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All I Wanna Do (The Beach Boys song)

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Not to be confused with All I Want to Do (The Beach Boys song).
"All I Wanna Do"
Song

"All I Wanna Do" is a song written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love for the American rock band the Beach Boys, released as the eighth track on the group's sixteenth studio album Sunflower on August 31, 1970.[2]

Composition

In 2015, Love commented that "All I Wanna Do" was "totally poetic and quite heartfelt".[3] According to academic Philip Lambert,

In "All I Wanna Do" the lush backing chorus grows in intensity along with the love expressed in the lyric. By the time the chorus arrives, the depth and complexity of the singer's feelings are captured by an intricate layering of a main tune repeating the song title, a midrange non-texted countermelody in response, a "doot-doot-doot" line reaffirming the mellow beat, and a foundational bass line. It's the next step beyond the elegantly transparent layered endings of "Fun, Fun, Fun" and "God Only Knows" and so many others.[4]

Talking about the song in 1995, Brian expressed: "That was one of those songs that had a nice chord pattern, but I think it was a boring song, and I thought it wasn't done right. I thought it should have been softer, with boxed guitars."[5] In 2000, he relaxed his view, calling the song "a real nice one".[6]

Recording

On June 8, 1968, following the main recording sessions for Friends an unreleased version of the song was demoed at Brian Wilson's home studio featuring use of a sitar, a classical Indian stringed instrument.[7][8] The song's arrangement was revised and the recording which ultimately ended up on Sunflower took place nine months later on March 19, 1969 at Gold Star Studios.[9] Instead of a sitar, the final arrangement opted for a guitar line which Mathew Greenwald of AllMusic describes as "Byrds-like".[10]

Reception

In 1970, Jim Miller of Rolling Stone noted production elements made the listening experience "mind-wrenching".[11] Matthew Greenwald called the song a lost classic, writing: "Possibly one of the most beautiful and unusual songs and recordings on the Sunflower album... Mike Love deserves high marks for his vocal and lyric contributions, which may be his most tasteful in the scope of the entire Beach Boys canon. Brian Wilson's haunting, minor-key melody and ghostly arrangement is truly bittersweet evidence that he had certainly not lost his artistic grasp." Greenwald went on to give accolades to the song's arrangement, citing the effectiveness of the piccolo's snare drum and the interesting, well-executed harmonies.[10] In 2000, the song was described by music review site Pitchfork as "proto-shoegaze".[1]

Personnel

  • Mike Love – lead vocals
  • unknown – backing vocals, rotating organ, synthesizer[12]

References

  1. ^ a b Hefner Macauley (18 July 2000). "The Beach Boys: Sunflower/Surf's Up". Pitchfork Media Inc. Retrieved 8 November 2011.
  2. ^ Badman, Keith. The Beach Boys. The Definitive Diary of America's Greatest Band: On Stage and in the Studio Backbeat Books, San Francisco, California, 2004. ISBN 0-87930-818-4 p. 278
  3. ^ Sharp, Ken (September 9, 2015). "Mike Love of the Beach Boys: One-On-One (The Interview Part 1)". Rock Cellar Magazine.
  4. ^ Lambert, Philip (2007-03-19). Inside the Music of Brian Wilson: The Songs, Sounds, and Influences of the Beach Boys' Founding Genius. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 395. ISBN 978-1-4411-0748-0.
  5. ^ Benci, Jacopo (January 1995). "Brian Wilson interview". Record Collector (185). UK.
  6. ^ White, Timothy (2000). Sunflower/Surf's Up (CD Liner). The Beach Boys. Capitol Records.
  7. ^ Chidester, Brian (March 5, 2014). "Brian Wilson's Secret Bedroom Tapes: A Track-by-Track Description". LA Weekly. Retrieved 7 March 2014.
  8. ^ Doe, Andrew G. (2013). "GIG68". Retrieved March 7, 2014.
  9. ^ Doe, Andrew G. (2013). "GIG69". Retrieved March 7, 2014.
  10. ^ a b Greenwald, Matthew. "All I Wanna Do review". AllMusic. Retrieved July 26, 2014.
  11. ^ Miller Jim (October 1, 1970). "Sunflower; Albums Reviews; Rolling Stone". Rolling Stone. Retrieved March 7, 2014.
  12. ^ Carlin, Peter Ames (2006). Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson. Rodale. p. 153. ISBN 978-1-59486-320-2.
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