62 plays
june 20
The Beach Boys - Sloop John B
Today’s track is curated by Dan Colman / @openculture
Like no other band, The Beach Boys capitalized on summer and everything it evoked during pre-Vietnam America. Summer was their schtick. “Endless Summer” was their promise. Although their act had its hokey quality, The Beach Boys broke some serious musical ground, especially with Pet Sounds (1996), an LP now ranked 2nd on Rolling Stone’s list of “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.” Here, the band introduced its own version of The Wall of Sound, and you can hear it on full display with my favorite track, “Sloop John B.” The tune started out as a West Indies folk song called “John B. Sails,” and Carl Sandburg helped popularize it when he included it in his 1927 collection of folksongs, The American Songbag. In the Beach Boys version, the sound is ever sunny; the lyrics are decidedly less so…
