which leads in a way (“she’s been my inspiration”) to an extended version of Stevie Wonder’s “I Was Made To Love Her”, including instrumental intro and outro:
I really disliked that song when it was on the radio in 1967, and was very surprised when the Beach Boys put it on their terrific “Wild Honey” album later that year. But sometimes we progress. This is the late Carl Wilson doing the lead vocal:
The Beach Boys covered Stevie Wonder, and in 1980 the Los Angeles punk rock band X covered the Doors (whose “Soul Kitchen” referred to a soul food restaurant in Venice, California):
Which doesn’t lead at all to Jimmy Cliff, but this is real good and clearly soulful (although rhyming “over” and “White Cliffs of Dover” is geographically suspicious in a song called “Many Rivers to Cross”. Those cliffs aren’t known for their waterfalls.):
Too bad there’s no money in propagating this Internet stuff.
The Beach Boys recorded “Little Honda” in April 1964, when the Beatles occupied positions 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 on Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart (something nobody else has ever done). Written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love, “Little Honda” was released on the Beach Boys’ All Summer Long album in the summer of ’64.
Gary Usher (who had earlier written “In My Room” and “409” with Brian Wilson) heard the album and decided to include “Little Honda” on an album of car songs, mostly written by him and Roger Christian (who had written “Don’t Worry Baby” and “Little Deuce Coupe” with Brian Wilson).
Usher hired some studio musicians and singers to make the album, although it was supposedly recorded by the Hondells, a group that didn’t exist yet. Usher made up a story for the album cover explaining how the fictional Hondells had gotten together. In order to release “Little Honda” as a single, however, he needed a group to tour and promote the record, so four young men, one of whom had sung backing vocals on the song, became the real-life Hondells.
“Little Honda” was the only hit record the Hondells ever had, rising to #9 on the Billboard chart. Brian Wilson and the other Beach Boys went on to other things.
Here’s the Beach Boys’ version of “Little Honda”. I think that’s the late Dennis Wilson yelling “Go!” at the beginning. (From the advertising pictures in the video, it appears that young women weren’t supposed to drive Hondas in 1964, although they were encouraged to have fun and hang on tight.)
In 1997, the “alternative” rock band Yo La Tengo released their own “Little Honda” on their I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One album. It’s unlikely that anyone in Yo La Tengo ever had fun riding a Honda, but it’s a cool, rather disturbing version of the song.
I’ve heard there was a time when the lyrics to popular songs were easily understandable. In fact, I heard that from my father more than once. He found it highly amusing when a friend and I played one particular song over and over, trying to make sense of the words, sometime in the late 60s.
Often, however, we were pretty sure what the lyrics were. Take, for example, a Beach Boys song called “Cabinessence” (or “Cabin Essence”). It’s a strangely beautiful, relatively psychedelic song about the American frontier, written by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks for the long unfinished Smile album.
“Cabinessence” has a special place in the history of the Beach Boys (and the history of American popular music, for that matter), since conflict concerning its lyrics supposedly contributed to Brian Wilson giving up on Smile, history’s most famous unfinished rock album. The person who famously objected to the lyrics back in 1967 was Mike Love, frequent lead singer and lyricist for the Beach Boys (especially in their early days). Newly appointed lyricist Van Dyke Parks didn’t give Mike a satisfying answer when asked to explain the following lines: “Over and over the crow cries uncover the cornfield/Over and over the thresher uncovers the wheatfield”.
I’ve never thought these lyrics were all that mysterious, especially compared to some other lyrics from that period (“The preacher looked so baffled when I asked him why he dressed/With twenty pounds of headlines stapled to his chest”?). What was Mike Love’s problem anyway? Aside from being bald, jealous and relatively untalented?
So it was quite a surprise when I learned the other day that I have apparently misheard the lyrics to “Cabinessence” for the past 46 years. According to the most official sources (lyrics sheets in recent releases), the final words to the song are: “Over and over, the crow cries uncover the cornfield, over and over, the thresher, and hover the wheatfield”.
“And hover?” Not “uncovers”? What the hell does “and hover the wheatfield” mean? It’s not even English. If that’s the line that bothered Mike Love, I suddenly feel (a tiny bit) more sympathetic toward the guy.
Well, it turns out that matters are not quite that simple. A bit of research reveals the following:
1) Sheet music from 1968 says that the song ends with “the crow flies [sic] uncover the cornfield”. There’s no mention of the thresher or the wheatfield at all.
2) Wikipedia has one paragraph indicating that the song ends with “Over and over, the thresher and plover, the wheatfield” (“plover” = a short-billed, gregarious wading bird).
3) In 2004, an anonymous expert on a Smile message board (there used to be such things) suggested that the last two lines make more sense if they are rearranged, as follows: “Over and over the crow cries and hovers the wheatfield/Over and over the thresher uncovers the cornfield”. Which does make more sense grammatically — although in the 19th century you’d expect to find scarecrows in cornfields and threshers in wheatfields, not the other way around.
4) When I listen to the song, I still (think I) hear the thresher uncovering the wheatfield, with no hovering going on at all.
5) The song was written and first recorded in the mid-60s, when lots of people, including Wilson and Parks, weren’t terribly sober, so who knows what the words were?
And, you might ask, who cares? Well, I do. Now every time I listen to the song, I’m going to be wondering: Now what are they saying? I might as well be back on our living room floor with Dean from across the street, playing some damn song over and over again, with my father shaking his head in the background.
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What are accepted, apparently by everyone else, as the song’s full lyrics:
Canadian musician Rich Aucoin has released a video that tells the story of Brian Wilson’s career in four minutes. It’s really well-done. (But it’s too bad they didn’t find any striped shirts for the “Beach Boys”.)
Whereof One Can Speak 🇺🇦 
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