Glad you enjoyed it! I'll definitely do more Beach Boys videos... I have a Good Vibrations episode partly planned out already 👍 Don't forget to sub, if you haven't already 😉 thanks!
I heard ‘Until I die’ off the Album’Surf’s Up’ back in the mid 70’s and decided as a teenager it was one the best albums I had ever heard. It still is. 45 years later.
For me, "' 'Till I Die' by the Beach Boys" will always be (and has been for a very long time now) the answer to the old and annoying "What do you think is the greatest popular music piece ever?" party small-talk question... This is the one; this is the pinnacle of what has been accomplished within the "Rock/Pop" paradigm to date. Mark Hollis came pretty close when he recorded "After the Flood" in '91 (a full 20 years after "Surf's Up" was released); but, as of now, "'Till I Die" remains an unequaled solitaire, a one-of-a-kind achievement in human artistic expression.
Addendum: thanks for the detailed functional analysis! In the early 1990s I arranged "'Till I Die" for our university choir, SATB. As I recall, I had it originally notated in C, probably for readability, so that the more distant chords would be indicated by accidentals. (IIRC I later had to transpose up because it was mostly girls and the original key was too low; unfortunately I no longer have the sheet). I remember being fascinated by the fact that the piece goes quite far beyond the scope of functional harmony. I believe (and of course I could be completely wrong here) that B.W. has a solid yet idiosycratic theoretical knowledge and mostly composes according to "heart and ear", at least in his greatest moments. And, sometimes, such a masterpiece as "'Till I Die" results.... (my choir-version wasn't much of a succsess, neither with the singers nor with the audience...).
lots of beach boys fans love til i die for me This Whole World is the most underrated, it's secretly their best song and overlooked even by people who appreciate Sunflower
I was contemplating this song a few days ago, and I think this is some of the the most religious music ever written by a human! This song connects me with my own soul and the soul of humanity (lost my way, hey, hey, hey) in a most profound way. Thank you, beautiful soul Brian Wilson! "Surf's Up" is a MASTERPIECE next to "Pet Sounds."...and the whole Beach Boys catalogue! Genius, genius, genius! Strong analysis, THANK YOU!
It is philosophical in the context of the classical theme of three. The cork, rock and leaf in the cosmos. Man vs. universe. Desper’s mix is exquisite. And the reality is that they are in a business. It had to be marketable. The record company did not market them properly.
This song has always had a calming effect on me, and I always thought it was strange because the lyrics talk of insignificance and that shouldn't be a calming idea, however I think your description of the chord progression in this song explains it, there doesn't seem to be a completely coherent structure to it, it's difficult to latch onto a key for the song, that combined with its tempo makes it sound meditative and recontextualises the lyrics (not completely, but the majority of them) it's like it's saying "I'm a cork in the ocean, it's a shame but that's all I'm going to be, might as well get on with it".
Yeah, I feel much the same way about it. It's such an unusual song, but I've always ultimately felt it was uplifting rather than purely depressing (I'm just repeating what I said in the video now haha...). It's almost a shame that it's so short, but at the same time, it's exactly as long as it needs to be! Thanks for watching, as always!
Thanks so much! Glad you enjoyed it. Yep - as you can probably tell, I also love the song. I really think Surf's Up is a fantastic album, and the three closing songs are as close to perfect as anything I've heard
From my perspective, the Bsus4 gives the song a "C" feel. That's because you can resolve to the I basically any which way if you put something that sticks out right on the leading tone. Could just as easily have been Bdim or any chord that emphasizes the major subtonic. This also ties into that chord as being the crescendo of the chorus. This is harder for me to pinpoint exactly why, but the Em to Gmaj movement in the verse "feels" like the iii to V - this is just intuition from many years of writing music but can't say for sure. It then modulates to G for the outro, which is a pretty striaghtforward movement. That being said, this was also a period where BW had really begun shifting towards writing rock n' roll, so the movement from the minor iii to major III might have really been sticking in his mind. And clearly he's someone for whom certain themes really "stuck" and he'd go thru periods of writing everything in accordance with the current theme.
interesting analysis, Til I Die is one of my favorite Brian Wilson songs, the chord progression always intrigued me and the lyrics of course are haunting
Great vid, thanks for sharing your thoughts! I hear both C and Em/G tonalities splitting each verse. C since the Bb at "raging sea" just does not feel like a proper an arrival as C (maybe I just like that Final Fantasy fanfare too much, who knows). I hear Em/G because the Bsus4 CM7 could be contextualized as "clue chords" leading to Em (Vsus4 VI7 i), and then the arrival of that Em chord is accompanied by a texture shift (less voices, lower register) and harmonic rhythm giving the chord twice the duration of any prior chords that appear in the verses. You've probably considered such an idea as this but I shared just in case it happens to be a different angle for anyone. With that said, "towards G" is a good answer, and if we had to go with one key, I do agree with you on G-something. Again, great analysis! Glad someone gave this song its well-deserved deep dive.
hahah Love the Antz reference. I saw that in theaters with my mom when I was about 9 years old. She did not know how much of an adult movie it would be and not for kids at all.
Loved this, and this is one of my favorite songs of all time. And your analysis, or essay or whatever you want to call it was so smart and engaging. Nice one, thanks!
