I suspect that Brian`s management and associates had a lot to do with the songs that were recycled or dredged up around that time like She Says That She Needs Me and The First Time.
Speaking of "Happy Days," the opening piano riff was stolen from "Holidays."
I don't understand how things like this happen. Not to further claim Brian isn't in the driver's seat with his own music, but given things we know (wasn't it Darian's idea to bring back the chant that opens "Morning Beat", or insert "Can't Wait Too Long" onto TLOS?), it feels like some songs come about due to Brian's folks digging through his back catalog looking for ideas he can use. I know Brian was known even in the 60s and 70s to pilfer old ideas years after they first came about, but some (definitely not all) of the recent examples seem a little off.
I just can't picture Brian suddenly saying, "I'm gonna bring back 'My Solution' with confessional lyrics about the struggles I've had in my life! And throw a terrible rendition of a piano bit from a Smile piece in the beginning for good measure!" I could be totally wrong, and obviously he went with it either way, but it just doesn't seem like an idear born in his head alone.
"My Solution" was a lot of fun, Brian surely recognizes this, but "Happy Days" is... well, it's definitely not a lot of fun. The end result is just so bad. The ridiculous intro (with non-ridiculous origin) which I can't, for the life of me, understand why it opens the song, the zombie children backup vocals, the "let's change Brian's 'My Solution' rant into it sounding like the voices in his head or something" vocal way in the back of the verse (what the f*** is that guy even saying?), the totally wretched saxophone honking in the verse, and then there's the whole "I'm happy and recovered now except not really" aspect of the lyrics.
imo
imo
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