Question about Don't Hurt My Little Sister

[gregcoffeymusic]

Hi Friends -

So this is weird, but has anyone else read in multiple spots that Don't Hurt My Little Sister has a darker side?

Here is the reference:

Bolin, Alice (July 8, 2012). "The Beach Boys Are Still Looking at an Impossible Future"

I have a hard time believing this, but I've read it now from a few different people.

[rab2591]

There's also a focus on the teenage experience on Today!, which has been a consistent subject for the Beach Boys’ music. This makes some sense -- Wilson was barely out of high school when the Beach Boys formed -- but on Today!, the childlike lyrics take a turn for the unsettling. “When I Grow Up to Be a Man” takes the stance of a teenager wondering what adulthood will be like, but with lyrics like “Will I love my wife / For the rest of my life,” we might wonder if the song isn’t expressing a child’s questions about the future, but newly-married 23-year-old Wilson’s uncertainties about adult life.

Creepier is “Don’t Hurt My Little Sister", in which the narrator chides a boy who has done his little sister wrong. “Why don’t you kiss her,” he says a little too insistently, and going further, “Why don’t you love her / Like her big brother?” As far as vaguely incestuous pop songs go, “Don’t Hurt My Little Sister” was probably composed with innocent intentions. But we do know that in his early 20s Wilson had an interest in younger women. He began dating his wife Marilyn when he was 21 and she was 14, and he married her when she was 16. “He was constantly looking at teenage girls,” said Tony Asher, his co-writer on Pet Sounds. “He thought they were the most beautiful girls in the world. And he was married at the time, so it was fairly obvious he was confused about love.”

To be honest, I think this says more about the PopMatters writer than it does Brian Wilson.

“Why don’t you love her / Like her big brother?”

Clearly Brian is stating that this jerk boyfriend needs to make his girl feel protected and secure (like a big brother does for his big sister) and not make her cry all the time. The song is literally about a big brother who doesn't want to see his sister in pain all the time.

I wouldn't read too much into these articles from PopMatters - they are written with stuff like this in order to get clicks and views. I don't think I've ever read a decent article relating to The Beach Boys from PopMatters. According to them Pet Sounds' impact on American culture is racist, Brian Wilson is a complete vegetable wheeled around at the whims of his controlling wife, and here apparently "Don't Hurt My Little Sister" is a creepy and possibly incestuous song.

[Rocker]

There's also a focus on the teenage experience on Today!, which has been a consistent subject for the Beach Boys’ music. This makes some sense -- Wilson was barely out of high school when the Beach Boys formed -- but on Today!, the childlike lyrics take a turn for the unsettling. “When I Grow Up to Be a Man” takes the stance of a teenager wondering what adulthood will be like, but with lyrics like “Will I love my wife / For the rest of my life,” we might wonder if the song isn’t expressing a child’s questions about the future, but newly-married 23-year-old Wilson’s uncertainties about adult life.

Creepier is “Don’t Hurt My Little Sister", in which the narrator chides a boy who has done his little sister wrong. “Why don’t you kiss her,” he says a little too insistently, and going further, “Why don’t you love her / Like her big brother?” As far as vaguely incestuous pop songs go, “Don’t Hurt My Little Sister” was probably composed with innocent intentions. But we do know that in his early 20s Wilson had an interest in younger women. He began dating his wife Marilyn when he was 21 and she was 14, and he married her when she was 16. “He was constantly looking at teenage girls,” said Tony Asher, his co-writer on Pet Sounds. “He thought they were the most beautiful girls in the world. And he was married at the time, so it was fairly obvious he was confused about love.”

To be honest, I think this says more about the PopMatters writer than it does Brian Wilson.

“Why don’t you love her / Like her big brother?”

Clearly Brian is stating that this jerk boyfriend needs to make his girl feel protected and secure (like a big brother does for his big sister) and not make her cry all the time. The song is literally about a big brother who doesn't want to see his sister in pain all the time.

I wouldn't read too much into these articles from PopMatters - they are written with stuff like this in order to get clicks and views. I don't think I've ever read a decent article relating to The Beach Boys from PopMatters. According to them Pet Sounds' impact on American culture is racist, Brian Wilson is a complete vegetable wheeled around at the whims of his controlling wife, and here apparently "Don't Hurt My Little Sister" is a creepy and possibly incestuous song.

