The Beach Boys - "Landlocked"

After the release of the Beach Boys’ Sunflower album, engineer/producer Stephen Desper assembled a collection of songs consisting mostly of Sunflower outtakes deemed suitable for a follow-up album. There is a lot of debate over how far this project got and whether it was actually ever named Landlocked.

But it does seem that something was being pieced together before the project was scrapped and the Beach Boys eventually produced the album Surf’s Up. Assuming that both Add Some Music and Reverberation albums had been released (see our earlier blog entry) and Sunflower had not been, I looked at the remaining songs and created an album I’m titling Landlocked. 

SIDE A

1. Sound of Free (Dennis Wilson/Mike Love)

2. Where is She? (Brian Wilson)

3. Games Two Can Play (Brian Wilson)

4. H.E.L.P. is on the Way (Brian Wilson)

5. I'm Going Your Way (Dennis Wilson)

6. Cool, Cool Water (Brian Wilson/Mike Love)

SIDE B

1. Soulful Old Man Sunshine (Brian Wilson/Rick Henn)

2. Big Sur (Mike Love)

3. Carnival (Brian Wilson)

4. Walkin' (Brian Wilson)

5. It's About Time (Dennis Wilson/Bob Burchman/Al Jardine)

6. My Solution (Brian Wilson)

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What stands out the most (at least to me) is that Brian Wilson dominates the songwriting here. Half of the album was written solely by him, and three other tracks are co-written by him. I think there’s often the feeling that after SMiLE, Brian didn’t contribute much to the band for many years. But this is proof that that's not true.

The album starts off with "Sound of Free," a song co-written by Dennis Wilson and Mike Love. I'm not sure, but it may be the only Beach Boys song that these two worked on together without others. Oddly enough, the song was officially released as a single and credited to Dennis Wilson and Rumbo after being cut from at least two Beach Boys albums.

Two of these songs appear on Sunflower: “It’s About Time” and “Cool, Cool Water.” Two other songs are outtakes from Sunflower: “Soulful Old Man Sunshine” and “Carnival.” “Soulful Old Man Sunshine” is available on the Endless Harmony soundtrack, but I think “Carnival” is still only on bootlegs.

“Games Two Can Play” and “H.E.L.P. is on the Way” can be found on the Good Vibrations: Thirty Years of the Beach Boys box set. “Sound of Free,” “Where is She?” and “Back Home” are available on the Made in California box set.

The version of “Big Sur” I’m using is the original, not the remake that appears on the Holland album. I think bootlegs are the only source for it currently. Two other songs only available on bootlegs are “Walkin’” (an outtake from the album 20/20) and “My Solution,” meant as a Halloween novelty song. I added it to the end of the album as kind of a hidden joke.

I found the album cover a few years ago on a Beach Boys blog. I'm sorry to the person who created it, as I didn’t record it at the time.