Surell

I really don't think the Beatles' music was all that super intellectual, and their music was certainly not more complex than the Beach Boys.

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Howard the Duck

i don't think the Beatles ever did anything as complex as The Beach Boys' Don't Talk (Put Your Head on my Shoulder).

Inversely, the Beach Boys never hit me as emotionally as this song:-

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Malaise is THE dominant human predilection.

starrynight

Both can hit me emotionally, but something like that is a matter of individual preference. On amount of good music produced, whether it hits me hard emotionally or not, The Beatles by most people's estimates did more.

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VEGANGELICA

Discussing which band's music was more complex would be a good way for me to learn more about their songs.

First, we'd have to agree on a method for judging musical complexity if this is to be a meaningful debate. I measure complexity in songs by looking at the conceptual depth and originality in the lyrics, and at the number of different musical techniques used.

I haven't done this analysis for all Beach Boys' and Beatles' songs, only those I've heard, yet based on those I conclude that the Beatles' music overall *is* more complex than the Beach Boys' music (but I still prefer the body of music created by the Beach Boys).

Perhaps we can have a "complexity" song-off to decide which band's music is more complex: one person gives an example of a Beatles' song that has certain complex qualities, and then someone offers up a Beach Boys' song that offers the same. Then vice versa.

For example, The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby," like many of the Beatles' songs, does not revolve around the topic of simple romantic love and has instead a broader concept behind it, in this case a commentary on the loneliness and separateness in human lives. The lyrics use a combination of metaphor ("Waits at the window, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door") and descriptive, concrete examples of aloneness ("Look at him working, darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there") to build the song's meaning.

Finally, like some other songs by The Beatles', "Eleanor Rigby" uses the compositional technique of counterpoint, where the main tune and the cello play distinct, different melodies, to add musical depth to the music:


Eleanor Rigby- The Beatles - YouTube

The question I have is this: what is a Beach Boys' song that uses a more complex musical technique than just creating a melody with harmony, and does not involve the idea of romantic love in the song? If there is such a song, then The Beach Boys and The Beatles would each get 1 point and would be tied in the "complexity song-off."

Then we would just continue on, matching song to song, until we run out of songs! The band that fails to offer up an equivalent match would be the the one whose music overall is less complex.

^ This is my idea of great fun. I'd do it if I had unlimited time.

"Don't Talk (Put Your Head on my Shoulder)" doesn't sound at all complex to me, being about romantic love like almost all other songs pop artists write, and using (as far as I can tell) only a basic melody and some harmony, without any complex compositional techniques or unpredictable chord progression.

Like the person above said, whether one gets hit emotionally by a song is a very personal reaction and a song's emotional power can't be analyzed like "complexity" can.

All I know is that The Beatles' "Girl" does nothing for me emotionally, Il Duce, and rather annoys me, especially when Lennon with his thin little chilly and whiny voice says, "And I think of all the times I've tried so hard to leave her, and she will turn to me and start to cry," then goes on to describe the ways she humiliates him. (Maybe that's why you like it! ) I want to tell him, "Just leave her and be done with it!"

I do, however, like the Greek musical influences in "Girl." And apparently the concept behind the song is that it was a jab at Christianity and the way belief in Christianity makes people suffer.

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Neapolitan

I haven't heard that until you mentioned it. I know George was at least half Irish-Catholic but choose to practice Hinduism later and was considered a secret Krishner by a memeber of the Hare Krishners. John apparently struggled with and questioned things both religious and political, and I don't know if he ever considered himself affiliated with any denomination. When ever John says something it is hard to say what he meant at the time if it wasn't clear because he spoke how he felt at the time he might have a different perspective later. But he did like double meanings (and also double-entendres.) I don't have any quotes available on what John about "Girl" but I don't think it's that Christianity makes people suffer but that the idea in Christianity about longsuffering "pain will lead to pleasure..." also works into how men are tortured when they fall madly in love with women and it doesn't work out to their expectation. He might be writing about who he felt about religion at the time but those ideas in the lyrics. But he was also writing about men who really don't follow your "Just leave her and be done with it!" advice.