Wasn't this song offered to the Ronnetts at first? And did it have the same lyrics (though from a big sister's standpoint) before being recorded as "Things are changing" by the Blossoms? If so, the author overlooks that it wasn't written from a brother's perspective originally.



EDIT: Just had a look at Wikipedia. Brian more or less makes it clear:

According to Wilson's 2016 memoir, it was written "about me and the Rovells. I wrote it from the perspective of one of them telling me not to treat another one of them badly."


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Hurt_My_Little_Sister

[HeyJude]

I'm dreading the day one of these stupid clickbait sites discovers "Hey Little Tomboy" or, even worse, "Lazy Lizzie."

To be clear, they absolutely are creepy songs. But they also have a context in terms of Brian's intentions, and that context will be lost if someone tries to write about those songs.

[guitarfool2002]

Trying to analyze and pin meanings to lyrics is a slippery slope that usually ends up saying more about the opinions of the person analyzing them than the actual songwriter(s) who wrote them. In this case, yes indeed PopMatters has a rather checkered history with the Beach Boys and Brian in particular, as outlined above and also shown in full light when one of their writers came to this board and proceeded to create some craziness (I'm being kind there...).

I agree with the comments above - Not only was the song created with the specific Phil Spector sound in mind, and offered to the Ronettes, but Brian has also talked about its origins and inspiration. If others who most likely have never spent a minute with Brian want to attach other meanings or inspiration to those lyrics, again it probably says more about them than the actual story being reported. That's one of the reasons why I generally steered clear of Smile lyric interpretation for the better part of the past three decades. While some of the analysis is interesting to read, I cannot read an observer's opinion and attempted connections to this or that historical or philosophical concept to the point where the opinion of those meanings becomes argued as fact.

In this specific case, I'm not surprised some deeper layer of such interpretation gets picked up by other writers and commentators and repeated to where the narrative becomes "dark" - That sells ad revenue and generates views/clicks. But it doesn't make it any more than a writer's opinion. And to be more blunt, the art of lyric writing can also be a case of pure luck, basic surface-level expression devoid of any deeper meanings, and sometimes a case of finding lines which work well together and rhyme.

I listen to "Last Train To Clarksville" regularly - It's a brilliant AM radio pop record, the Monkees' first #1 single that hit the air before the show premiered. A classic record with Louis Shelton's stellar overly-compressed Telecaster blasting through the speakers and a great Dolenz lead vocal. But I doubt anyone who hears it would immediately hear it as an anti-war song, which is essentially what it is. It's about a soldier ready to ship out to Vietnam trying to meet his girl one last time because in his words as narrator "I don't know if I'm ever coming home". Heavy stuff for 1966, but seriously, who hears it that way minus knowing the backstory from the writers?  That's the converse of the over-analysis effect mentioned above: A song which has a meaning on full display which very few catch because it's wrapped in such a radio-ready hit-record package. Hey this guy wants to meet his girl at a train station...we can relate to that! But the actual meaning of it went beyond that scenario. In that case the writers had a definite inspiration and outlined it in various interviews, but the general public may have interpreted as something far less heavy or relevant to the times of 1965-66.

Back to the Brian track: Do we accept as fact rather than opinion that the track came from something darker or more insidious than what was said between Brian and Diane Rovell when Brian was dating her younger sister? The inspiration for the track was stated pretty clearly by one of the authors, and the genesis and intent for the track has been documented as well, which included Brian meeting Spector at a hotel to offer the song to The Ronettes. It's pretty much on the table, anything else beyond that in terms of analyzing a deeper or darker meaning is whatever narrative someone wants to proscribe to the existing facts.

Just to close with one other example from 1966. This was the Beatles press conference at Capitol, summer '66 during their final tour, the one where you see David Crosby hanging around in the shadows offstage with Brian Epstein and the same one where they're asked who are their favorite American groups and Paul replies "The Beach Boys". The following question and answer exchange took place:

- "I'd like to direct this question to Messrs. Lennon and McCartney. In a recent article, Time magazine put down pop music. And they referred to Day Tripper as being about a prostitute and Norwegian Wood as being about a lesbian"

Paul - "Oh yeah"

- "I just wanted to know what your intent was when you wrote it, and what your feeling is about the Time magazine criticism of the music that is being written today"

Paul - "We were just trying to write songs about prostitutes and lesbians, that's all."


