If nothing else, this is an excellent soundtrack to summer. A quick
glance at the sleeve should tell you that much. At the time the Beach
Boys were still pop music’s equivalent to silly college movies made in
sunny California. But the production mastery of Brian Wilson is already
noticeable on several tracks.
Thematically the songs are all about white
middle-class boys trying to score with the sun tanned, bikini clad
beauties on the beach. They got lots of spare time on their hands, so
when they are not stalking the beaches they are driving up and down the
Strip in their daddies’ cars, maybe succeeding in bringing a girl along
to the drive-in. Some fortunate guys have acquired Honda motorcycles,
which is pretty cool. Everything is not as easy and idyllic as it seems,
though, as heavy clouds of sadness and longing are gathering above.
There’s much more to these songs than the lyrics would have you believe
if you just read them from a page, isolated from the music.
Brian Wilson is only 22 years old but his musical
paintings already show traces of both wisdom and nostalgia, that very
Brian Wilsonish longing back to a mystified youthful innocence. However,
to write a nostalgic tribute to the rock’n’roll era in 1964 was a bit
early, I mean it happened just a quarter of an hour or so ago, even if
it had just been dwarfed by a quartet from Liverpool.
Wilson was up for that challenge, and the Beach Boys
were among the very few that didn’t disappear in the undertow of the
British Invasion. On the contrary, they started to blossom. The
competition from The Beatles triggered the best in Wilson’s Beach Boys,
and they were soon - for a period – to be the Beatles’ peers.
But not just yet. For the time being they held the
fort by writing and recording excellent and very American pop music
while the rest of the country’s musicians were wondering what was going
on.
The key track on “All Summer Long” is of course the
huge hit “I Get Around”, a marvellous tribute to the freedom offered by
the automobile. Kids didn’t drive around in cars in Europe, but that
song sure made us imagine how it would be like. The American dream for
kids. In the trunk the album had that song’s merry cousin, “Little
Honda”. A wonderful little ditty.
Wilson also developed his self-therapeutic relations
with loneliness and melancholy, often rewritten as heart bursting
declarations of love for imaginary girls. He who is not moved by “Wendy”
has a heart made of leather.
The album contains a preliminary warning about the
vulnerable themes that would characterize “Pet Sounds” in “We’ll Run
Away”, a beautiful early draft of “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”. Apart from this
the album contains a handful of well crafted pop songs about the
tribulations of being a lonely West Coast kid in his late teens. A
little more sophisticated than what the group was doing the previous
year, and more accessible for European youth who had only seen
California on the TV.
The album’s weakest tracks are the earlier mentioned
tributes to rock’n’roll; “Do You Remember”, the puny instrumental
“Carl’s Big Chance” and the silly and strictly verbal “Our Favourite
Recording Sessions” which must have been incredibly annoying when the
album was played at parties.
“All Summer Long” is the start of the Beach Boys’
phase two.
Released: July 13, 1964
Contents: I Get Around/All Summer
Long/Hushabye/ Little Honda/We’ll Run Away/Carl’s Big Chance/Wendy/Do
You Remember?/Girls on the Beach/Drive-In/Our Favorite Recording
Sessions/Don’t Back Down
Produced by: Brian Wilson
The Beach Boys:
Al Jardine – harmony and backing vocals; bass guitar;
rhythm guitar
Mike Love – lead, harmony and backing vocals; hand
claps
Brian Wilson – lead, harmony and backing vocals;
piano, organ, keyboard, Baldwin harpsichord; marimba; bass guitar
Carl Wilson – harmony and backing vocals; lead guitar
Dennis Wilson – lead, harmony and backing vocals;
drums
Additional musicians and production staff:
Hal Blaine – timbales
Chuck Britz – engineer
Steve Douglas – tenor saxophone
Jay Migliori – baritone saxophone
Ray Pohlman – bass guitar