Cabin Essence Blog

The penultimate day is a song from your childhood.  One of my first Beach Boys memories was seeing a video clip of the group perform Good Timin’ on local television, so I’m picking this great song today.

Today it’s also worth reading the Guardian interview with Brian -interesting to see his comments on movies as well as his current songwriting block.

Day 28 is a song that makes you feel guilty.  My selection today is Break Away -it’s one of my absolute favorite songs that I had to get in here somehow, it’s one of those that has made me cry and there are personal reasons why it fits in this category.

Day 27 is a song that you wish you could play. I’m going to pick a song that could have easily been the selection on day 1,  has to be selected for one of these categories, and I certainly wish I could play and sing. God Only Knows is simply one of the greatest artistic achievements by mankind.

Day 26 is a song that I can play on an instrument. Ahem, this is tricky because -confession time, I can’t play any musical instrument properly, aside from a little bit of sight-reading I can do on the piano. So I’ll need to go for a relatively simple song that I could potentially play at least the main melody on the piano -and Surfer Girl comes to mind.  I don’t think any of Brian Wilson’s are that straightforward, but this one is based on a children’s song, and has a simple, heartfelt sentiment.

Heavy stuff  today, folks -day 24 is a song you would like played at your funeral.  I actually didn’t need too long to think about it – my choice is Surf’s Up, which is simply a stunning marriage of music and words, and also a song of redemption and re-birth.

This ties in a bit with the new edition of Endless Summer Quarterly, which focuses on the 15 Big Ones album, but for me the most interesting article is David Marks’ tribute to the recently deceased  John Maus (Walker) – it was fascinating for me to realise the importance of Maus in the guitar education of both Marks and Carl Wilson.

Day 23, and one week to go. Today is a song that you want played at your wedding -and the obvious choice is the wedding song that Brian Wilson wrote, I Do.  The original released version was by the Castells, but there is a great Beach Boys version, which is on the Surfer Girl/Shut Down Vol. 2 two-fer.  It’s another example of Brian recycling a song to good effect, but most of all, it’s simply a great song that should have been a wedding staple.

Today is a song I listen to when I’m sad. Well, I can think of nothing better than putting on my favorite album, and listening to the first track, a brilliant song that can only uplift you in it’s innocence and yearning.