I love the album and "Till I Die" and "Long Promised Road" are fantastic songs! I don't understand why commercially Surfs Up was disappointing! The Beach Boys were the greatest! I was talking about this album to my friends in High School and my friends thought it was great too! I want "Till I Die" and "Long Promised Road" played at my funeral! "Till I Die" is not depressing at all, it is contemplative, it is contemplative about life itself and our part in it!
@bigyellowpraxis I was a music major and am doing a lot of songwriting. I love seeing/hearing the music breakdowns as well as the ones for the lyrics. In addition to being fond of and having an appreciation for popular as well as classical music, I'm also a big fan of musical theater. I've studied Sondheim and am occasionally influenced by him in my writing. Using the music to help communicate the lyrics is something I pick up on, so your breaking down the lyrics and music of one of his darkest songs is cool on many levels. Thanks for taking the time and bringing your curiosity and passion to the occasion.
Bravo! I could watch BBs/BW videos like this all day long. For the, um, record...in 40 years, I had never noticed the similarity to "You Never Give Me Your Money." Please imagine me smacking my forehead and muttering "Of course!"...
I loved your analysis! I think that Til I Die really helps one to understand the 'sad songs about happiness' (or vice versa!) comment about Brian's music. Sometimes there is ambiguity because the lyrics are telling a different story to the melody, I hear calmness and acceptance in those final words rather than despair and there's no angst.
Thanks so much! I'm glad you enjoyed the video :) Totally agree about the ambiguity in Brian's music - it's so much more mature than most give him credit for Thanks for watching! Hopefully I'll make some more Beach Boys vids at some point
I was so happy when I guessed in my head that we were actually in G In the middle of the video. it’s the little things that make me happy to play by ear because anything after that fifth circle just confuses me with the Roman numeraling hahaha
I discovered this song a few days ago. It bowled me over. It just does something amazing to my head... glad others learned to love it as well. I've listened to it about 10 times since I discovered it... just let it wash over me.
wow I never really noticed the connection between til I die and you never give me your money - I'd watch an entire series that traces the connection between songs like this :)
Thanks for watching! I hadn't noticed the similarities for years actually, until someone pointed out to me. And maybe I'll do more videos like this then :)
Thank so much! Glad you enjoyed it. And thank you for subscribing :) you'll find a couple other Beach Boys videos on my channel, and tbh they get a mention in pretty much every single video! 😅
Fabulous job! I don't understand the chord stuff but that's fine...love the analysis and graphics. You probably know this, but Dave Edmunds made "Til I Die" the coda to his rendition of "Beach Boy Blood".
Thanks so much for watching! Glad you enjoyed it I didn't actually know that Dave Edmunds song - thanks for introducing me to it. Thanks for the comment 😀
Plzz make more beach men vids! Love your analysis vids and am a huge bb fan. Maybe something from smile like cabin essence or wind chimes?? Or the later stuff like sail on sailer ;)????;););););) Either way keep doing whatcha doing!!!
Thanks so much! :) That's massively appreciated. I will definitely do more Beach Boys/Brian Wilson videos in the future... I just have to curtail my inclination to talk about the Beach Boys, because this would turn into a BBs fan channel otherwise ;)
8:25 I love that you used a picture of The Prefab Four here lol Also your chord talk sent me through a rabbit hole and from what I could find, apparently Disney Girls, also from Surf's Up, is the Beach Boys song with the most chords at 31 (!!!!), followed by Friends from the album Friends (1968) with 26 chords. However, the former is 4m10s long while the latter is 2m33s, so I might end up inventing Chords Per Second as a way to measure their songwriting ability lmao
I sorta get the circle of fifths stuff but is there some explanation why the harmonies are so haunting? Does that come from the production or is it the note choices in the harmony stacks? Great video!
Good question! But not necessarily an easy one to answer - after all, what is 'haunting'? We may not all agree on what that means precisely, and whether this song actually is haunting... I'd generally say there's a few things going on: as I say in the video, the harmonic progression itself is a bit meandering and unmoored, both through the verses and through the coda. I think if you just strummed these chords by themselves on a guitar, even to someone with no understanding of music theory, it would be clear that there's something a little odd going on. Is that alone haunting? Maybe? But then the vocal lines are also very chromatic - listen to Carl in the verses. Is lots of chomaticism haunting? I think given how slow the song is, and the simple melodic rhythm, it contributes to it. And then all the reverb, and the instrumentation (organ, vibraphone, that simple drumming, the simple bass) builds a certain sort of audio/musical space that I think inherently sounds haunting (or something close to it.). Given the lyrics; the stack of voices - the sound of Brian's falsetto at this point in time, and Carl's vocal timbre: everything seems to be working towards that 'haunting' vibe.
Maybe it's also the voicings. On the first chord it sounds to me like there are three voices separated by sixths - a low G, an Eb in the middle and a High C. Those are quite big intervals for vocal harmony. And then they also move around and get closer to each other, which may also contribute to the interesting sound.
Underrated song ? I am pretty sure to not be the only one, but for me it is probably his greatest song, on par with Warmth of the Sun, Caroline no and Good Vibrations. The harmony vocals and the production have no equal, and the melody is just a miracle, a gift fallen from heavens.
