The Beach Boys - Do It Again (1968)

The Beach Boys released Friends, their 14th studio album, on June 24, 1968 through Capitol Records. A slow seller, it became their worst-selling album ever up to that point, which came as a disappointment to the band. And in a year with releases as dark as Beggars Banquet and the White Album, and as politically charged as 1968, the relaxing and amicable vibes of the Friends album stuck out as a sore thumb, which certainly couldn't have helped sales or critical reception. However, it has since emerged as the cult classic it's always deserved to become, adored by many Beach Boys fans as one of the highlights of their post-Pet Sounds career and one of the best records of the 1960s. However, since they still needed to bounce back commercially from the album's failure, chief songwriters Brian Wilson and Mike Love wrote and recorded "Do It Again", a throwback to their earlier surf rock sound with a nostalgic theme, in May 1968. From there, it was quickly released as a single and proved to be their first hit in quite some time, a relief for the band but not for Brian, who was hurt by the fact that their only recent hit was a reworking of their old formula, and whose mental health continued the slow deterioration that had begun in 1966. Still, between May and June 1968, Brian wrote and produced music as he had done for Friends, recording such originals as "All I Wanna Do", "Sail Plane Song" and "I Went to Sleep", and covers of songs such as "Old Man River" and "Walk on By".

Brian then spent most of July 1968 trying to finish "Can't Wait Too Long", an ambitious song that he'd been playing around with since the Wild Honey sessions. A big production that harkened back to the Smile days, Wilson once again was unable to finish the song even after spending countless sessions trying to perfect it. By this time, the fact that Brian was clearly unwell became quite clear to the rest of the group, and he admitted to having suicidal urges. And so with their support, it was decided that he would be institutionalized in a psychiatric hospital. Once he returns, he is unable to either finish what he'd started in the previous months or record any new material, and with that, the band (now led by his brother Carl) are forced to take Smile outtakes "Cabin Essence" and "Our Prayer" to pad out the album. Most of what he recorded before his institutionalization remains unfinished, and he only manages to arrange a cover of Leadbelly's "Cotton Fields", which was suggested by Al Jardine. Because of that, for the first time ever a Beach Boys album was primarily written, produced, and sung by members of the band other than Brian, and the album's uneven quality and disjointed nature shows. It was once again a commercial disappointment, even while featuring a hit single, and began a period of non-involvement from Brian which would only be broken by the Brian is Back campaign and the 15 Big Ones album. But what if Brian had managed to finish his follow-up to Friends?

In this reconstruction, we will be trying to piece together the album Brian Wilson was working on in mid-1968, before his mental health deteriorated further and he was institutionalized. This record would be the lost third part of a trilogy with Wild Honey and Friends, the last Beach Boys album to feature Brian at the helm until Love You in 1977. Much like those two, the album would feature eleven or twelve songs, and not be over thirty minutes in length, continuing the subdued, lo-fi sound of its two predecessors. As with Friends, this album would be mostly written and produced by Brian, but with one or two songs by the other band members, such as "Be Still" and "Little Bird", showing their growth as songwriters and Brian's slow distancing from the producer role. Only songs recorded before Brian's institutionalization will be considered, meaning we will have to cull our album from the May 1968 to July 1968 sessions. Of course, there will be one exception to that rule, which we will explain later. Likewise, nothing from before this batch of sessions will be considered, meaning things like Friends outtakes or "Time to Get Alone" can't be a part of the album, for better or worse. There really isn't much wiggle room with this material, so we'll be cutting really close to the bone, and making some pretty controversial decisions along the way, but that's the only way we can make something good out of this. All of that being said, here's what our lost 1968 Beach Boys album looks like:

Do It Again (20/20)

Sail Plane Song (I Can Hear Music)

We're Together Again (Made in California)

All I Wanna Do (I Can Hear Music)

Walkin' (I Can Hear Music)

The Nearest Faraway Place (20/20)

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Old Man River (I Can Hear Music)

I Went to Sleep (20/20)

Mona Kana (I Can Hear Music)

Walk on By (I Can Hear Music)

Can't Wait Too Long (I Can Hear Music)

Download link:

The Beach Boys - Do It Again (1968)

Carl, engineer Stephen Desper, and Brian in the studio, sometime in 1968.

