All Summer Long (The Beach Boys song)
| "All Summer Long" | ||||||||||||||||||
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.jpg) UK single release, backed with "Do You Wanna Dance?" | ||||||||||||||||||
| Song by The Beach Boys from the album All Summer Long | ||||||||||||||||||
| Released | July 13, 1964 | |||||||||||||||||
| Recorded | May 6–7, 1964, United Western Recorders | |||||||||||||||||
| Genre | Rock, sunshine pop | |||||||||||||||||
| Length | 2:06 | |||||||||||||||||
| Label | Capitol | |||||||||||||||||
| Writer | Brian Wilson/Mike Love | |||||||||||||||||
| Producer | Brian Wilson | |||||||||||||||||
| All Summer Long track listing | ||||||||||||||||||
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"All Summer Long" is a song written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love for the American rock band The Beach Boys. It was released on their 1964 album All Summer Long, and as a single in the UK in February 1965 in place of Capitol's U.S. release, the Beach Boys' version of "Do You Wanna Dance?"[1] -- perhaps a tactical move by EMI in London to avoid taking sales from its existing version by Cliff Richard, "Do You Want to Dance?". As things turned out, "All Summer Long" was not a hit on the now hard-rock British scene, breaking the Beach Boys' string of three previous consecutive UK hits.
Composition
Like many other early Beach Boy songs, "All Summer Long" is about having fun and surfing, which shows key elements of their surfing style during the early 1960s. However, along with "I Get Around" and "Don't Worry Baby", this song is a lot more sophisticated than past efforts. Donald A. Guarisco, who later reviewed the song, said "All Summer Long" is a rollicking tune with beguiling teen fantasy lyrics. The narrative catalogs a series of happy events enjoyed by a guy and his girlfriend during the summer and punctuates them with the observation "every now and then we hear our song/we been having fun all summer long." The cheery sentiment of the lyrics carries over to the melody whose swirling bounciness provides a solid musical backdrop for the narrative's sunny tone. However, the true sunshine pop quality of "All Summer Long" is realized on the Beach Boys' recording, which features the group's harmonies at their most candy sweet over a jaunty instrumental track driven by boogie-woogie piano lines and some colorful xylophone hooks. The combination of sugary vocals and airy melodicism made "All Summer Long" a perfect summer tune."[2]
Personnel
Track details courtesy of session archivist Craig Slowinski.[3]
- The Beach Boys
- Al Jardine – harmony and backing vocals; electric bass guitar
- Mike Love – lead and bass vocals
- Brian Wilson – harmony and backing vocals; xylophones or marimba; producer
- Carl Wilson – harmony and backing vocals; electric rhythm guitars
- Dennis Wilson – harmony and backing vocals, drums
- Additional session musicians and technical staff
- Chuck Britz – engineer
- Steve Douglas – tenor saxophone
- Jay Migliori – piccolo or fife
Variations
On disc 5 of Good Vibrations: Thirty Years of The Beach Boys, there is a version of "All Summer Long" where the backing track and the vocals are separated onto two different speakers.
Use in media
The song is featured in the 1973 film American Graffiti as the closing credits roll, although the movie is set in the summer of 1962, two years before the song's release.
It also appears as the closing credits roll on The Simpsons episode "Summer of 4 Ft. 2". The episode makes a number of American Graffiti references.
References
- ↑ "Beach Boys UK single discography 1964-1966 (black label)". beachboys45.nl.
- ↑ "All music review". Retrieved 2010-12-18.
- ↑ Craig, Slowinski (2014). Keep an Eye On Summer 1964 (Digital Liner). Mirror. Capitol Records.
External links
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