Very interesting song. the song itself reminds me of waves crashing on the beach and how the sea looks like endless nothingness. I guess the harmonies and the organ/xylophone contribute heavily to this swirling wave sea
Great video! Not sure if someone else has already mentioned this (there's a lot of comments), but Brian did produce a version of Irving Berlin's How Deep is the Ocean for Dick Reynolds in late 1965. So he was definitely intimately familiar with the song. I've always heard that lyric in Til I Die as a reference to this song. th-cam.com/video/rXBljjceb4s/w-d-xo.html
I pretty much disagree with most of this and here’s why (I think it’s a good attempt but my conspiracy theory stuff is far…more weird?). I think Brian was combining a few songs into this. The first major one is Don’t Back Down: the chords are about facing a wave and don’t be afraid, get back up. Which happens to…start on a flat and have some weird key changes. “Oh, you gotta be a little nuts to show them who’s got guts. Don’t back down from that wave.” Can the cork back down? Can the rock in the landslide back down? Can the wind? Did Brian? So right there we have the idea Mike hated it. Maybe he did. He said it’s the best song Brian wrote lyrics for however, complaining solely about the line “it kills my soul.” Case closed, Mike said the downer line, right? Well… It’s been hinted but not confirmed. Bruce plays with Mike and says it’s Brian’s last great song and Mike does play this song at gigs (which seems weird if it’s such a downer). More plausible is that Dennis called it a downer, and this can be further insinuated by a Dennis song appearing called “Wouldn’t It Be Nice To Live Again” which he apparently wanted to end Surf’s Up with (Carl objected). Rieley (unreliable) also stated that Dennis pulled his songs because infighting, and furthermore, Rieley tried getting Brian to write a Fourth of July song, and Brian was not interested. So he got Dennis to do it. This mentioned in a rolling stone interview from around the time, which also featured choice comments from Van Dyke Parks about Brian. So I view it likely as Brian not wanting to deal with Dennis at the time and Dennis being the least likely to be into the song til I die, which Brian recorded specifically while Dennis was unavailable (everyone else appeared on the track). There have also been rumors to Brian objecting to Carry Me Home historically and I have personally seen Brian refuse to sing the word “Dying” in Sail on Sailor and trash those lyrics. But Mike, Al and Carl were very into TM at this time and Indian spirituality and that means reincarnation: that, life is struggle, so don’t back down. Hence, the cork running from the wave rises. The leaf will rise on a rainy day. How high is the sky? Whoops, wrong song. Another odd detail is that the concert album does not feature any of Dennis’s songs, nor does Brian appear on any Dennis songs except for possibly cuddle up after that episode, and Brian was very involved in the 1973 in concert album and no Dennis songs appeared (yet heroes and villains does appear) on what was released (and Brian and Bruce Johnston took the stage on one known occasion despite Brian supposedly being in bed and Bruce not being a beach boy). Chords start on the a flat, climbing unsteadily to C. When it centers there it goes to the fifth. Then, as if falling, it goes back to C. Oh Sisyphus, you’ve cheated death twice. You couldn’t die as a cork, nor a leaf. You will be punished to roll a rock up the hill for life. To kill his soul, Hades constantly made the rock go down in a landslide. When Brian rests at C, he looks unsure (the tense move to F) and then almost slips to B sus before regaining his footing and commenting…”aww shucks, I gotta go get the rock back up.” This loud ramble seems implausible, almost as if Til I Die might be some sort of Buddhist joke (while Brian denies this regarding smile…he also describes himself as a guy who read too much he wanted to make a comedy album)…there’s a band that gets little notice that Brian was likely obsessed with at this time. Reach Out was a major hit when Smile collapses, with the singer asking you to reach out, and he’ll be there, in times of trouble. That album featured a song by the association (cherish), a group that sounds very similar to The Beach Boys which would have a hit from a guy that would later become Brian’s best friend…coincidentally around the time of this song getting recorded. But the song that went through Brian’s mind was not on Reach Out. It’s the same old song. Literally. Brian stole a bunch of the lyrics of that for Wild Honey, an album that is Brian consciously trying to sound like the four tops. The weirdest part about Til I Die? If you listen to the demo, before the track comes in, Brian’s playing the riff from It’s The Same Old Song. It clearly was on his mind when this song was written. In terms of You Never Give Me Your Money, this is the right track: the chords in Til I Die are mostly the same idea. Instead of Am and descending the bass to D or F, Brian simply goes upwards. C to B flat to A flat, but in reverse.
To me, it is the most gorgeous Beach Boys track they ever did. It was totally NOT Beach Boys "I Get Around/Surfin' USA" style. The album Surf's Up was concerned with personal and environmental health, and it kick started my passion into thinking more deeply about the state of the Earth and how we ought to be looking after it, instead of totally exploiting it - which we were very much doing in the 1960s with zero care for the outcome.
I love this video, but some of what you say is pretty odd to my ears. I see no reason to try and pin this song to one key or other. You point out that there’s a lot of G-C-F-Bb but then waffle on about the circle of fifths and conclude it’s in G (or Gm) when clearly the first 3 of those 4 chords says the key of C and the last 3 or those 4 says the key of F. Also, some of the chords you name I don’t quite agree. So many harmonies are stacked I don’t blame anyone for varying interpretation but eg. I’d call that Bsus4 an Em(+9) and.. the chords at 16:35 (where you talk about the bass vocals hovering around the key of Gm) are just your classic Merseybeat progression - in this case G-Bb-Eb-D-G (if it was the Beatles in ‘62 that last G would be a G6) .. to my ears it’s a bit of a nod to Walk Don’t Run, or more significantly, have a listen to the b.vocal melody over Em+9 just before the final fading G-Bb-Eb-D cycle, you might hear a nod to Pipeline (the Chantays, 1963), which is a clever pun on the theme of bobbing like a cork on the ocean, or more broadly, Beach Boys, Surf’s Up, very neat
Speaker does good work....however, the film edit inserts are distracting, at times ridiculous.... they take away from the importance of the info. And with all his musical insight & bookworm knowledge......I bet this speaker has not himself written one acceptable song!!!
