"Do It Again": Cover Comparison

This will be my first “cover comparison,” so it’s only fitting that it involves two of my favorite bands of all time. I’ve written about each of these groups before and now I’m excited to look at the song they share in common.

Briefly, "Do It Again" is a nostalgic song, reminiscing about the good old days on the beach and expressing a desire to “get together and do it again.” It was meant to be a throwback to the period of The Beach Boys where their music was primarily about cars, girls, and surfing. The song apparently impacted quite a few artists. Notably (for me at least), ABBA is on that list, as “Do It Again” reportedly influenced their song “On and On and On.” In turn, Mike Love of The Beach Boys then covered "On and On and On," which intrigued me. I checked it out and...what can I say? It sounds like Mike Love covering ABBA. There's not much more to it, though you can really hear how Benny and Björn of ABBA were influenced by "Do It Again" when the vocals kick in during the introduction and when they back up the chorus.

"Do It Again" hit number one in the UK, staying there for only a week before being overtaken by “I’ve Gotta Get A Message To You” by The Bee Gees. I only mention that because I've been planning on writing about The Bee Gees and their pre-Disco days for a little while now, so it was an interesting coincidence.

As for Wall of Voodoo’s cover, it was a minor hit and the album it was on did okay in Australia, but the band broke up about a year later. I can’t find many comments about the song, much less a full review, but from what I’ve seen, the general reaction is mixed. Some people seem to just not like Wall of Voodoo after Stan Ridgway left (as expanded upon in my post about the band), while others seem to think it’s uninspired and just doesn’t work. A lot of people seem to be more interested in the video (which actually features Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys) than the song, and there are a fair share of sentiments essentially expressing that "The Beach Boys did it better, but this is still pretty good."

The original song begins with a thumping drum machine which I love. It’s a good beat and even though it goes away after the introduction, the rhythm remains in the vocals during the verse. The song is well-structured and the chorus (with those classic Beach Boys harmonies) completes it quite nicely.

The introduction to Wall of Voodoo’s version is much weaker, in my opinion. The drum machine saw a lot of use in their earlier stuff, but a strange, uninteresting, pulsating note on the keyboard is their weapon of choice for opening up this song. The sound is lackluster, and even if it would have meant remaining too close to the original, I would have preferred they use the drum machine and beat that The Beach Boys used.

A minor positive in the opening verse is the way Wall of Voodoo’s singer, Andy Prieboy, sings the word “conversations.” It’s a nitpicky thing, I’ll admit, but after listening to Wall of Voodoo’s cover (it was the one I heard first), the way “conversations” was split up on The Beach Boys' it really threw me off. I mentioned that I liked the flow of the original, but that word is one exception (though not the only one), and I think the way Prieboy sings it improves said flow noticeably.

The chorus features a drum part that is simple, but strong enough that it provides it with more “oomph” than the original, which mostly features clapping. The drums continuing into the next verse help switch things up a bit from the first verse while keeping a sense of continuity from the chorus.

The bridge of the Wall of Voodoo cover has a better flow than the original too, in my opinion. Specifically the line “with a girl the lonely beach looks good tonight” (Google says the lyric is “at twilight” and not “tonight,” but I'm fairly certain it's the latter). The original line is “with a girl the lonely sea looks good in moonlight” which sounds a bit awkward with the extra syllables when sung. Also, the use of the line “it’s out of sight” when transitioning into the second bridge seems to fit better than “been so long.”

In the end, the original “Do It Again” is a song by The Beach Boys that sounds very much like The Beach Boys while the cover by Wall of Voodoo sounds very much like a cover by Wall of Voodoo. As someone who likes both bands, each song has its pros and cons, but I enjoy both versions quite a bit. I don’t think the cover is uninspired or that it doesn’t work. I think someone's enjoyment of one song or the other really comes down to their feelings about surf rock and a strange, dark, 80’s cover of surf rock.

Also, someone mentioned Andy Prieboy sounds like Weird Al in this song, and after reading that, I haven't been able to unhear it.