Has Mike Expressed Remorse On Whatever Role He May Have Played in Smile's Demise

[CenturyDeprived]

This truly isn't meant to start more ML bashing, but here's a thought that has been nagging at me for years...

I just wonder if Mike Love ever publicly hinted at even a slightest bit of an apology, or taking a sliver of tiny partial responsibility for SMiLE's demise, for not being as supportive as he should have to BW? Or even a twinge of admitting regret? Does he truly feel that all his actions at the time were 100% in the right, even with hindsight?

I feel like just a little tiny bit of genuinely admitting this would have gone such a long way.  Both in his relationship with BW, as well as in the public's perception of him.  It would show him being human. I was genuinely touched when I was just a few feet away witnessing ML's honest emotional catharsis when he was speaking about drugs/alcohol messing up his family (while in front of his family, at the California Saga concert at The Grammy Museum).  There's a video of this on Youtube. It was real.  But I can't believe that he thinks that drugs were the ONLY factor in the equation. A grain of responsibility for HIS role in it seems to be something I've NEVER heard from him. Maybe I've missed something in an interview at some point.

Again, trying to have a nuanced opinion on the demise of SMiLE... it's NOT a black & white issue, there were many factors. But even ML's biggest fans/supporters must, in their heart of hearts, believe that his attitude at the time was at least a partial (if indirect) contributing factor, even if only in a small way. I mean, ML must have had these thoughts in the past, even if just privately in his head. Complete denial is surely an easier pill to swallow. I wonder, could ML's denial be the glue that keeps/has kept him emotionally together and able to function all this time?

I realize that this would put him into a position of bearing some indirect responsibility for sending a fragile person over the edge... We don't know what has gone on/what has been said in private behind closed doors, but it just seems like something that must be said while these guys are still with us. I really hope it's not insane to think that it will happen at some point. Maybe post C50 bad-ending, it is a lost cause...

[Micha]

This truly isn't meant to start more ML bashing, but here's a thought that has been nagging at me for years...

Do you really believe this thread is not going to be another Mike-bashing parade?

For Mike to admit his doubts were wrong, he would first have to be convinced they actually were wrong. I doubt the SMiLE material is as important to him as it is to you.

This is just assumption of course, but I think Mike blames drugs and Brian's entourage for the downfall of Brian, leading to a lot of recording time being wasted. That's what I think is his point of view rather than "with my unsupportiveness I contributed to the non-release of an artistic masterpiece".

[Cabinessenceking]

I'm a consistent Mike basher but I'll certainly admit that having a life of constant travel, parties and fame will influence you in many different ways. His family was certainly impacted by this lifestyle in the form of drugs and alcohol as well as his bandmates. He didn't have an easy time trying to negotiate life with all of that going on. It's easy for us to judge based on snippets and written accounts, but impossible for us to absorbe the wholeness of his experience.

[Jay]

The real question is, Has, or will, Mike admit that SIP was wrong?

[John Manning]

I don't think Mike has anything to apologise for in relation to directly nixxing Smile 67. His take on what Brian was creating was his take and he's expounded on that in recent years, with the release of TSS.

I don't think he can even be expects to apologise for the different aesthetic taste that made him unable to appreciate the lyrics of Cabinessence… guy's entitled to his opinion, and it's only wider popular opinion that denounces it as mistaken.

[Cabinessenceking]

Even if the demise of Smile was his fault, I'd rather have him apologise for unleashing SIP unto the world.

[runnersdialzero]

What bandmate has ever apologized for creative differences? None that I can think of, and Mike has certainly given it praise since. To me, it seems sincere and not an attempt to save face, especially given that he's clarified a time or two what aspects he wasn't on board with and why amid the praise. I honestly don't think Mike's disapproval of some of the lyrics for the album was really a major factor in Smile's demise, despite what David Leaf coerced out of Brian (who is known to be very inconsistent with his stories and to go along with what an interviewer is saying regardless of truth, anyway) during the great work of fiction that is Beautiful Dreamer.

Above all else, Brian was just way in over his head with some of this material. Smiley Smile is a direct reaction to that, stripping the songs down to their bare elements. Smiley Smile is also proof that Mike would follow Brian to the edges of the earth in terms of following his creative decisions, as it's much more "out there" and un-commercial than any of the Smile material. He'd question, but he'd also do what he was told. Look no further than the "Cabin Essence" tag for proof of this.

In other words, I don't think Mike owes anyone an apology. Not for Smile, at least.