Thanks for the comment - the editing, I will admit, may be annoying to some people! But it's just how I make videos, so I am unlikely to change that any time soon. Thanks for watching though. And here is a song I wrote (there are actually a couple more on my channel, if you're curious). I'll leave it to you to judge whether this song is acceptable th-cam.com/video/K44pl3CKeQ4/w-d-xo.html
It’s not about the edits. Listen to what he is saying. It makes sense, is balanced and interesting. You don’t have to be a songwriter to have an opinion.
I have to admit... that if Brian copied from the Beatles on this, as he seems to have done, it takes a lot of the pleasure out of it for me. Unfortunate. Oh well. He did create something new with fabulous lyrics, but now I can't unhear what was revealed. But I'll get over it! Still, I'm always afraid if I write a melody, it will be an accidental capture from somebody else, which I would find unacceptable. So if it sounds especially good, I tend to assume I subconsciously acquired it from elsewhere and I'm very suspicious of it.
Honestly, I don't think it *should* take any pleasure out of it for anyone. Firstly, it's certainly not clear that Brian did take any influence/inspiration from You Never Give Me Your Money - it's just a theory amongst Beach Boys nerds. There's a biiiit of similarity in that melody, but it's a very tiny bit, *and* it's not a significant part of the song itself. Secondly, as I talk about in the video - *everyone* does this a bit! It's not plagiarism to lift melodies and change them a bit/suit them to your needs. Mozart did it, Beethoven, the Beatles certainly did, Miles Davis, Thelonius Monk... I would struggle more to think of a musician who never did it! You're always going to stumble on melodies that sound like someone else's - you'll get used to it! Embrace it :)
No music you listen to was created in vacuum, or came from nothing. Influrnce is part and parcel of music. Today we say "copied" so cavalierly. You yourself are simply re-stating the frame of mind in which countless others have expressed disappointment based on their own perceptions, regardless of those perceptions being accurate or not. Does that fact make your feeling about it in any way less genuine, or does that make your take on it fraudulent? Of course not, your feelings are unique, even if they share similarities to that of others. In many ways however, I believe the take on it that you express is to a degree arrogant, in that you seem to feel your personal requirements for integrity is what drives creation by an artist. It is, in effect, a pipe-dream of unrealistic standards. Only that one person can create anything which meets that one person's criteria for such stringent requisites. In other words, only you can truly create something you define as truly unique or free of influence given that set of rules. That's a lot of words to say *only you truly knows you*
Great analysis!
Thanks for watching! Glad you enjoyed it :)
We need more music theory vids on The Beach Boys. This side of TH-cam is starved of content like this.
Glad you enjoyed it! I'll definitely do more Beach Boys videos... I have a Good Vibrations episode partly planned out already 👍
Don't forget to sub, if you haven't already 😉 thanks!
Love this song. It's not depressing. It's contemplative.
Thanks for watching! I agree, one of my favourite songs ever
I heard ‘Until I die’ off the Album’Surf’s Up’ back in the mid 70’s and decided as a teenager it was one the best albums I had ever heard. It still is. 45 years later.
For me, "' 'Till I Die' by the Beach Boys" will always be (and has been for a very long time now) the answer to the old and annoying "What do you think is the greatest popular music piece ever?" party small-talk question... This is the one; this is the pinnacle of what has been accomplished within the "Rock/Pop" paradigm to date. Mark Hollis came pretty close when he recorded "After the Flood" in '91 (a full 20 years after "Surf's Up" was released); but, as of now, "'Till I Die" remains an unequaled solitaire, a one-of-a-kind achievement in human artistic expression.
Addendum: thanks for the detailed functional analysis! In the early 1990s I arranged "'Till I Die" for our university choir, SATB. As I recall, I had it originally notated in C, probably for readability, so that the more distant chords would be indicated by accidentals. (IIRC I later had to transpose up because it was mostly girls and the original key was too low; unfortunately I no longer have the sheet). I remember being fascinated by the fact that the piece goes quite far beyond the scope of functional harmony. I believe (and of course I could be completely wrong here) that B.W. has a solid yet idiosycratic theoretical knowledge and mostly composes according to "heart and ear", at least in his greatest moments. And, sometimes, such a masterpiece as "'Till I Die" results.... (my choir-version wasn't much of a succsess, neither with the singers nor with the audience...).
I disagree, but only because I think Surf's Up is the greatest popular music piece ever. Til I Die comes in at no. 2!
Thank you so much for watching!
Your choir version sounds great. I'd love to hear it if you have a recording at all. 😊
I would add your comment, Surf’s Up is the Beach Boys best album.
GOD BLESS BRIAN WILSON.
