Mike's Best Lyrics

[stack-o-tracks]

I always thought the verse was "blossom world".

me too

[runnersdialzero]

It's definitely blossom room. She goes with me to a blossom room. If you disagree, you have no ears or fears.

[Mikie]

I guess I have no ears or fears then. 

[Sound of Free]

I always thought the verse was "blossom world".

Oops, my bad. It is "world." The Lovester himself confirms it in the video.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

I guess Mike Love has no ears or fears either.

[runnersdialzero]

BUT WE ALL KNOW MIKE LOVE IS AN OPPORTUNIST ASSHOLE, HE'S SURELY LYING AND LACKING IN EARS/FEARS

[Jay]

Is it troll season again? 

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

MIKE IS LOVE

[Magic Transistor Radio]

I was looking at the Pet Sounds credits earlier today. I saw Mike credited to Hang On To Your Ego! I put my reading glasses on to make sure I was seeing correctly. My memory is vague here, but didn't Mike OBJECT to the lyrics to Hang Onto Your Ego? And that's why it was changed to "I Know There's An Answer" and went unreleased for 24 years until that Japanese Pet Sounds CD came out in 1990?

I'm confused. Seems to me he objected to it, but he still sang on it and now he gets lyrical credit for it? Or am I wrong on one or two counts?

He claims he wasn't cool with what he thought Brian and Sachen were using "ego" as a druggy reference. Although the way he took the reference it would be a sort of anti-druggy message as used in the song so that doesn't make sense. If you consider that Mike is on tape enthusiastically singing the lyric and even offering to sing the whole song when Al's futzing around bogs down the recording. I got a feeling Brian was the one who didn't like the lyric [cuz it is clunky as sung and stick's out like a sore thumb imo and I think you can hear Brian say he didn't like it on the SOTs in the conversations at the re-record, can someone else put ears on that] and turned to Mike to tweak it.

Was Mike really anti drugs in 1966? Or is that revisionist history? I heard that he partook until around 1968 or so. Not sure when he started.

[Cam Mott]

I don't know. Jimmy Lockert told me Mike brought a butt load of weed back from Rishikesh [?] or wherever he met up with the Maharishi and the Fabs which was apparently a distraction or was otherwise unappreciated by Lockert. When was that? Not sure it's true either.

[Roger Ryan]

There's a difference, of course, between using drugs and wanting to keep Beach Boys lyrics from drifting too far from the interests of the band's core audience. Mike was fairly insistent on this through the 60s. He broke his own rule with "Student Demonstration Time" and, for a while, developed an ecological fixation that may or may not have been more relevant to a Beach Boys audience than Brian's more soul-searching lyrics or the use of Van Dyke's more obscure arty lyrics. By the mid-70s, he was convinced that the core audience was all about nostalgia and nothing else.

[Magic Transistor Radio]

There's a difference, of course, between using drugs and wanting to keep Beach Boys lyrics from drifting too far from the interests of the band's core audience. Mike was fairly insistent on this through the 60s. He broke his own rule with "Student Demonstration Time" and, for a while, developed an ecological fixation that may or may not have been more relevant to a Beach Boys audience than Brian's more soul-searching lyrics or the use of Van Dyke's more obscure arty lyrics. By the mid-70s, he was convinced that the core audience was all about nostalgia and nothing else.

Or even TM songs starting in 1968!

But he seems to talk a lot today about being against the drug taking going on with Brian and co. during the SMiLE period. I am guessing that is revisionist history.

Honestly though, nothing against Van Dyke, but Mike showed with Good Vibration that he was capable of writing a strong poetic lyric while still being commercial. I wonder if his main complaint was that Brian chose to use other lyricist even though he had success with Mike. Maybe he felt betrayed. Poor poor Michael.

[Cam Mott]

You can also be cool with doing something yourself because we think we're special and can handle it whilealso thinking your cousin is special but your cousin can't handle it and it is not cool for him.

I don't think the Boys [not just Mike] thought their core audience was all about oldies but I do believe they knew which side of their bread was buttered and their target audience was hot for oldies beginning in the 70s. I would say from the time we heard ASL on the big screen at the end of American Graffiti. Maybe collectors of the live shows can confirm or deny but it seems to me all of the Boys [including Mike] can occasionally be heard chaffing at continual audience requests for oldies. Mike does seem like the most nostalgic lyricist maybe though but I don't know if that's because he is the most sentimental or he thinks the audience shares that feeling or expects it or all or none of those.