A great answer to a magazine article whose authors interpreted the lyrics in a certain way in order to push their narrative of criticizing pop music and in order to sell magazines. However in the case of Day Tripper they were partially correct...

[gregcoffeymusic]

Spot on responses, and what I figured. I am just surprised that such an awful take on the lyrics is in such a prominent spot, and written as complete truth. Thanks!!

[gregcoffeymusic]

Trying to analyze and pin meanings to lyrics is a slippery slope that usually ends up saying more about the opinions of the person analyzing them than the actual songwriter(s) who wrote them. In this case, yes indeed PopMatters has a rather checkered history with the Beach Boys and Brian in particular, as outlined above and also shown in full light when one of their writers came to this board and proceeded to create some craziness (I'm being kind there...).

I agree with the comments above - Not only was the song created with the specific Phil Spector sound in mind, and offered to the Ronettes, but Brian has also talked about its origins and inspiration. If others who most likely have never spent a minute with Brian want to attach other meanings or inspiration to those lyrics, again it probably says more about them than the actual story being reported. That's one of the reasons why I generally steered clear of Smile lyric interpretation for the better part of the past three decades. While some of the analysis is interesting to read, I cannot read an observer's opinion and attempted connections to this or that historical or philosophical concept to the point where the opinion of those meanings becomes argued as fact.


Exactly. It is more or less provocative writing to drive revenue for the publication. Unreal how some of this stuff gets published, and in some ways, punishes an excellent track on one of their best records.

In this specific case, I'm not surprised some deeper layer of such interpretation gets picked up by other writers and commentators and repeated to where the narrative becomes "dark" - That sells ad revenue and generates views/clicks. But it doesn't make it any more than a writer's opinion. And to be more blunt, the art of lyric writing can also be a case of pure luck, basic surface-level expression devoid of any deeper meanings, and sometimes a case of finding lines which work well together and rhyme.

I listen to "Last Train To Clarksville" regularly - It's a brilliant AM radio pop record, the Monkees' first #1 single that hit the air before the show premiered. A classic record with Louis Shelton's stellar overly-compressed Telecaster blasting through the speakers and a great Dolenz lead vocal. But I doubt anyone who hears it would immediately hear it as an anti-war song, which is essentially what it is. It's about a soldier ready to ship out to Vietnam trying to meet his girl one last time because in his words as narrator "I don't know if I'm ever coming home". Heavy stuff for 1966, but seriously, who hears it that way minus knowing the backstory from the writers?  That's the converse of the over-analysis effect mentioned above: A song which has a meaning on full display which very few catch because it's wrapped in such a radio-ready hit-record package. Hey this guy wants to meet his girl at a train station...we can relate to that! But the actual meaning of it went beyond that scenario. In that case the writers had a definite inspiration and outlined it in various interviews, but the general public may have interpreted as something far less heavy or relevant to the times of 1965-66.

Back to the Brian track: Do we accept as fact rather than opinion that the track came from something darker or more insidious than what was said between Brian and Diane Rovell when Brian was dating her younger sister? The inspiration for the track was stated pretty clearly by one of the authors, and the genesis and intent for the track has been documented as well, which included Brian meeting Spector at a hotel to offer the song to The Ronettes. It's pretty much on the table, anything else beyond that in terms of analyzing a deeper or darker meaning is whatever narrative someone wants to proscribe to the existing facts.

Just to close with one other example from 1966. This was the Beatles press conference at Capitol, summer '66 during their final tour, the one where you see David Crosby hanging around in the shadows offstage with Brian Epstein and the same one where they're asked who are their favorite American groups and Paul replies "The Beach Boys". The following question and answer exchange took place:

- "I'd like to direct this question to Messrs. Lennon and McCartney. In a recent article, Time magazine put down pop music. And they referred to Day Tripper as being about a prostitute and Norwegian Wood as being about a lesbian"

Paul - "Oh yeah"

- "I just wanted to know what your intent was when you wrote it, and what your feeling is about the Time magazine criticism of the music that is being written today"

Paul - "We were just trying to write songs about prostitutes and lesbians, that's all."


A great answer to a magazine article whose authors interpreted the lyrics in a certain way in order to push their narrative of criticizing pop music and in order to sell magazines. However in the case of Day Tripper they were partially correct...