🙌🙌🙌
lots of beach boys fans love til i die
for me This Whole World is the most underrated, it's secretly their best song and overlooked even by people who appreciate Sunflower
I was contemplating this song a few days ago, and I think this is some of the the most religious music ever written by a human! This song connects me with my own soul and the soul of humanity (lost my way, hey, hey, hey) in a most profound way. Thank you, beautiful soul Brian Wilson! "Surf's Up" is a MASTERPIECE next to "Pet Sounds."...and the whole Beach Boys catalogue! Genius, genius, genius! Strong analysis, THANK YOU!
One of my favorite
It is philosophical in the context of the classical theme of three. The cork, rock and leaf in the cosmos. Man vs. universe. Desper’s mix is exquisite. And the reality is that they are in a business. It had to be marketable. The record company did not market them properly.
You're right!
Wow. I've always loved Til I Die and You Never Give Me Your Money. Thanks for pointing out the similarities.
This song has always had a calming effect on me, and I always thought it was strange because the lyrics talk of insignificance and that shouldn't be a calming idea, however I think your description of the chord progression in this song explains it, there doesn't seem to be a completely coherent structure to it, it's difficult to latch onto a key for the song, that combined with its tempo makes it sound meditative and recontextualises the lyrics (not completely, but the majority of them) it's like it's saying "I'm a cork in the ocean, it's a shame but that's all I'm going to be, might as well get on with it".
Yeah, I feel much the same way about it. It's such an unusual song, but I've always ultimately felt it was uplifting rather than purely depressing (I'm just repeating what I said in the video now haha...).
It's almost a shame that it's so short, but at the same time, it's exactly as long as it needs to be!
Thanks for watching, as always!
It kills my soul, hey hey hey.
Brian is a genius.
Great analysis! This song in particular always struck a chord with me, along with Surf's Up as an album.
Thanks so much! Glad you enjoyed it.
Yep - as you can probably tell, I also love the song. I really think Surf's Up is a fantastic album, and the three closing songs are as close to perfect as anything I've heard
From my perspective, the Bsus4 gives the song a "C" feel. That's because you can resolve to the I basically any which way if you put something that sticks out right on the leading tone. Could just as easily have been Bdim or any chord that emphasizes the major subtonic. This also ties into that chord as being the crescendo of the chorus. This is harder for me to pinpoint exactly why, but the Em to Gmaj movement in the verse "feels" like the iii to V - this is just intuition from many years of writing music but can't say for sure. It then modulates to G for the outro, which is a pretty striaghtforward movement. That being said, this was also a period where BW had really begun shifting towards writing rock n' roll, so the movement from the minor iii to major III might have really been sticking in his mind. And clearly he's someone for whom certain themes really "stuck" and he'd go thru periods of writing everything in accordance with the current theme.
interesting analysis, Til I Die is one of my favorite Brian Wilson songs, the chord progression always intrigued me and the lyrics of course are haunting
Thanks for watching! Yes, I agree, one of my favourites too
Great vid, thanks for sharing your thoughts! I hear both C and Em/G tonalities splitting each verse. C since the Bb at "raging sea" just does not feel like a proper an arrival as C (maybe I just like that Final Fantasy fanfare too much, who knows). I hear Em/G because the Bsus4 CM7 could be contextualized as "clue chords" leading to Em (Vsus4 VI7 i), and then the arrival of that Em chord is accompanied by a texture shift (less voices, lower register) and harmonic rhythm giving the chord twice the duration of any prior chords that appear in the verses. You've probably considered such an idea as this but I shared just in case it happens to be a different angle for anyone.
With that said, "towards G" is a good answer, and if we had to go with one key, I do agree with you on G-something.
Again, great analysis! Glad someone gave this song its well-deserved deep dive.
hahah Love the Antz reference. I saw that in theaters with my mom when I was about 9 years old. She did not know how much of an adult movie it would be and not for kids at all.
Loved this, and this is one of my favorite songs of all time. And your analysis, or essay or whatever you want to call it was so smart and engaging. Nice one, thanks!
Brian's talent is redemptive, this song is a triumph of the human spirit
Phenomenal video! I'd love to hear more Beach Boys chord analyses, maybe do Girls on the Beach?
Maybe one day! I've done one on Break Away recently - check it out :) Thanks for watching
I find it interesting that he covers three of the four elements - water, air, and earth. He misses fire....
I love the album and "Till I Die" and "Long Promised Road" are fantastic songs! I don't understand why commercially Surfs Up was disappointing! The Beach Boys were the greatest! I was talking about this album to my friends in High School and my friends thought it was great too! I want "Till I Die" and "Long Promised Road" played at my funeral! "Till I Die" is not depressing at all, it is contemplative, it is contemplative about life itself and our part in it!
This review was very detailed yet still succinct and to the point, I really enjoyed it! I hope to see more Beach Boys song reviews
Awesome! Thanks for watching, and I'm glad you enjoyed the video!
I see you sneaking that picture of The Rutles in there! :D
Thanks for noticing ;) haha
Great video!! this is one of the greatest songs everrrrr
i love this song
Me too!
Thanks for watching :)
Nicely done, mate! Really good musical and lyrical exploration.
Thanks so much. Glad you like the video, and I appreciate the comment 😀
@bigyellowpraxis I was a music major and am doing a lot of songwriting. I love seeing/hearing the music breakdowns as well as the ones for the lyrics. In addition to being fond of and having an appreciation for popular as well as classical music, I'm also a big fan of musical theater. I've studied Sondheim and am occasionally influenced by him in my writing.
