By Howie Edelson
In a career full of game changers, it’s no surprise that every year, every month, almost every day, there’s a historic – if not groundbreaking – moment to celebrate in The Beach Boys’ story. This month, 60 years ago, The Beach Boys Today! was released marking the group’s first of three hit albums in 1965. The then-new studio set came on the heels of two back-to-back, year-wrapping collections – the now perennial The Beach Boys’ Christmas Album and the band’s sole chart-topping LP of the decade – Beach Boys Concert, which spent a solid month at Number One and a total of 20 weeks in the Top 10 of the Billboard 200 albums chart.
Rising to a new level of songwriting and production sophistication, The Beach Boys Today! was a perfect blend of era-defining pop songs and ballads that showcased a dramatic maturation since the previous summer’s All Summer Long collection. Most of The Beach Boys Today! was written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love, spotlighting the pair’s instinctive musical connection. Although the album is best remembered for its hit singles – “When I Grow Up (To Be A Man),” “Dance, Dance, Dance,” and the Dennis Wilson-sung “Do You Wanna Dance” -- it’s the Wilson/Love powerhouse ballads that firmly cemented the team’s place alongside their primary peers of the ‘60s – Lennon & McCartney, Holland-Dozier-Holland, and Bacharach & David. The cousins’ breathtaking love songs “Kiss Me, Baby,” “She Knows Me Too Well,” “In The Back Of My Mind,” and “Please Let Me Wonder,” gave new language to romantic rock, in composition, production, and performance. It was undeniably lush enough to snag the adults but true enough for kids to keep it close.
The album featured Brian Wilson laying down tracks boasting the talents of the “Wrecking Crew” – L.A.’s top session guns for hire alongside those played by The Beach Boys themselves – and some including an amalgam of both camps. By 1965, The Beach Boys not only easily held their own live on stage but were a hard act to beat by bands from either side of the Atlantic. Night after night in cities across the globe – they proved themselves to be a tight, lean, and powerful rock machine.
With The Beach Boys Today!, the group had invented a new way of thinking and singing about the heart.
The late, great Glen Campbell, who had temporarily replaced Brian Wilson on the road, played on numerous Today! sessions and was immediately cognizant of the difference between Brian and his competition at the time:
“Brian did something very, very different then. I mean, it was some music with intelligence. Y’know, it was ‘Rock N’ Roll Mozart,’ man. A lot of different changes. A lot of different harmonies. A lot of different parts -- it’s a symphony. They weren’t your cut and dried, three-chord, rock n’ roll or surf songs. Brian Wilson’s stuff stood out. He was very articulate. He knew exactly what he wanted. On ‘Dance, Dance, Dance,’ he would say, ‘Okay, you do this part here: ‘(sings) I wanna dance. . .’ and he’d change the notes to sing and it wouldn’t make sense then. But when it fit in with everything else, it was because he could hear ten parts, I believe, at one time in his head.”
Frontman Mike Love recalled The Beach Boys Today! covering all the bases and playing to the band’s strengths:
“The album had something of a split personality. The A- side featured upbeat songs such as ‘Dance, Dance, Dance’ and ‘Do You Wanna Dance?,’ which was just one of those great songs and Dennis did a great job on it. That one almost made it into the Top 10. The song certainly set the tone for the rest of the pop side of the album. The B-side included melancholy ballads like ‘Kiss Me, Baby,’ ‘She Knows Me Too Well,’ and ‘In The Back Of My Mind.’ I co-wrote all three and thought that ‘Kiss Me, Baby’ was one of Brian’s finest arrangements.”
Brian Wilson admitted that he was fully aware of the growth he and the ‘Boys were showing on their eighth album in just over two years:
“The Beach Boys Today! was a step forward. It was the first time I could do songs like ‘Please Let Me Wonder’ that had all this space in them. That song was cut at 4:30 in the morning. I called my engineer Chuck Britz at Western, and my wife and I went to the studio in the middle of the night. It was one of my favorite recording sessions. I wanted to grow musically, so I experimented. I wasn’t the type to sit around and be satisfied with an accomplishment, especially not in the studio. I had ideas coming into my head all the time. Many had to do with using instruments as voices and voices as instruments. I would put sounds together to create something new.”
Carl Wilson, who was always older brother Brian’s deputy on the studio sessions, was quick to give credit to their cousin, who also broke a sweat in helping realize The Beach Boys’ classic songs:
“Mike had a real pretty big hand in it as well and that tends to get forgotten because Brian’s talent is so enormous. I guess it’s kind of a dichotomy that the music is very deep and complex. There are moments of it where it’s actually a master’s work -- and yet, it’s very simple.”
As if Today! wasn’t already a cutting-edge embarrassment of riches, the album featured the early, “almost there” pass at “Help Me, Ronda” – soon to be tightened, remade, and renamed “Help Me, Rhonda.” Al Jardine recalled the recording session for the song, which pushed him front and center, carrying the lead vocal:
“Oh, I was delighted. I was honored. But the pressure on me was enormous! (Laughs) Everybody in the band — everybody was there listening. But I was honored. I was really thrilled to have that opportunity. It became family night: ‘Let's watch Al Jardine sink or swim (laughs).’ Y’know, Murry Wilson was in the booth, you’ve got Brian Wilson (producing) -- you got tons of family there. It was my second lead vocal, actually.”
Dennis Wilson was asked about the beloved tune that was soon re-recorded before going on to score the band their second Number One hit:
“Y’know what, I don’t think there was a Rhonda! It’s just a great name somebody made up.”
The Beach Boys Today! peaked at Number Four in America and spent 14 weeks in the Top Ten – with its last week sharing space with The Beach Boys’ follow-up, Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!). Today!, which remains one of the band’s most commercial – and progressive – collections, laid the groundwork for the sound and themes that were a hallmark of their 1966 masterpiece, Pet Sounds.The Beach Boys Today! taught us how to break up, make up, grow up, and do it all while dancing.
Here’s to an early spring.
Happy Birthday, TODAY!