All I Wanna Do (Beach Boys song)

"All I Wanna Do" is a song by the American rock band the Beach Boys from their 1970 album "Sunflower". Written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love, the recording's use of layering, reverb and delay effects led it to be retrospectively cited as the earliest example of dream pop and chillwave, as well as a precursor to the shoegazing genre. It was also influential for many lo-fi acts.
The song was initially attempted for the albums "Friends" (1968) and "20/20" (1969). Carl Wilson produced the version that appeared on "Sunflower", likely with assistance from Brian, and with lead vocals by Love. The arrangement features multiple vocal parts sung in counterpoint, 12-string guitar, Rocksichord, electric sitar, and a Moog synthesizer played by engineer Stephen Desper.
Brian later said that he felt it was "a boring song" that "wasn't done right". The band never performed it in concert, although Love's touring edition of the group did, in 2015. In 2018, an earlier version of the track was released on the compilation "".
Composition.
"All I Wanna Do" was written by the band's Brian Wilson and Mike Love. The instrumentation consists of 12-string guitar, Rocksichord, electric sitar, drums, double bass, electric bass, piano, shaker, and Moog synthesizer. According to academic Philip Lambert,
Talking about the song in 1995, Brian expressed: "That was one of those songs that had a nice chord pattern, but I think it was a boring song, and I thought it wasn't done right. I thought it should have been softer, with boxed guitars." In 2000, he called the song "a real nice one". In 2015, Love commented that "All I Wanna Do" was "totally poetic and quite heartfelt".
Recording.
"All I Wanna Do" was produced by Carl Wilson, likely with assistance from Brian, at various professional studios, including the band's own private studio. On February 24, 1968, an early version of the song was recorded during the "Friends" sessions. Another version was recorded on May 24 and June 8. One of these versions, which makes use of a sitar-like instrument, appears on the 2018 compilation: "".
Another session for the song took place on March 19, 1969, at Gold Star Studios. The final arrangement opted for a guitar line which Mathew Greenwald of AllMusic describes as "Byrds-like". Heavy reverb was applied to the mix. Carl played 12-string guitar, Rocksichord, and electric sitar, while engineer Stephen Desper played Moog synthesizer. The remaining instrumentalist roles were filled in by various session musicians. The vocals were recorded at the band's studio, as overdubs onto the Gold Star track, and feature all six members, with Love handling the lead.
Legacy.
In 1970, Jim Miller of "Rolling Stone" noted production elements made the listening experience "mind-wrenching". Greenwald called the song a lost classic, writing: "Possibly one of the most beautiful and unusual songs and recordings on the "Sunflower" album... Mike Love deserves high marks for his vocal and lyric contributions, which may be his most tasteful in the scope of the entire Beach Boys canon. Brian Wilson's haunting, minor-key melody and ghostly arrangement is truly bittersweet evidence that he had certainly not lost his artistic grasp." Greenwald afforded accolades to the song's arrangement, citing the effectiveness of the piccolo snare drum and the well-executed harmonies. A 2016 reader's poll conducted by "Rolling Stone" ranked it the fourth-best Beach Boys song that was not a hit record.
In later years, the song was cited as the origin of the shoegaze and chillwave genres. In his retrospective review of "Sunflower", "Pitchfork"s Hefner Macauley acknowledged the song as a work of "proto-shoegaze" and as a standout track on the album. Katie Cameron of "Paste" concurred that the song was an "undeniably cool shoegazing precursor". Writing in "Record Collector", Jamie Atkins said that the song "ranks among their most subtly influential – makers of ambrosial lo-fi, from Galaxie 500 to Ariel Pink to Panda Bear, owe plenty to its reverb-heavy sound."
The band never performed the song in concert. In 2015, Mike Love's touring version of the Beach Boys briefly began playing the song live for the first time.
Personnel.
Credits sourced from Beach Boys archivist Craig Slowinski.
The Beach Boys