Using the music to help communicate the lyrics is something I pick up on, so your breaking down the lyrics and music of one of his darkest songs is cool on many levels. Thanks for taking the time and bringing your curiosity and passion to the occasion.
Bravo! I could watch BBs/BW videos like this all day long. For the, um, record...in 40 years, I had never noticed the similarity to "You Never Give Me Your Money." Please imagine me smacking my forehead and muttering "Of course!"...
Hah! It took someone pointing it out to me before I realised too!
Thanks for watching, glad you enjoyed the video 😀
I loved your analysis! I think that Til I Die really helps one to understand the 'sad songs about happiness' (or vice versa!) comment about Brian's music. Sometimes there is ambiguity because the lyrics are telling a different story to the melody, I hear calmness and acceptance in those final words rather than despair and there's no angst.
Thanks so much! I'm glad you enjoyed the video :)
Totally agree about the ambiguity in Brian's music - it's so much more mature than most give him credit for
Thanks for watching! Hopefully I'll make some more Beach Boys vids at some point
I was so happy when I guessed in my head that we were actually in G In the middle of the video. it’s the little things that make me happy to play by ear because anything after that fifth circle just confuses me with the Roman numeraling hahaha
This was amazing! Keep up the great work. Just played these chords on piano and love how right it feels despite being an unconventional progression.
Thanks so much! Glad you liked it :)
The most ethereal and haunting sounds come from the vibraphone. It makes the song.
Fantastic song.
Isn't it just!
Great counterpoint harmony's
Absolutely
How deep is the ocean of knowledge?
How deep are the valleys in our lives?
How long will i go on for?
Thanks for watching!
This was a super interesting video, great analysis!
Thanks so much! Glad you enjoyed it!
Nice profile pic, by the way. Maybe I'll look at a song from Love You one day
I discovered this song a few days ago. It bowled me over. It just does something amazing to my head... glad others learned to love it as well. I've listened to it about 10 times since I discovered it... just let it wash over me.
It's a beautiful song, and once of my favourites! Part of me thinks it's too short, but another part of me thinks it's the perfect length
Wow! Fantastic video. Thanks for posting. 👍
No problem! Thanks for watching - glad you enjoyed the video
wow I never really noticed the connection between til I die and you never give me your money - I'd watch an entire series that traces the connection between songs like this :)
Thanks for watching!
I hadn't noticed the similarities for years actually, until someone pointed out to me.
And maybe I'll do more videos like this then :)
Oh wow, they both had a sus4 chord? I dount the beatles song has the major 6th, let alone whatever an e minor is called in an e flat scale.
I love the Rutles joke. So well placed :D
I would have liked that the line “I’m a message in a bottle” be included somewhere by the idea of some Beach Boy
This is just a fantastic analysis 👏
Great video, it’s very well made. I always love seeing videos about the lesser known beach boy songs. You definitely earned my sub
Thank so much! Glad you enjoyed it. And thank you for subscribing :) you'll find a couple other Beach Boys videos on my channel, and tbh they get a mention in pretty much every single video! 😅
So true it’s a masterpiece !
Fabulous job! I don't understand the chord stuff but that's fine...love the analysis and graphics.
You probably know this, but Dave Edmunds made "Til I Die" the coda to his rendition of "Beach Boy Blood".
Thanks so much for watching! Glad you enjoyed it
I didn't actually know that Dave Edmunds song - thanks for introducing me to it. Thanks for the comment 😀
Plzz make more beach men vids! Love your analysis vids and am a huge bb fan. Maybe something from smile like cabin essence or wind chimes??
Or the later stuff like sail on sailer ;)????;););););)
Either way keep doing whatcha doing!!!
Thanks so much! :) That's massively appreciated.
I will definitely do more Beach Boys/Brian Wilson videos in the future... I just have to curtail my inclination to talk about the Beach Boys, because this would turn into a BBs fan channel otherwise ;)
This video is just amazing. Fantastic. Thanks for that ❤️
Thanks for watching :)
8:25 I love that you used a picture of The Prefab Four here lol
Also your chord talk sent me through a rabbit hole and from what I could find, apparently Disney Girls, also from Surf's Up, is the Beach Boys song with the most chords at 31 (!!!!), followed by Friends from the album Friends (1968) with 26 chords.
However, the former is 4m10s long while the latter is 2m33s, so I might end up inventing Chords Per Second as a way to measure their songwriting ability lmao
Gotta love a picardy third, great analysis!
Thanks so much - glad you enjoyed it. Hit that subscribe button! :)
Great video!
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it
I sorta get the circle of fifths stuff but is there some explanation why the harmonies are so haunting? Does that come from the production or is it the note choices in the harmony stacks? Great video!
Good question! But not necessarily an easy one to answer - after all, what is 'haunting'? We may not all agree on what that means precisely, and whether this song actually is haunting...
I'd generally say there's a few things going on: as I say in the video, the harmonic progression itself is a bit meandering and unmoored, both through the verses and through the coda. I think if you just strummed these chords by themselves on a guitar, even to someone with no understanding of music theory, it would be clear that there's something a little odd going on. Is that alone haunting? Maybe?
But then the vocal lines are also very chromatic - listen to Carl in the verses. Is lots of chomaticism haunting? I think given how slow the song is, and the simple melodic rhythm, it contributes to it.