[Cam Mott]

What bandmate has ever apologized for creative differences? None that I can think of, and Mike has certainly given it praise since. To me, it seems sincere and not an attempt to save face, especially given that he's clarified a time or two what aspects he wasn't on board with and why amid the praise. I honestly don't think Mike's disapproval of some of the lyrics for the album was really a major factor in Smile's demise, despite what David Leaf coerced out of Brian (who is known to be very inconsistent with his stories and to go along with what an interviewer is saying regardless of truth, anyway) during the great work of fiction that is Beautiful Dreamer.

Above all else, Brian was just way in over his head with some of this material. Smiley Smile is a direct reaction to that, stripping the songs down to their bare elements. Smiley Smile is also proof that Mike would follow Brian to the edges of the earth in terms of following his creative decisions, as it's much more "out there" and un-commercial than any of the Smile material. He'd question, but he'd also do what he was told. Look no further than the "Cabin Essence" tag for proof of this.

In other words, I don't think Mike owes anyone an apology. Not for Smile, at least.

There is nothing for any of the Boys or VDP to apologize for in regards to SMiLE. They stuffed the very few very minor issues they had [no matter how humiliating to them] and all did their jobs and went above and beyond doing it. They cooperated fully on hundreds/thousands[?] of takes. They strongly disagreed [according to Brian in 1968] with Brian's scrapping SMiLE and then immediately fully cooperated on Brian's scrapping SMiLE. It is all on Brian.

I think it's pretty well documented now that Brian was anything but "shattered" by SMiLE. It's a lovely romantic story but it seems to me that instead natural processes and market changes meant his best wasn't commercial anymore. Happens to all Pop artists doesn't it?  [sweating, heavy breathing]

[MBE]

Cam a great post. I found a insane blog attacking me personally for articulating these same thoughts. It helps when others help speak an unpopular truth.

[Bicyclerider]

Well obviously Mike hasn't and will not apologize for his views on Smile, no matter how wrong headed they were, because Mike still feels the same way.  He even criticized Summer's Gone from the latest album as not being uplifting enough and implied it would have been better if he had written the lyrics!  Mike is nothing if not consistent.  Didn't like Til I Die, wasn't enamoured of the Pet Sounds "ego music" initially, etc etc.  

Of course he's entitled to his opinion- he and Brian are the yin and yang of the Beach Boys - but ultimately Mike was overruled on almost every creative decision, and Brian got his way.  

[runnersdialzero]

He even criticized Summer's Gone from the latest album as not being uplifting enough and implied it would have been better if he had written the lyrics!

Did this actually happen? Mike's implied suicide hand gesture from the Rolling Stone article was very, very, very obviously a joke about how the song was sad, to me. I laughed when I read it and never imagined people would twist it into "Mike thinks 'Summer's Gone' is lousy" or him being critical of it.

[Cam Mott]

Cam a great post. I found a insane blog attacking me personally for articulating these same thoughts. It helps when others help speak an unpopular truth.

Thank you.

In less than a year he knocked out 3 new albums. He had two albums finished in the half year after scrapping SMiLE. He was as prolific as he had ever been.

[Iron Horse-Apples]

I'm not one for revisionist history, but even I'm 100% behind the fact that BRIAN SCRAPPED SMILE. It was solely his decision. 

Ask yourself this. If Mike was really that dead set against the direction Brian was heading, why on earth did he then help record Smiley Smile, which is way more trippy and weird than Smile ever was.

[Bicyclerider]

Cam a great post. I found a insane blog attacking me personally for articulating these same thoughts. It helps when others help speak an unpopular truth.

Thank you.

In less than a year he knocked out 3 new albums. He had two albums finished in the half year after scrapping SMiLE. He was as prolific as he had ever been.

Prolific yes - but the music was not as ambitious.  Obviously that's what he wanted, or needed, at the time.

[Rocky Raccoon]

People who say Mike killed Smile are giving him too much credit.  At that time, Brian Wilson had the utmost creative authority.  Mike may not have liked the material but he sure sucked it up and sang it anyways.  His opinion didn't mean shit in those days.

It's a little ironic that Mike's biggest critics see him as this authoritative figure (like with the whole "firing" controversy) when really he has little to no control over what Brian does.  And that's the way it should be.

