How would BB history be different if Mike had received proper cowriting credits?

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

Mind sharing a link to that sheet music? Any chance you know of any sheet music for SMiLE online as well?

(I know asking for audio downloads is frowned upon but this is ok, right?)

Just Google "Wouldn't It Be Nice: sheet music" under "images"

Didn't expect it to be that simple. Now I just feel silly.

We're Beach Boys fans! We should fully embrace "silly" 

[Mujan, 8@$+@Rc| of a Blue Wizard]

Mind sharing a link to that sheet music? Any chance you know of any sheet music for SMiLE online as well?

(I know asking for audio downloads is frowned upon but this is ok, right?)

Just Google "Wouldn't It Be Nice: sheet music" under "images"

Didn't expect it to be that simple. Now I just feel silly.

We're Beach Boys fans! We should fully embrace "silly" 

I like the way you think. Now, lets all sing along to Vega-Tables:)

[clack]

Can't you guys just enjoy the music?

Credit, when it comes to popular music, is a messy, ugly, and often unfair thing, and with The Beach Boys in particular, obsessing over it is like taking a prize winning poodle and then shaving it and spray painting it bright pink.

There is no exact science for credit when it comes to rock n roll and popular music in general. Mike plead his case in a court of law and won. Deal with it!!!

Or file a lawsuit against him. If he's nice enough maybe he'll sign some autographs for you on the courthouse steps.

I dislike it when, for decades, 'I Get Around' was listed as a B. Wilson composition, because that didn't reflect reality.

I dislike it when Elvis Presley is listed as co-writer of an Otis Blackwell song he had nothing to do with, other than being the 1st to sing it on a record. ( This is a practice still going on today -- a popular singer getting his/her name slapped on a song's credit as the price of doing business for a jobbing songwriter).

I even dislike it when a Banks/Rutherford Genesis song is credited to Banks/Collins/Gabriel/Hackett/Rutherford, or a Robbie Krieger Doors song is credited to Densmore/Krieger/Manzarek/Morrison.

I like credits to reflect reality. That's just me, I'm not asking you to share the same preference. I also care who played bass on such-and-such a track. Most people don't. Do I need to just "just enjoy the enjoy the music" for that also? No c-man sessionagraphy, for instance, needed or wanted?

[guitarfool2002]

I understand this is a sort of grey area which can be sorted out one way or the other.

For me, the "goodnight baby" section sounds like something more than a mere ad-lib. It sounds like a thought-out coda idea. Perhaps if it were the main lead singer of the song singing something, it would sound like an improv. But it does not. And, I think, that musicians who covered the song realize that it is not, for I don't know of any version of the song that omits that part.

Try to imagine your favorite song without its lead singer's ad-libs. Now try to imagine WIBN without the "goodnight baby" coda idea. To me, it sounds empty and its radio single potential would suffer if such idea is taken away.

It is not a full lyric. It is more than mere ad-lib. It must suck being Asher and, overnight, almost 30 years after, having to make room for somebody else in the song credits. But if I were Jury, and someone convinced me they came up with that part, I would give credit to that someone as I think it is an integral part of the song.

Two points to consider.

Re: studio ad-libs and the like, this is something Donny posted earlier reported from the actual court case:

Back in court and the defense called Nick Venet to the stand. Now Venet is the guy that signed the Beach Boys to Capitol. Venet's (and the defense) whole case was the fact that a songwriter brings a song to the recording session and everyone adds different parts. Everyone from the arranger to the producer to the musicians change it, but the songwriter still gets all of the credit. He said that changing a few words here and there, or adding a riff doesn't make someone a songwriter.

And for the most part, that's the way it is and has been with crediting, as mentioned several times in the thread. We still don't know how much Mike got in terms of percentage of credit for WIBN, but he got something, and that also shows these things are handled case-by-case, and there are exceptions to the unwritten/unspoken "rules" of how the music biz operates.

But Venet is right, songwriters get the credit for writing the song no matter how great a musician's contribution to that song may be, or how important an improv or ad-lib or riff makes the song. See my post on Leon Russell and Spector a few pages back for a very specific example, one of hundreds of thousands if not millions of these cases.


