Having spent some of his earliest years just a mile down the road from where the Beach Boys grew up, the late Gordon Hauptfleish had a special way of capturing California’s flaxen past, always describing it with real force and wisdom.

I would’ve thought there was enough of a melancholic beauty and universal appeal to the 1967 Kinks’ classic “Waterloo Sunset” that it would have transcended any Anglocentric provincialism

There’s something happening here … What it is clearly isn’t Burma-Shave, and it isn’t Wayne Newton at the Hollywood Bowl or Jerry Lewis in Las Vegas.

There are as many Christmas music traditions as there are stockings hung with with care. For some, the process of awaiting ole St. Nick requires a classic soundtrack, filled with old favorites. For others, something newer makes sense.

Worried about being running aground in some tropic locale this Christmas season? Something Else! has you covered, with a new list of Yuletide favorites criss-crossing the usual stylistic landscape.

On this particular island, there will be sun and sand — but nary an original artist. Join us, as we query our intrepid panel on its must-have cover songs for their fateful journey.

Proof that every one’s guilty pleasure is their own: We reached almost no consensus on this particular version of Desert Island Discs, with only the Carpenters, the Electric Light Orchestra, Hall and Oates and Olivia Newton-John garnering more than one mention.

In a pitched battle for Canuck supremacy, Neil Young edged out Rush by just one mention, as we imagined what being stranded on an island just off the coast of Canada might be like.

Everybody has their own definition of a “chill” record. But if ever there was a time when one was desperately needed, it would likely be when you are stranded on a faraway island — with nothing but a volleyball to keep you company.

In an undelivered letter “written to the gods,” Pete Townshend advised his young son on his first birthday in 1990 to “Be a pessimist. It is the safest, most pragmatic way to be.