[filledeplage]

What bandmate has ever apologized for creative differences? None that I can think of, and Mike has certainly given it praise since. To me, it seems sincere and not an attempt to save face, especially given that he's clarified a time or two what aspects he wasn't on board with and why amid the praise. I honestly don't think Mike's disapproval of some of the lyrics for the album was really a major factor in Smile's demise, despite what David Leaf coerced out of Brian (who is known to be very inconsistent with his stories and to go along with what an interviewer is saying regardless of truth, anyway) during the great work of fiction that is Beautiful Dreamer.

Above all else, Brian was just way in over his head with some of this material. Smiley Smile is a direct reaction to that, stripping the songs down to their bare elements. Smiley Smile is also proof that Mike would follow Brian to the edges of the earth in terms of following his creative decisions, as it's much more "out there" and un-commercial than any of the Smile material. He'd question, but he'd also do what he was told. Look no further than the "Cabin Essence" tag for proof of this.
In other words, I don't think Mike owes anyone an apology. Not for Smile, at least.

There is nothing for any of the Boys or VDP to apologize for in regards to SMiLE. They stuffed the very few very minor issues they had [no matter how humiliating to them] and all did their jobs and went above and beyond doing it. They cooperated fully on hundreds/thousands[?] of takes. They strongly disagreed [according to Brian in 1968] with Brian's scrapping SMiLE and then immediately fully cooperated on Brian's scrapping SMiLE. It is all on Brian.

I think it's pretty well documented now that Brian was anything but "shattered" by SMiLE. It's a lovely romantic story but it seems to me that instead natural processes and market changes meant his best wasn't commercial anymore. Happens to all Pop artists doesn't it?  [sweating, heavy breathing]

Having bought the vinyl, and the music having spiraled into another dimension, in terms of style in those earliest fan years of mine, and now seeing some form of the "finished product" it is easy to see (for me) that it needed to be shelved because it may have been too expansive to narrow down to a single or double LP.  Blaming Mike is a joke, although I do feel that VDP, notwithstanding his poetry skills was not the best fit for a band, whose music and imagery was anything but abstract and unavailable to the common everyday Joe or Jane.  I think from an academic standpoint, a musical opera (a metaphor) of America, with its' early vastness of space, and the journey from Plymouth Rock to Hawaii was a patriotic undertaking, on Brian's end, but, seriously, who on this planet knows what "columnated ruins domino" actually means.  Parks doesn't and it appears to be just some invented phrase to fit with a music measure.  

And not having been there, as a bystander, it seems as though Van should have sat with Mike, to try to make lyrics "available" to not only the Band, but also to the listeners.  No one was singing "columnated ruins domino" skipping down the street.  I think Parks must be a nice guy, but you'd have to be in fifth gear to keep up with him in a normal conversation.  The only justice for the listeners is that we got track samples over the years which was sort of a reward for our patience in waiting for the release.  So that when Brian did SMiLE live with his great band whom I do love, things were a déjà vue as I heard chunks of it in the released tracks.  

But I always got the impression that Parks looked his nose down on the Touring Band ( and I could be wrong) as a bunch of dummies.  I sort of think that even the most creative person has to find a way to translate the art form into something digestible and understandable.  We can all enjoy music.  I think the greatest tribute to Brian's and the Boys contribution is that the most intellectually challenged have become musically engaged as a result.  The numbers of developmentally delayed people at the shows is just staggering.  And the simplicity of some of the music and lyrics are such that they lend themselves to speech therapy, or occupational therapy for disabled people.  But the SMiLE era stuff generally doesn't.  It is always easy to teach the smart kids.  Not so, with the developmentally challenged.  You have to stand on your head to have the challenged students achieve mastery.  

And that doesn't detract from Parks' talent, only suggests that the overall project got out of hand, and might have been better done as a trilogy rather than one work, for fans to absorb.  And that his literary vision might not have been entirely (not exclusively) congruent with the musc.  It begs the question as to whether it undermined the relationship Brian had with The Band.  And, whether that was fair.  But, that is a fan's conjecture.  JMHO

[HeyJude]

He even criticized Summer's Gone from the latest album as not being uplifting enough and implied it would have been better if he had written the lyrics!

Did this actually happen? Mike's implied suicide hand gesture from the Rolling Stone article was very, very, very obviously a joke about how the song was sad, to me. I laughed when I read it and never imagined people would twist it into "Mike thinks 'Summer's Gone' is lousy" or him being critical of it.

