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Last night I was reading Jim Murphy's outstanding book "Becoming The Beach Boys". I'm halfway through it and it's shaping up to be one of the best books ever written about the guys. Seriously, this thing is so meticulously researched and full of new information that you can take everything you thought was gospel about the Beach Boys, shake it like an Etch-A-Sketch and wipe your memory clean and start over. It's THAT good.

I was struck by a quote from Brian on page 30. The source of the quote is a 2001 Record Collector interview with Brian conducted by Ken Sharp : "My favorite song my Dad wrote was one called "His Little Darlin' and You". It was a ballad (sings 'When a bee loses his queen bee, his days are numbered it's true')"....

I nearly fell off my chair. The song "Just Like Me and You", one of the bonus tracks on the deluxe edition of "That Lucky Old Sun" starts off with a near identical line which is "When a man loses his woman, his days are numbered it's true". Even the title is similar: His Little Darlin' and You = Just Like Me and You.

Murphy notes that Murry's "His Little Darlin and You" was never registered with BMI or ASCAP (as many of Murry's compositions were). The CD booklet for the deluxe edition of "That Lucky Old Sun" doesn't contain a writing credit for "Just Like Me and You".

Is it possible that Brian remembered his father's song, rewrote it (speeding up the tempo based on the finished product) and released it as a subtle tribute to his father? Before I hear a chorus of "boos" from the peanut gallery, keep in mind that in any father/son relationship no matter how fraught or abusive it became there can remain some affection. Brian has sometimes spoken glowingly of Murry, leading one to believe that he chooses to focus on the positive.

I suppose the tale would be in the tape, mainly the audio from that 2001 interview with Ken Sharp. If what Brian is singing is the same melody as the song he released in 2008, then we know he either rewrote or based his 2008 song on Murry's "His Little Darlin' and You".

For reference sake, here's Brian's song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TEEMqNIlNI

..and it's actually my favorite song on the album, sounding like classic mid-60's Brian. Strange to think there may be a Murry connection.

 I forwarded your post to Ken, and he replied:

>>my tapes are scattered so it might be some time before i can locate but i will look << 

a bit disingenuous with the thread title, don't you think?

I also heard back from Ken on FB.

RE: The thread title: No, I don't think so. Obviously everyone should know that Murry was long since dead by 2008. I thought about what to call it. "Brian pays tribute to Murry?" Kind of vague and that could mean anything, a TV interview, etc.... and certainly not "Brian covers Murry" because we don't know if that's even remotely the case. He may have just borrowed a line or two, or rewrote it or used elements from it. Who knows? That one line alone however indicates that it's Murry-related.   

I'm guessing he took the opening line as the starting point for JLM&Y. No way in heck Murry wrote that chorus.

The date being the reason it is disingenuous, obviously.  So yes.  
Brian borrowed from Murry?  
Brian had other collaborations with dad?
I'm certain there are many you could have thought of, without the great mislead.  Let the thread renaming begin!  

Then let the mods change it (I have no idea how to change it). Knowing how quickly this board can become toxic I actually gave it some thought beforehand. "Brian borrowed from Murry" was one I thought of too but I could envision people freaking out over that one too. 

Ah! I figured out how to do it (although I think this may be a less sensitive and misleading title BGAS).

Interesting: why does the title change on your initial post and your last one, but not any of the others?

OH, by the way, Ken just asked me if you meant his 2006 article? I'm presuming maybe he didn't have one in a 2001 Record Collector?

lol I have no idea how the board operates. I'm not exactly tech-savvy. The mods can change it to whatever they want. That's not the point of what I posted anyway.
Let's move past this peripheral stuff and get into the meat of the matter:

According to the book it's the from the March 2001 issue of "Record Collector" (which I probably have somewhere).

Yeah, I wonder if maybe Jim has the year wrong, OR, Ken is remembereing something else.

The quote does indeed come from the January 2006 issue of Record Collector. The full article was posted on this board many moons ago.

The takeaway for me is that, whether Brian just used Murry's line as a jumping off point or reworked Murry's original composition, it becomes a more significant song in his catalog. Certainly it speaks to Brian's character and is....dare I say it...a little heartwarming to know that despite everything that went down with Brian's dad, he would incorporate a Murry motif into one of his own compositions all these many years later (and maybe I'm a sucker for sweet moments in tension-filled Father/Son stories).

  Thing is, did he consciously use it knowing it was Murry's, or perhaps it was something  he came up with not really realizing the similarity

If the Ken Sharp quote is from 2006 (and TLOS came out in 2008) then it lends even more credence to the idea that Brian was consciously incorporating Murry's song. Since he claims "His Little Darlin' and You" is his favorite song that Murry wrote (and he evidently liked it enough to remember some of the lyrics and sing the melody to Ken Sharp some 50 years later) I highly doubt it would be something he would forget about within a year, especially if he had been carrying it around with him that long.

