Summer Days and Summer Nights Songs Ranked
Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) is the ninth studio album by American rock band the Beach Boys, released on July 5, 1965, on Capitol. The band’s previous album, The Beach Boys Today! (released March 1965), represented a departure for the group through its abandonment of themes related to surfing, cars, and teenage love, but it sold below Capitol’s expectations. In response, the label pressured the group to produce bigger hits. Summer Days thus returned the band’s music to simpler themes for one last album, with Brian Wilson combining Capitol’s commercial demands with his artistic calling. Produced by Wilson, Summer Days reached number two on the US Billboard 200 and number four on the UK Albums Chart. Two singles were issued from the album: “Help Me, Rhonda”, which became the group’s second chart-topper in the US, and “California Girls”, which peaked at number three.
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12. The Girl From New York City
“The theme that opens the album is quite rough, with a lot of wind and a melody with a force and energy that seems forced and not very harmonious. No detail is convincing enough, although the instrumentation and verses are correct”
11. California Girls
“If there is a song that gives certain immortality to the album, this is it. A true classic that has a very own epic, starting with the sound achieved is perfect among all the instruments all played by the Wrecking Crew, the orderly and increasing vocal presence of the 5 beach boys + Bruce Johnston, whose vocal stamp in the last Part of the song is of a style and contribution so notorious that its mere inclusion makes that moment something historical, a before and an after”
10. Amusement Parks U.S.A.
“It is a more psychedelic update of the song ‘County fair’ from their first album, which was quite flat and interrupted by sounds and laughter out of all taste. Well, the error here is repeated as is, ensuring a rather poor start to the disk.”
See more: The Beach Boys Albums Ranked
9. Let Him Run Wild
“A song that is clearly a tremendous evolution and improvement of what was conceived on the previous album, with a new perfect collaboration between the magical post-beatlesque guitar of Carl Wilson and the Wrecking Crew, with the vocal interpretation of the entire band and Bruce. Johnston in the backing vocals, with melodies simply from another planet.”
8. Then I Kissed Her
“Song written by Phil Spector (among others), Brian’s rival and direct idol in terms of composition and production, for the interpretation of the female band The Crystals with the name “Then he kissed me”. This version is performed by Alan Jardine on the lead vocal with great propriety and is played by the entire band including Johnston. While it has the perfect cadence, roughly it feels a bit empty instrumentally. This song makes you want to forget the previous two and have the album start here.”
7. You’re So Good to Me
“A somewhat atypical song that shows us the most torn but mischievous facet of Brian Wilson on a vocal level, possibly influenced by The Beatles, the instrumentation is in charge of the band + Johnston, achieving a more minimalist sound but perfectly suited to the song”
6. Salt Lake City
“Undoubtedly one of the best melodies / interpretations by Mike Love, now the song is instrumentally the work of the Wrecking Crew, except for the eternal guitar of Carl Wilson, being one of the best works of that band so far. manages to give the theme epic and convey the feeling of being in the aforementioned city.”
5. Summer Means New Love
“Instrumental song composed by Brian Wilson, where he plays the piano while the Wrecking Crew plays the other instruments, it is a combination of sound very typical of what Wilson begins to achieve with this band, a much more melodious and dreamlike revival of surfing Original rock from the beginning of the decade, subtly mixed with other rhythms but with a lot of presence of music of the old film soundtrack type, which gives it a beachy touch but at the same time timeless and transcendental, generating a very particular nostalgia.”
See more: The Beach Boys Songs Ranked
4. Girl Don’t Tell Me
“Song written exclusively by Brian Wilson for vocal performance by Carl Wilson, who sings without second voices. This detail is important not only because it is strange in the band, but because of the obvious influence of The Beatles in the genesis of this song. Probably no other song sounds so beatle with Carl’s picking on the guitar very characteristic of George Harrison between 1964-65. For this song, only the three Wilsons and Bruce Johnston played instruments, playing the celesta, except for the tambourine played by another musician.”
3. I’m Bugged at My Ol’ Man
“Song written exclusively by Brian Wilson to complain lyrically and ironically about the difficult relationship with his father. The truth is that despite the theme that seems deep, Wilson chooses to make the theme in a joke format, ridiculing the melody and his own voice, doing the same with the voices of his brothers and wife who respond to his sentences. By far one of the worst songs of the band.”
2. Help Me, Rhonda
“Although it had a certain normality at the time, it still seems like a total nonsense to repeat a song from the previous album, even if it is re-recorded, especially because of how good it sounded ON THAT album, while here is an obviously mutilated version with less force and epic . Curiously, this was the version released as a single that had number 1 on the charts.”
1. And Your Dream Comes True
“An interesting and very brief a cappella song interpreted by the 5 Beach Boys + Bruce Johnston whose melody is good, but it is not used by itself and less on this album after the terrible previous song.”
