“The laughs come hard in Auld Lang Syne,” sang the Beach Boys, bitterly, and from experience by the sounds of it. In a song called Surf’s Up, from an album that was supposed to be called Smile, that lyric reflects the mood better than either of the ironic titles, and presages the unfortunate lives of both song and album. Smile was never properly released, and Surf’s Up was chopped up and lobbed out years later, by which time the fun and the sun and the prospect of good times had drained for good from the world of the Beach Boys. Everything got muted, uncertain, complicated, older. The Beach Boys changed. Maybe it was age but listening to them you sense more than that. Drugs or fame or a general disillusionment, maybe. What’s certain is there’s no sunshine here. The Beach Boys were innately Californian, but where once you might have pictured wholesome tans, here you can taste the tannins - that lyric on the tongue is as earthy as a complex Zinfandel.
What do you read a book with?
What do you read a book with?
“The laughs come hard in Auld Lang Syne,” sang the Beach Boys, bitterly, and from experience by the sounds of it. In a song called Surf’s Up, from an album that was supposed to be called Smile, that lyric reflects the mood better than either of the ironic titles, and presages the unfortunate lives of both song and album. Smile was never properly released, and Surf’s Up was chopped up and lobbed out years later, by which time the fun and the sun and the prospect of good times had drained for good from the world of the Beach Boys. Everything got muted, uncertain, complicated, older. The Beach Boys changed. Maybe it was age but listening to them you sense more than that. Drugs or fame or a general disillusionment, maybe. What’s certain is there’s no sunshine here. The Beach Boys were innately Californian, but where once you might have pictured wholesome tans, here you can taste the tannins - that lyric on the tongue is as earthy as a complex Zinfandel.