News Keith Richards picks his favourite songs by The Beach Boys: “I was more interested in their B-sides”
In the 1960s, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones entered a friendly rivalry as Britain’s two foremost pop groups. Like the Blur vs Oasis malarkey of the 1990s, this contest was stoked mainly by the media, yet Keith Richards and John Lennon saw better than to squabble like petulant schoolboys. There was also a degree of respect between the two bands since The Beatles toppled crucial barriers early on in the so-called British Invasion and even gave The Stones an early hit with ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’.
After The Beatles colonised the US with a monumental appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964, they met with another, more geographically significant rivalry. The Monkees wouldn’t be engineered as the American answer until 1966, but before that, the surf-rock legends The Beach Boys squared up to the Beatles and The Stones, jousting for international chart positions.
Famously, Brian Wilson locked horns with the Lennon-McCartney partnership in a fiercely fruitful tennis game. After The Beatles served up Rubber Soul in 1965, Wilson was inspired to one-up this proto-psychedelic triumph with one of his own. Pet Sounds did just that the following year with its progressive pop and contrapuntal harmonies. However, The Beatles had the last laugh with Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and ‘Strawberry Fields’.
The songwriter once recalled the moment he admitted defeat after hearing ‘Strawberry Fields’ in his car. “I was on one of those pills, downers, and I was really relaxed, and when ‘Strawberry Fields’ came on the radio, I locked in with it,” Wilson recalled. “I had to pull over in my car to the side, and I said, ‘I’ve never heard anything like this in my life.’”
When it comes to The Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys, the rivalry was more chart-orientated. As far as Wilson was concerned, he and The Stones operated on different turf. “I think we’re about even,” Wilson told The New York Times in 2004. “The Beach Boys were a pretty good singing group, but The Stones played their instruments better.”
This comment clearly channelled more respect towards Keith Richards’ side of the Jagger-Richards partnership. As it happens, the feelings are mutual. Although Richards favours the debauched bad boy visage, he had a lot of time for The Beach Boys’ sun-scorched surf pop in the ’60s.
In a message of praise posted on Brian Wilson’s official website, Richards noted that he was always interested in Wilson’s underrated B-sides. “I was more interested in their B-sides, the ones he slipped in,” he noted.
Richards seemed to concur with Wilson’s position that The Beach Boys and The Stones patrolled different fields. “There was no particular correlation with what we were doing, so I could just listen to it on another level,” he said, supposedly referring to a level of relaxation. “I thought these are very well-constructed songs.”
In his tribute, Richards listed some of his favourite Beach Boys tracks. After listing ‘In My Room’ and ‘Don’t Worry Baby’ as some stand-out B-sides, he remembered his favourite A-side single. “‘Round, round get around / I get around’ – I thought that was brilliant,” he said. “Brian Wilson had something.”
As Richards identifies, The Beach Boys are best known for their mid-1960s singles, like ‘Good Vibrations’ and ‘God Only Knows’. However, their immortal legacy depends on a vast, tortuous catalogue blessed by variety and progressive composition.
Keith Richards’ favourite songs by The Beach Boys:
‘In My Room’
‘Don’t Worry Baby’
‘I Get Around’