And then all the reverb, and the instrumentation (organ, vibraphone, that simple drumming, the simple bass) builds a certain sort of audio/musical space that I think inherently sounds haunting (or something close to it.). Given the lyrics; the stack of voices - the sound of Brian's falsetto at this point in time, and Carl's vocal timbre: everything seems to be working towards that 'haunting' vibe.
Maybe it's also the voicings. On the first chord it sounds to me like there are three voices separated by sixths - a low G, an Eb in the middle and a High C. Those are quite big intervals for vocal harmony. And then they also move around and get closer to each other, which may also contribute to the interesting sound.
Interesting video. Thank you and keep it up. 👍
Thanks so much! I appreciate it :)
Well, actually, "Wonderful" is much more bizzareish-nice song from Brian. Far stranger, than this song is.
Probably! I prefer Til I Die, though, so thought I'd talk about it :) thanks for watching
Underrated song ? I am pretty sure to not be the only one, but for me it is probably his greatest song, on par with Warmth of the Sun, Caroline no and Good Vibrations. The harmony vocals and the production have no equal, and the melody is just a miracle, a gift fallen from heavens.
Very interesting song. the song itself reminds me of waves crashing on the beach and how the sea looks like endless nothingness. I guess the harmonies and the organ/xylophone contribute heavily to this swirling wave sea
Thank you for you love and passion
Thanks for watching!
You should do an analysis of surfs up
Maybe one day. Surf's Up is my favourite song ever... I'd have to feel I can do it justice!
Thanks for watching!
@@bigyellowpraxis My favourite too.
Heh, my favorite of all time, as well. That song, more than any other, helped me understand what depth of art is possible with music.
The Rutles!!
The lyrics/theme are a bit similar to King of Pain by the Police. Wonder if Sting was a fan.
Brian Wilson had at the time was Depression
True. What tragic lives all the Boys lived
What is the name of the song you used at 7:54?
Where Is She - it wasn't released until much later, on a few compilations. It only exists in demo form, as far as I'm aware
I have a theory on the verse melody. ;)
Oh, do tell!
Thanks for watching!
Great video! Not sure if someone else has already mentioned this (there's a lot of comments), but Brian did produce a version of Irving Berlin's How Deep is the Ocean for Dick Reynolds in late 1965. So he was definitely intimately familiar with the song. I've always heard that lyric in Til I Die as a reference to this song. th-cam.com/video/rXBljjceb4s/w-d-xo.html
Ahh nice find! Thanks for watching - glad you liked the video :)
I pretty much disagree with most of this and here’s why (I think it’s a good attempt but my conspiracy theory stuff is far…more weird?). I think Brian was combining a few songs into this. The first major one is Don’t Back Down: the chords are about facing a wave and don’t be afraid, get back up. Which happens to…start on a flat and have some weird key changes. “Oh, you gotta be a little nuts to show them who’s got guts. Don’t back down from that wave.” Can the cork back down? Can the rock in the landslide back down? Can the wind? Did Brian?
So right there we have the idea Mike hated it. Maybe he did. He said it’s the best song Brian wrote lyrics for however, complaining solely about the line “it kills my soul.” Case closed, Mike said the downer line, right?
Well…
It’s been hinted but not confirmed. Bruce plays with Mike and says it’s Brian’s last great song and Mike does play this song at gigs (which seems weird if it’s such a downer).
More plausible is that Dennis called it a downer, and this can be further insinuated by a Dennis song appearing called “Wouldn’t It Be Nice To Live Again” which he apparently wanted to end Surf’s Up with (Carl objected). Rieley (unreliable) also stated that Dennis pulled his songs because infighting, and furthermore, Rieley tried getting Brian to write a Fourth of July song, and Brian was not interested. So he got Dennis to do it. This mentioned in a rolling stone interview from around the time, which also featured choice comments from Van Dyke Parks about Brian. So I view it likely as Brian not wanting to deal with Dennis at the time and Dennis being the least likely to be into the song til I die, which Brian recorded specifically while Dennis was unavailable (everyone else appeared on the track). There have also been rumors to Brian objecting to Carry Me Home historically and I have personally seen Brian refuse to sing the word “Dying” in Sail on Sailor and trash those lyrics. But Mike, Al and Carl were very into TM at this time and Indian spirituality and that means reincarnation: that, life is struggle, so don’t back down. Hence, the cork running from the wave rises. The leaf will rise on a rainy day. How high is the sky? Whoops, wrong song. Another odd detail is that the concert album does not feature any of Dennis’s songs, nor does Brian appear on any Dennis songs except for possibly cuddle up after that episode, and Brian was very involved in the 1973 in concert album and no Dennis songs appeared (yet heroes and villains does appear) on what was released (and Brian and Bruce Johnston took the stage on one known occasion despite Brian supposedly being in bed and Bruce not being a beach boy).
Chords start on the a flat, climbing unsteadily to C. When it centers there it goes to the fifth. Then, as if falling, it goes back to C. Oh Sisyphus, you’ve cheated death twice. You couldn’t die as a cork, nor a leaf. You will be punished to roll a rock up the hill for life. To kill his soul, Hades constantly made the rock go down in a landslide. When Brian rests at C, he looks unsure (the tense move to F) and then almost slips to B sus before regaining his footing and commenting…”aww shucks, I gotta go get the rock back up.”