Re: Your comments on Asher.

He may resent having to share credit, who knows, he may even think the whole thing "sucks", but short of Tony Asher himself clarifying it for us in detail, consider that there was more to this issue than the ad-lib at the end, and there was an attempt to seek credit beyond that coda, a part of the song which I don't think Asher ever denied or tried to suggest Mike didn't come up with, though he may have challenged its definition as a composition versus and ad-lib or whatever. Here's a reply I posted earlier to describe the "more" of the case that played out in court, and again I'll say these claims would have upset many of us if we knew what we had written and someone was basically suggesting we were wrong, or worse:

But - consider that there was more in the claims than "good night baby"

Yes, that ending phrase is what the issue of that song centered on, but (and this can be checked) the whole bathroom phone call conspiracy thing came as Mike's team was arguing that besides improvising "good night baby...", that Mike ALSO took part in adding or at least editing other lyrics in that song.

And you have Tony Asher testifying and being questioned under oath in court, listening as he knew he wrote those lyrics without Mike, he knew Mike added the phrase at the end, but Mike's team was also claiming additional contributions were made and should be credited to Mike...and Tony rightfully knew that was bullshit. Then you have a lawyer introducing a conspiracy theory about how Mike contributed to the song over the phone, and Tony objected to that.

As he should. So it's not "tough sh*t" when someone in a court of law tries to suggest something other than the truth that you know because you were the sole writer of the lyrics, yet someone else was trying to claim he had "edited" or "added" things to your work which you know didn't happen. And that was in addition to the "good night" stuff which Tony never argued Mike added while cutting the vocals in the studio.

It's the attempt to overcredit Mike for things he didn't write or do in the song in court that angered Tony. Let's get that straight first. Mike got credit for his "good night", but that wasn't the full extent of what they were originally claiming he did for the song's creation in court. Again, the implication was that Mike added and edited other parts, and wanted credit for that too.

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

Can't you guys just enjoy the music?

Credit, when it comes to popular music, is a messy, ugly, and often unfair thing, and with The Beach Boys in particular, obsessing over it is like taking a prize winning poodle and then shaving it and spray painting it bright pink.

There is no exact science for credit when it comes to rock n roll and popular music in general. Mike plead his case in a court of law and won. Deal with it!!!

Or file a lawsuit against him. If he's nice enough maybe he'll sign some autographs for you on the courthouse steps.

I dislike it when, for decades, 'I Get Around' was listed as a B. Wilson composition, because that didn't reflect reality.

I dislike it when Elvis Presley is listed as co-writer of an Otis Blackwell song he had nothing to do with, other than being the 1st to sing it on a record. ( This is a practice still going on today -- a popular singer getting his/her name slapped on a song's credit as the price of doing business for a jobbing songwriter).

I even dislike it when a Banks/Rutherford Genesis song is credited to Banks/Collins/Gabriel/Hackett/Rutherford, or a Robbie Krieger Doors song is credited to Densmore/Krieger/Manzarek/Morrison.

I like credits to reflect reality. That's just me, I'm not asking you to share the same preference. I also care who played bass on such-and-such a track. Most people don't. Do I need to just "just enjoy the enjoy the music" for that also? No c-man sessionagraphy, for instance, needed or wanted?

Then we should agree that Mike deserves credit for his contributions which are a part of song, good or bad.

And it should be pointed out that generally (in my experience at least) even when a song credit reads something like "written by Berry, Buck, Mills, Stipe" the monetary/percentage  breakdown is not equal...

And I still don't get what all the hoopla is here. We can go on for 100 more pages about awful examples of people being cheated out of credit but here's a case that someone took to court and won! It's a happy story to counter the bad ones. Oh but since it's Mike Love it's a case of being "overcredited"? ... Oh OK!

Yeah, credit is an ugly beast when it comes to The Beach Boys.