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blastingas10

The beach Boys rarely hit me emotionally. I guess that's why I don't really like them.

ribbons

Beach Boys and Beatles songs that move me emotionally:

Beach Boys (33)

All I Wanna Do
Be Still
Busy Doin’ Nothin’
Cabinessence
Caroline, No
Cuddle Up
Darlin’
Deirdre
Disney Girls
Don’t Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)
Don’t Worry Baby
God Only Knows
Good Timin’
Good Vibrations
I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times
I Know There’s An Answer
I Went To Sleep
Kiss Me, Baby
Let Him Run Wild
Let’s Go Away For Awhile
Little Bird
The Little Girl I Once Knew
Long Promised Road
The Night Was So Young
Our Sweet Love
Please Let Me Wonder
She Knows Me Too Well
Surf’s Up
Surfer Girl
Time To Get Alone
The Warmth of the Sun
Wonderful
Wouldn’t It Be Nice

Beatles (25)

A Hard Day’s Night
All My Loving
And I Love Her
Ask Me Why
Don’t Let Me Down
Eleanor Rigby
Every Little Thing
Fixing a Hole
Golden Slumbers
Here, There and Everywhere
I Me Mine
The Inner Light
I Want To Tell You
If I Needed Someone
I’ll Be Back
Let It Be
Long, Long, Long
The Long and Winding Road
Mother Nature’s Son
Something
Strawberry Fields Forever
Things We Said Today
Two of Us
When I Get Home
Yesterday

VEGANGELICA

Ooo! Lists, and alphabetized.

I'll have to listen to the songs you listed that I've never heard, ribbons, because I can't recall some of them.

I *definitely* feel emotionally affected by many Beatles' songs. They often put me in a certain thoughtful, restive state of mind. One I especially liked listening to when I was a child (I'm talking 8 or 9 here) was "Strawberry Fields," which is on your list. My favorite lines were, "Living is easy with eyes closed."

Their songs made me think, leaving me more alert and unsettled, with new ideas to contemplate (such as, "What in the heck is the meaning of that song???").


The Beatles Strawberry Fields Forever (2009 Stereo Remaster) - YouTube

And "Here Comes The Sun" still puts me in a happy, mellow, and positive mood whenever I hear it. That's one of my favorite songs of all time.

However, the Beatles' songs don't usually pull me out of my own life perspective and emotional state into someone else's, like The Beach Boys' songs do.

When listening to the Beach Boys' "Don't Worry," for example, I feel as if I'm transported not just into another emotional state, but also into someone else's life. Listening to this song is similar to watching a short movie that engrosses me: I feel as if I become the sensitive young man in the song who brags about his car and gets frazzled easily in social situations, and finds himself soothed and happy due to his girlfriend.

The Beach Boys' songs often leave a satisfied echo of emotional wellbeing after listening to them. On the down side, they don't challenge my intellect at all. They are often so simplistic and straightforward in their meaning that I never have any question what they are about.

Yet usually I forgive the lack of depth in The Beach Boys' music because their songs with their beautiful singing are just so warm, like an enveloping hug, that they affect me more than the Beatles' songs do.

Maybe the main difference is that Beatles songs frequently leave me feeling pensive and somewhat alone, while the Beach Boys' songs often leave me feeling contented and connected. I noticed this early on when I was a child listening to my brother's many records. I like both effects but if forced to choose would pick "contented and connected."


The Beach Boys - Don't Worry Baby (HQ Audio) - YouTube

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starrynight

What about She's Leaving Home?

I think some of this is simply the west coast sound and that I suppose developed into the whole sunshine pop style in the later 60s. The Beatles in comparison were like chameleons trying their hand at lots of styles, so that gives them less of a single identity. The Beach Boys somehow seemed to represent a more specific lifestyle.

Maybe it's because they are more of a harmony group as well, also there are family members so maybe that means their voices fit together more. And The Beatles sing alone more as individual songwriters.

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Neapolitan

I like Darlin' to me the song points in two directions it has a rhythm section that sounds like early Motown and a horn section that sounds like Chicago, (since the recording pre-dates Chicago maybe they borrowed some ideas from it - who knows) besides the music it has well written lyrics - it has some catchy lines in it.

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