With that out of the way, all we need to do is take everything recorded between May and July 1968 and try to turn it into an album. We can start with the only two Brian Wilson productions from the Summer of 1968 that made the 20/20 album: the hit "Do It Again" and "I Went to Sleep". Along with those, Bruce Johnston's instrumental "The Nearest Faraway Place" features no involvement from Brian, but was recorded concurrently with most of this material, meaning it makes the album. Next, we have the most finished sounding outtakes of this era, those being "Walkin'" and "Sail Plane Song", from the I Can Hear Music box set, and "We're Together Again", from Made in California. While probably not release-ready yet, those songs were pretty far along and would take minimal overdubs to get released. Going into the more unfinished material, we have an edit of "Can't Wait Too Long", courtesy of Three Score and Five,  that collects exclusively the sections recorded in July 1968 for a possible single release. Clocking in at three and a half minutes, it's a reasonable length and is as close as we have to a finished version of the song, as it could have sounded like when included on the 20/20 album. We also have an edit of "All I Wanna Do", which puts together the June 1968 backing track of the song with the 1969 lead vocals of the finished Sunflower version. Again, this version was made by the great Three Score and Five, helping us get as close as possible to a finished version of it, as you'd hear in 1968.

Controversially, next we have AI-enhanced versions of "Walk on By" and the "Old Man River"/"The Old Folks at Home" medley, two unfinished covers from these sessions. While I have many ethical reservations towards the use of Artificial Intelligence, this was very tastefully done by the great Dae Lims, who has previously used this technology to create a custom mix of Smile. Besides, this sounds amazing and helps us get much closer to the album we're trying to piece together than would otherwise be possible. However, I understand if this is not something you are comfortable with, and if that's the case, feel free to replace them with their unfinished versions, as found on the I Can Hear Music box set. Finally, this version of "Mona Kana" was recorded in November 1968, which is out of the limits of our reconstruction. However, that same song was demoed by Dennis during the "Can't Wait Too Long" sessions in July, which in my mind makes it fair game as it at least dates to the Summer of '68, and gives us the eleventh song we needed to stretch this out to album length. With that, all that's left to do is to sequence the album. I took some cues from 20/20, such as starting the album with the single "Do it Again", finishing side one with Bruce's song, and having "I Went to Sleep" early on side two. Other than that, I figured that as the album's magnum opus, "Can't Wait Too Long" has a deserved spot as the album closer, while the others were just distributed based on where I thought they'd flow the best.

Since "Do It Again" was the band's first hit single in ages, I figured it would make sense to turn it into the title track of the album. Sure, it's not very representative of the rest of the album's sound, but Capitol would certainly consider it a good idea. "Can't Wait Too Long" b/w "I Went to Sleep" would probably be the second single, as that was Brian's intention while working on the former in July 1968. The cover is something I found on the internet, courtesy of u/skullman4289 on Reddit. It features a photo from the 20/20 shoot, which of course doesn't feature Brian. Now, normally this would have been a problem, since Brian is the main creative force behind the record, but given that photos of all six Beach Boys in 1968 are nigh-on impossible to find, it will be allowed. It clocks in at 29 minutes, with a slightly longer side one because of the extra song it features, another short album from the Beach Boys. While this is certainly a weaker album than Wild Honey and Friends, it's superior in almost every way to 20/20, a hodgepodge of songs by the other members of the Beach Boys and of earlier outtakes. This album actually feels like the logical step forward from Friends, and has the consistency to prove it. Given Brian's mental state at the time, the fact that he made as good as this is a testament to his talent as a songwriter and producer. It's just a great pity that the final Beach Boys album with Brian Wilson as the main creative force couldn't be finished, and we had to wait almost ten years for him to do it again.

Sources:

- Bellagio 10452 - Shows and Sessions: 1968

- Peter Ames Carlin - Catch a Wave