[Cam Mott]

Let's just go ahead and call it and say that Mike got over credited for WIBN. Only Tony knows what he was talking about and Mike's people (not Mike, like it's not ever Brian) were completely off base and the jury was full of numbskulls. Mike only deserved credit on 30+ minus 1 songs and after 30 years he got too much credit for one more song than we think he deserved. *Samantha Stevens nose twinkle*

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

Let's just go ahead and call it and say that Mike got over credited for WIBN. Only Tony knows what he was talking about and Mike's people (not Mike, like it's not ever Brian) were completely off base and the jury was full of numbskulls. Mike only deserved credit on 30+ minus 1 songs and after 30 years he got too much credit for one more song than we think he deserved. *Samantha Stevens nose twinkle*

Nothing can be called here because this is a case of a fact being repurposed into an opinion. It will go on forever and ever....

[Cam Mott]

Let's just go ahead and call it and say that Mike got over credited for WIBN. Only Tony knows what he was talking about and Mike's people (not Mike, like it's not ever Brian) were completely off base and the jury was full of numbskulls. Mike only deserved credit on 30+ minus 1 songs and after 30 years he got too much credit for one more song than we think he deserved. *Samantha Stevens nose twinkle*

Nothing can be called here because this is a case of a fact being repurposed into an opinion. It will go on forever and ever....

OK then. Carry on everybody.

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

Let's just go ahead and call it and say that Mike got over credited for WIBN. Only Tony knows what he was talking about and Mike's people (not Mike, like it's not ever Brian) were completely off base and the jury was full of numbskulls. Mike only deserved credit on 30+ minus 1 songs and after 30 years he got too much credit for one more song than we think he deserved. *Samantha Stevens nose twinkle*

Nothing can be called here because this is a case of a fact being repurposed into an opinion. It will go on forever and ever....

OK then. Carry on everybody.

And in the meantime Mike will continue doing interviews

[Mujan, 8@$+@Rc| of a Blue Wizard]

Let's just go ahead and call it and say that Mike got over credited for WIBN. Only Tony knows what he was talking about and Mike's people (not Mike, like it's not ever Brian) were completely off base and the jury was full of numbskulls. Mike only deserved credit on 30+ minus 1 songs and after 30 years he got too much credit for one more song than we think he deserved. *Samantha Stevens nose twinkle*

^Honestly, I'm not a Mike Love fan, I don't think he deserves credit or royalties for WIBN, if I were Asher I'd be furious about it...but looking at the big picture here, this is a fair point.

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

Let's just go ahead and call it and say that Mike got over credited for WIBN. Only Tony knows what he was talking about and Mike's people (not Mike, like it's not ever Brian) were completely off base and the jury was full of numbskulls. Mike only deserved credit on 30+ minus 1 songs and after 30 years he got too much credit for one more song than we think he deserved. *Samantha Stevens nose twinkle*

^Honestly, I'm not a Mike Love fan, I don't think he deserves credit or royalties for WIBN, if I were Asher I'd be furious about it...but looking at the big picture here, this is a fair point.

Finally an honest contribution to this thread!

[Autotune]

Had Brian come up with his part at the end of Make It Big, the credits would bear his name, as it's been shown that sometimes Brian got credit for contributing a few words (there's a reason for this as Brian's name can add prestige to a song that is not essentially his). So I think he did not come up with that part, which is to Make It Big what "goodnight baby" is to WIBN.

Point here is that, as guitarfool says, there has to be a case-by-case approach and similar or even identical cases may recieve unequal treatment. Still, "goodnight baby" is more than mere improv, it is essential to the song, just as the Make It Big Brian coda is essential to it. And if proven that Mike came up with it he may well be credited for it.

[urbanite]

Hollywood is an industry that thrives in part by ripping off creative people, whether it's for music, screenplays, publishing rights, residuals, etc.  The actor James Garner and his experience with the tv show The Rockford Files is one prominent example of it.

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

Hollywood is an industry that thrives in part by ripping off creative people, whether it's for music, screenplays, publishing rights, residuals, etc.  The actor James Garner and his experience with the tv show The Rockford Files is one prominent example of it.