This loud ramble seems implausible, almost as if Til I Die might be some sort of Buddhist joke (while Brian denies this regarding smile…he also describes himself as a guy who read too much he wanted to make a comedy album)…there’s a band that gets little notice that Brian was likely obsessed with at this time. Reach Out was a major hit when Smile collapses, with the singer asking you to reach out, and he’ll be there, in times of trouble. That album featured a song by the association (cherish), a group that sounds very similar to The Beach Boys which would have a hit from a guy that would later become Brian’s best friend…coincidentally around the time of this song getting recorded. But the song that went through Brian’s mind was not on Reach Out. It’s the same old song. Literally. Brian stole a bunch of the lyrics of that for Wild Honey, an album that is Brian consciously trying to sound like the four tops.
The weirdest part about Til I Die? If you listen to the demo, before the track comes in, Brian’s playing the riff from It’s The Same Old Song. It clearly was on his mind when this song was written.
In terms of You Never Give Me Your Money, this is the right track: the chords in Til I Die are mostly the same idea. Instead of Am and descending the bass to D or F, Brian simply goes upwards. C to B flat to A flat, but in reverse.
Here's what Brian was doing when he wrote it: listening and going with what he liked. That's the explanation
Excellent contribution. You should go make a video about that 👍
To me, it is the most gorgeous Beach Boys track they ever did. It was totally NOT Beach Boys "I Get Around/Surfin' USA" style. The album Surf's Up was concerned with personal and environmental health, and it kick started my passion into thinking more deeply about the state of the Earth and how we ought to be looking after it, instead of totally exploiting it - which we were very much doing in the 1960s with zero care for the outcome.
Definitely one of my favourites - though I might say that 'Surf's Up' is my no.1, above any other their others. It's just perfect
Thanks for watching!
I love this video, but some of what you say is pretty odd to my ears. I see no reason to try and pin this song to one key or other. You point out that there’s a lot of G-C-F-Bb but then waffle on about the circle of fifths and conclude it’s in G (or Gm) when clearly the first 3 of those 4 chords says the key of C and the last 3 or those 4 says the key of F. Also, some of the chords you name I don’t quite agree. So many harmonies are stacked I don’t blame anyone for varying interpretation but eg. I’d call that Bsus4 an Em(+9) and.. the chords at 16:35 (where you talk about the bass vocals hovering around the key of Gm) are just your classic Merseybeat progression - in this case G-Bb-Eb-D-G (if it was the Beatles in ‘62 that last G would be a G6) .. to my ears it’s a bit of a nod to Walk Don’t Run, or more significantly, have a listen to the b.vocal melody over Em+9 just before the final fading G-Bb-Eb-D cycle, you might hear a nod to Pipeline (the Chantays, 1963), which is a clever pun on the theme of bobbing like a cork on the ocean, or more broadly, Beach Boys, Surf’s Up, very neat
Speaker does good work....however, the film edit inserts are distracting, at times ridiculous.... they take away from the importance of the info.
And with all his musical insight & bookworm knowledge......I bet this speaker has not himself written one acceptable song!!!
Thanks for the comment - the editing, I will admit, may be annoying to some people! But it's just how I make videos, so I am unlikely to change that any time soon. Thanks for watching though.
And here is a song I wrote (there are actually a couple more on my channel, if you're curious). I'll leave it to you to judge whether this song is acceptable th-cam.com/video/K44pl3CKeQ4/w-d-xo.html
It’s not about the edits. Listen to what he is saying. It makes sense, is balanced and interesting.
You don’t have to be a songwriter to have an opinion.
I have to admit... that if Brian copied from the Beatles on this, as he seems to have done, it takes a lot of the pleasure out of it for me. Unfortunate. Oh well. He did create something new with fabulous lyrics, but now I can't unhear what was revealed. But I'll get over it! Still, I'm always afraid if I write a melody, it will be an accidental capture from somebody else, which I would find unacceptable. So if it sounds especially good, I tend to assume I subconsciously acquired it from elsewhere and I'm very suspicious of it.
Honestly, I don't think it *should* take any pleasure out of it for anyone.
Firstly, it's certainly not clear that Brian did take any influence/inspiration from You Never Give Me Your Money - it's just a theory amongst Beach Boys nerds. There's a biiiit of similarity in that melody, but it's a very tiny bit, *and* it's not a significant part of the song itself.
Secondly, as I talk about in the video - *everyone* does this a bit! It's not plagiarism to lift melodies and change them a bit/suit them to your needs. Mozart did it, Beethoven, the Beatles certainly did, Miles Davis, Thelonius Monk... I would struggle more to think of a musician who never did it!
You're always going to stumble on melodies that sound like someone else's - you'll get used to it! Embrace it :)
No music you listen to was created in vacuum, or came from nothing. Influrnce is part and parcel of music. Today we say "copied" so cavalierly. You yourself are simply re-stating the frame of mind in which countless others have expressed disappointment based on their own perceptions, regardless of those perceptions being accurate or not. Does that fact make your feeling about it in any way less genuine, or does that make your take on it fraudulent? Of course not, your feelings are unique, even if they share similarities to that of others. In many ways however, I believe the take on it that you express is to a degree arrogant, in that you seem to feel your personal requirements for integrity is what drives creation by an artist. It is, in effect, a pipe-dream of unrealistic standards. Only that one person can create anything which meets that one person's criteria for such stringent requisites. In other words, only you can truly create something you define as truly unique or free of influence given that set of rules. That's a lot of words to say *only you truly knows you*