I don’t know about him saying it would have been better if he had written the lyrics (I don’t recall anything directly implying that), but the whole episode reported in Rolling Stone of his “gesture” while listening to the album ending suite was not something I would characterize as a totally innocent joke. Yes, it was a joke, but much like his alleged/supposed “Brian’s a genius alright, for staying at home while we tour” joke, it’s laced with fact that he clearly has some negative feelings about the subject.

His gesture about the end suite of the new album wasn’t framed by any sort of “I think this is amazing and sounds great.” He was not saying the material was bad, but he seemed to feel disconnected from it because he didn’t write it, and his “gesture” went beyond simply stating he felt less connected to it. He didn’t co-write the song “That’s Why God Made the Radio”, he didn’t co-write “Surfer Girl”, but he hasn’t made anything approaching a negative comment about those tracks as far as I know.

I think it was a “kidding on the square” sort of thing, a clear kind of passive aggressive commentary. A lot of people do this, it’s not at all uncommon. But that sort of stuff is almost always not a 100% innocent joke.

[Iron Horse-Apples]

Who on this planet knows what "columnated ruins domino" actually means.

Brian explained the lyrics at the time. This line means something about the established institutions of society crumbling.

[Paul J B]

Why the hell would Mike have to take the blame for a myth that was created by a bunch of goofs that think Brian and all things Brian are great and don't really care about the Beach Boys?

Reading crap like Mike fired the Beach Boys at C50's end by pea brains in the so called media is bad enough, but anyone posting here that still believes Mike was to blame for the Smile collapse is hopeless.

Mike ruined Smile, Mike ruined Brian, Mike fired the Boys, Mike is evil, and Neil Armstrong never even circled the moon let alone walked on it.

[oldsurferdude]

The real question is, Has, or will, Mike admit that SIP was wrong?

[Bicyclerider]

He even criticized Summer's Gone from the latest album as not being uplifting enough and implied it would have been better if he had written the lyrics!

Did this actually happen? Mike's implied suicide hand gesture from the Rolling Stone article was very, very, very obviously a joke about how the song was sad, to me. I laughed when I read it and never imagined people would twist it into "Mike thinks 'Summer's Gone' is lousy" or him being critical of it.

He said something about "too much cumulus for me" - i.e. too cloudy, not "sunny" enough - and implied if he had written it it would have been less gloomy.  Maybe someone with the article can quote the part in question.  Mike didn't want Til I Die on Surf's Up because he thought it was depressing and a downer.  None of this was meant as a "joke" - that's Mike's viewpoint.   He feels Brian needs him to counterbalance the melancholy of Brian's music.  get some "girl- boy" or "fun in the sun"  in there, make it more "upbeat" or "commercial.". I think most of us are glad Til I Die and Summer's Gone made it on to their respective albums.  And that Mike put some relatable lyrics into Good Vibrations?

[SMiLE Brian]

Mike is not one to regret anything, his ego won't allow it.

[Bicyclerider]

Why the hell would Mike have to take the blame for a myth that was created by a bunch of goofs that think Brian and all things Brian are great and don't really care about the Beach Boys?

Reading crap like Mike fired the Beach Boys at C50's end by pea brains in the so called media is bad enough, but anyone posting here that still believes Mike was to blame for the Smile collapse is hopeless.

Mike ruined Smile, Mike ruined Brian, Mike fired the Boys, Mike is evil, and Neil Armstrong never even circled the moon let alone walked on it.

The media didn't just make up the story about Mike firing Brian - they got the story from remarks made by Brian!  Yes, the facts didn't support what Brian was saying, but I guess that was his emotional response to the end of the reunion tour.

[filledeplage]

Who on this planet knows what "columnated ruins domino" actually means.

Brian explained the lyrics at the time. This line means something about the established institutions of society crumbling.

IIRC that lyric meaning was posed to Parks and his response was that he didn't know.  I never heard Brian say that and I saw the Surfs Up performance on the Bernstein special in 1967.  And it could be extrapolated to mean that but, seriously, does everyone know what that means? My point is that the music had been "available, to" all walks of life, and all levels of academic or non-academic levels of understanding.  And, in 1967, with that particular work, notwithstanding Good Vibrations as the "anchor," although there were lovely listening tracks, it didn't get the AM AirPlay to make it "available" to everyone.  

[filledeplage]

Mike is not one to regret anything, his ego won't allow it.

Come on, SmileBrian, can anyone comment about someone's ego if they aren't a shrink? With a medical degree.

That is a personal attack. 

You're smarter and nicer than that.  I think.