True, yet here we are (some of us) crying foul that someone actually got credit for something they contributed! Huh?

[Cam Mott]

OK, well this was posted publicly by a published BBs scholar in 2000.

Here Comes the Night -- Brian 70%, Mike 30%

50 of Brian's percentage points are for the music, so the lyrical
breakdown only is Brian 40%, Mike 60%

Wild Honey -- Brian 50%, Mike 50%
lyrics: Mike 100%

Aren't You Glad -- Brian 70%, Mike 30%
lyrics: Brian 40%, Mike 60%

Country Air -- Brian 70%, Mike 30%
lyrics: Brian 40%, Mike 60%

A Thing or Two -- Brian 60%, Mike 40%
lyrics: Brian 20%, Mike 80%

Darlin' -- Brian 70%, Mike 30%
lyrics: Brian 40%, Mike 60%

I'd Love Just Once to See You -- Brian 70%, Mike 30%
lyrics: Brian 40%, Mike 60%

Let the Wind Blow -- Brian 60%, Mike 40%
lyrics: Brian 20%, Mike 80%

How She Boogalooed It -- Mike, Alan, Bruce and Carl: 25% each
lyrics: Mike 50%, others 50%

Mama Says -- Brian 60%, Mike 40%
lyrics: Brian 20%, Mike 80%

Meant For You -- Brian 85%, Mike 15%
lyrics: Brian: 70%, Mike 30%

Anna Lee, The Healer -- Brian 50%, Mike 50%
lyrics: Mike 100%

I 'm Waitin For the Day -- Brian 75%, Mike 25%
lyrics: Brian 50%, Mike 50%

Do It Again -- Brian 50%, Mike 50%
lyrics: Mike 100%

Good Vibrations -- Brian 75%, Mike 25%
lyrics: Brian 50%, Mike 50%

Gettin Hungry -- Brian 80%, Mike 20%
lyrics: Brian 60%, Mike: 40%

So it looks like Mike was used to not getting full credit for lyrics. If this list is accurate.

[Cam Mott]

BRI was incorporated In January 1967, was Sea of Tunes still their publisher from 1967 through the sale of Sea of Tunes or were they self publishing starting in 1967?

[LostArt]

Hollywood is an industry that thrives in part by ripping off creative people, whether it's for music, screenplays, publishing rights, residuals, etc.  The actor James Garner and his experience with the tv show The Rockford Files is one prominent example of it.

“The music business is a cruel and shallow money
trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and
pimps run free, and good men die like dogs.
There's also a negative side.”

Hunter S. Thompson

[Jim V.]

Mama Says -- Brian 60%, Mike 40%
lyrics: Brian 20%, Mike 80%

Not to open another can of worms, but now that I think of it, how the hell is Mike credited for "Mama Says"? The lyrics are straight from "Vega-Tables" and therefore should the song credit Brian and Van Dyke Parks? However, I've never noticed Van Dyke or Mike comment on this.

[Cam Mott]

Mama Says -- Brian 60%, Mike 40%
lyrics: Brian 20%, Mike 80%

Not to open another can of worms, but now that I think of it, how the hell is Mike credited for "Mama Says"? The lyrics are straight from "Vega-Tables" and therefore should the song credit Brian and Van Dyke Parks? However, I've never noticed Van Dyke or Mike comment on this.

Haven't a clue.

How is Brian credited with 50% of the lyrics of GV?

[Mujan, 8@$+@Rc| of a Blue Wizard]

Mama Says -- Brian 60%, Mike 40%
lyrics: Brian 20%, Mike 80%

Not to open another can of worms, but now that I think of it, how the hell is Mike credited for "Mama Says"? The lyrics are straight from "Vega-Tables" and therefore should the song credit Brian and Van Dyke Parks? However, I've never noticed Van Dyke or Mike comment on this.

Haven't a clue.

How is Brian credited with 50% of the lyrics of GV?

Perhaps the chorus was his idea? It was the exact same in Tony Asher's version.