Taken another way: There are those who believe that Brian's songwriting today is finessed so much by his collaborators that the finished product is probably distorted from what Brian originally intended. Here we have something that's so personal that the only people who would even know about Murry's song would be Brian, Dennis and Carl. Denny and Carl are no longer here, making Brian the only living person on planet Earth who would know an unpublished song by Murry called "His Little Darlin' and You". 

Perhaps I'm overstating the significance of this song. Perhaps if I had titled this thread something stupid like "Why do you hate Al Jardine?" there would be more of a discussion going on here. (sigh)

 

Thanks Ghosty for your great review of Becoming the Beach Boys, 1961-1963.  I really appreciate it and am glad you are enjoying it.  A few more pieces of the puzzle.  

So, a few things . . .

First . . . Needless to say, while researching the book, it was imperative to know what had already been written and what the guys had said about the early days over the years.  Hence, I read and re-read every book, magazine article (my world-wide article data base is 70 pages, single spaced), and every film/documentary about the band.  I transcribed every relevant quote and piece of pertinent information, and cross-referenced them. As you might guess, it concerned me I may have cited Brian's quote about "His Little Darlin' and You" wrong. So, I went back to my article data base and pulled the original source and am happy to report the quote was indeed in an interview conducted by Ken Sharp that first appeared in the March 2001 Record Collector.  When quotes appeared in multiple sources, I always cited the earliest source.    

Second . . . How cool is it that Ghosty was able to make this connection between a snippet of lyrics from an obscure Murry Wilson song [not copyrighted (hence, no lead sheet), not registered with BMI or ASCAP, and apparently never recorded] and Brian's "Just Like You and Me."  Here's another side by side comparison: "When a bee loses his Queen Bee, his days are numbered it's true" and "When a man loses his woman, his days are numbered it's true."  Honestly, I wish I had caught that. I guess my listening rotation should move on from 1961-1963  Maybe I'll start with Shut Down Vol 2  ;D  

And, finally, I had always hoped my book would generate some healthy debate and discussion, so I find it kind of cool how Brian recycled a small piece of a favorite song written by his Dad. Nice work, Ghosty!

Since the AGD Appreciation Thread seems closed, I thought I'd come back here to add a few thoughts.  During the eight years I researched and wrote Becoming the Beach Boys, 1961-1963, I consulted Doe's Bellagio website on a nearly daily basis. It is a monumental accomplishment and an essential resource for anyone interested in the Beach Boys.  I also found his pocket guide co-written with John Tobler to be very helpful and insightful. To avail myself to his breadth of knowledge and insight about the band is one of the main reasons I began visiting Smiley Smile. Certainly not the dullards who clutter this board droning on incessantly with their myopic view of Mike Love.  The band would not have made it past the Ritchie Valens Memorial Dance and Show on December 31, 1961, if it were not for Mike's extroverted personality.  Sometimes having a little self-confidence and a healthy ego is actually a good thing.  And I like Doe's sense of humor.  I'm from the Bronx, New York, so he's a tad tame by comparison.  Sometimes I wish he'd ratchet it up a notch.  Or two.       

...adding my note of thanks to Ghosty. This semi-posthumous "collaboration" is interesting, especially because it pops up so late in Brian's career. As to what it means, you could come up with dozens of reasonable-sounding explanations. Generally a positive thing for Brian in some way, I would think.  Would have been a good Q&A topic.

LOL!  You hit the nail squarely on the head with that one, Mr. Murphy.

It would not surprise me one bit that Brian remembered the song and incorporated it--he's known for doing this with his own songs/song ideas, and he is a sentimental kind of guy, looking to find the good things in everyone whenever possible...and after so many years since Murry's death, he (like many who've had ups and downs with our parents) is very likely to have taken such a positive memory to heart and acted upon it.

I agree that Ghostly shows some excellent "musical detective" chops here...it's a fun discovery on several levels.

I have yet to be able to get Jim Murphy's book, I'm sorry to say, but I am really looking forward to it. As he noted, there is no question that Mike Love was essential to the early success of the Beach Boys--and even in other, more problematic situations, was always in some way a force for the ongoing success of the band, even if his relationship with Brian...shall we say..."drifted" a bit based on a complicated set of circumstances. In many ways it is the opposite personalities of the two that has sustained interest in the band over so much time, particularly with the many gaps in the production of new material. All of that, of course, comes later in the story and tends to overshadow just how pivotal Mike was in the early years.

An interesting thread! Hurrah!

"I have yet to be able to get Jim Murphy's book, I'm sorry to say, but I am really looking forward to it."

FYI ~ I have completed a live interview with Jim Murphy that will soon be available online:
http://prayforsurfblog.blogspot.com/2015/08/new-beach-boys-book-new-podcast-with.html

Phil