The Beach Boys: "When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)"

October 19, 1964 (2 weeks)

As a compact disc loyalist, I am already in the minority when it comes to how I consume music. Records are too big and expensive and, speaking as a careless and clumsy person, I don't trust myself with fragile vinyl and/or stereo equipment. As far as streaming goes, it's just a way to give someone I'm unfamiliar with a listen and that's where it begins and ends. If I'm interested, I'll try to track your album down on CD — either that or I'll forget all about you. Nope, I'm a CD guy. But even within that narrow class, I am virtually on my own in my fondness for the CD two-fer.

The two-fer is a throwback to the late eighties and early nineties when albums were being reissued on the new format. While big name releases such as Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Dark Side of the Moon were released on their own, many shorter albums got paired up in order to take advantage of CD's having eighty minutes of running time. Pet Sounds was a marquee album to put out on its own but the remainder of The Beach Boys' works got the two-fer treatment. I, for one, loved them. They were good value for money, with some even including bonus tracks (when your albums from the sixties tended to clock in under the half-hour mark, they had lots of time to play with). Releases such as Friends / 20/20, Sunflower / Surf's Up and Carl & The Passions 'So Tough' / Holland were all big favourites of mine — and they remain so to this day. Buying them was like getting an album and a greatest hits all at once. Were they cheap affairs? Possibly but that was a concern for others.

Perhaps the most fascinating of the two-fers is The Beach Boys Today / Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!), a compilation of their two major works from 1965 (even though much of the former was initially recorded and released in '64). Because much of The Beach Boy narrative centres around Pet Sounds (and, to a lesser extent, the unfinished and ill-fated Smile), it is easy to hear these two albums as a warm up for what was about to come down. There's no doubt there's some truth to this claim as well. The former's second side is surprisingly reflective while Brian Wilson's increasing reliance on legendary LA session group The Wrecking Crew was a sign of things to come.

Yet, there's juvenalia involved as well which betrays this sense that Brian Wilson was maturing. The first side of Today! has material covering topics ranging from teen romance (their hit version of "Do You Wanna Dance", "Good to My Baby"), the desire to blow off some steam after "six hours of school" ("Dance, Dance, Dance") and an intimidating older brother giving a stern lecture to a young boy up to no good ("Don't Hurt My Little Sister"). Even an early run through of future hit "Help Me, Ronda" is given the youthful, milk-fed treatment by Al Jardine and his frat boy vocals. (As for Summer Days, it is crammed with silly tunes about the capital city of Utah and amusement parks which obscure the fact that it has freaking "California Girls" on it)

Fitting in alongside them is "When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)". Sung mostly by twenty-three year old Mike Love with help from the twenty-two year old Brian, it is about a teen who wonders what he'll be like when he gets older. The very nature of it is forced. Only an adult would come up with such sentiments. No teen ever thinks about how they'll turn out, they only ever wonder about what's in store. I remembered being a self-obsessed fourteen year old and I never worried that I wouldn't dig the same music or different women in the future. My mum used to tell my coffee hating sister that she would one day enjoy that hot beverage which was always met with denial. (Naturally, she now drinks coffee) We might fret that others will change but it seldom occurs to us that we might change too.

All that said, I love "When I Grow Up". Brian's vocal arrangements are sublime with more of a jazz influence than on earlier works. The use of an electric harpsichord is an inspired choice and it made me assume that it was the work of a Wrecking Crew member like Leon Russell; imagine my surprise to discover that it was in fact played by Brian himself. In fact, the instrumentation was all the product of The Beach Boys themselves. I used to think that Dennis Wilson was merely a competent drummer but he holds time perfectly well on this. Imagine that: not only could they all sing but they could even play too! Finally, Brian and cousin Mike have rarely sounded so good playing off one another. In many respects opposites as people, their opposing vocal styles mesh beautifully.

Beach Boy fans can have that second side of Today; I'll take the first side along with much of the Summer Days album. Brian's best work of this period seemed to merge sophisticated musical ideas with some youthful diary entry shenanigans. While he could pull off profundity ("In My Room"), he was often better off sticking with childish shit. It was what he was into and, as they say, you should write what you know. (1977's bizarre, erratic and sometimes uncomfortable Beach Boys Love You as well as its unreleased follow-up Adult Child indicate that he never really lost his love of childlike wonder) You may assume that Brian Wilson matured as an artist but he seemed just as content to immature at the very same time.

Score: 9