[Cam Mott]

Mama Says -- Brian 60%, Mike 40%
lyrics: Brian 20%, Mike 80%

Not to open another can of worms, but now that I think of it, how the hell is Mike credited for "Mama Says"? The lyrics are straight from "Vega-Tables" and therefore should the song credit Brian and Van Dyke Parks? However, I've never noticed Van Dyke or Mike comment on this.

Haven't a clue.

How is Brian credited with 50% of the lyrics of GV?

Perhaps the chorus was his idea? It was the exact same in Tony Asher's version.

Do you mean "Good, Good, Good, Good Vibrations"?

[Mujan, 8@$+@Rc| of a Blue Wizard]

Mama Says -- Brian 60%, Mike 40%
lyrics: Brian 20%, Mike 80%

Not to open another can of worms, but now that I think of it, how the hell is Mike credited for "Mama Says"? The lyrics are straight from "Vega-Tables" and therefore should the song credit Brian and Van Dyke Parks? However, I've never noticed Van Dyke or Mike comment on this.

Haven't a clue.

How is Brian credited with 50% of the lyrics of GV?

Perhaps the chorus was his idea? It was the exact same in Tony Asher's version.

Do you mean "Good, Good, Good, Good Vibrations"?

Yes. My memory of Disc 5 of TSS is hazy (it's a repetitive, tedious endeavor to listen to, so I've done it once then never again) but that was a constant part of an otherwise ever-changing song as I recall. Does that justify a 50% lyrics credit? In my opinion, no. But I also don't think Mike deserves a co-authorship credit on WIBN and yet, that happened. All the arguments used to justify Mike's credit for that more than applies to the 'Good, good, good Good Vibrations!' part of GV. The title and subject matter was Brian's idea too. 50% isn't completely unwarranted.

[Cam Mott]

Like somebody said, if it's published and you wrote it, you probably deserve credit.

50% seems a little steep to me too. Maybe somebody knows for sure but I thought I heard that the jury awarded Mike a split for lyrics based on the number of co-authors. If that's true I wonder if Mike got 33% of lyrics, which seems a little steep to me too, for WIBN and if it came out of Brian's 75%?

[Mujan, 8@$+@Rc| of a Blue Wizard]

Like somebody said, if it's published and you wrote it, you probably deserve credit.

50% seems a little steep to me too. Maybe somebody knows for sure but I thought I heard that the jury awarded Mike a split for lyrics based on the number of co-authors. If that's true I wonder if Mike got 33% of lyrics, which seems a little steep to me too, for WIBN and if it came out of Brian's 75%?

The least Brian could do is make sure Tony Asher continues to get his due for Pet Sounds. As far as Joe Casual is concerned, it's the band's magnum opus (those of us who are more knowledgeable may agree or disagree with that sentiment) and Asher's lyrics are a huge part of that. It's not like Brian can't afford it, and it's bad enough for Tony that Mike's name got slapped onto his most successful song. Brian owes Tony that much, in my opinion.

[Cam Mott]

Like somebody said, if it's published and you wrote it, you probably deserve credit.

50% seems a little steep to me too. Maybe somebody knows for sure but I thought I heard that the jury awarded Mike a split for lyrics based on the number of co-authors. If that's true I wonder if Mike got 33% of lyrics, which seems a little steep to me too, for WIBN and if it came out of Brian's 75%?

The least Brian could do is make sure Tony Asher continues to get his due for Pet Sounds. As far as Joe Casual is concerned, it's the band's magnum opus (those of us who are more knowledgeable may agree or disagree with that sentiment) and Asher's lyrics are a huge part of that. It's not like Brian can't afford it, and it's bad enough for Tony that Mike's name got slapped onto his most successful song. Brian owes Tony that much, in my opinion.

IF it all came out of Brian's then Tony shouldn't care. I believe the jury set the amounts and method etc. so maybe some of Mike's percentage was considered punitive to them. don't know.

As far as I know Mike didn't specify any percentages and apparently he just considered getting low balled on the percentages as a cost of doing business with Brian and Murry.