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I don’t think Mike was/is manufacturing a grievance concerning writing with Brian. I just think it’s a bit of a stand-in or beating around the bush about the more specific grievance. And I think that grievance was, to put it bluntly, Joe Thomas. (And also Melinda, but I think the “writing alone with Brian” complaints pertain much less to her and more to Joe).
My guess is that what Mike is really referring to when lamenting not writing with Brian on the reunion album is that there are no “Wilson/Love” collaborations.
“Here Mike, Brian and Joe wrote 57 songs together and secured an album deal, now here’s a song you can add some lyrics to” is not the same as Brian asking Mike to help finish “California Girls”, “Good Vibrations”, etc. I suspect tracks like “Isn’t It Time” and “Spring Vacation”, etc. were not devoid of lyrics before being handed off to Mike.
So while this isn’t completely dissimilar to some of the writing scenarios back in the 60s for Brian and Mike, it’s probably Mike filling in lyrical gaps more than in the 60s, and he’s not working with songs Brian brought on his own. In the case of “Isn’t It Time”, Mike is adding to a song that already has *four* other writers on it.
And, I think what Mike is also referring to is Joe Thomas. I think it slowly irked him more and more that Joe was a co-writer on almost everything on the album. I think it irked him professionally/creatively, and also he probably also realized that Joe Thomas was collecting more songwriting royalties off the album than he (Mike) was.
I suspect, much like the project as a whole, Mike signed on at a point where he didn’t have this huge animus towards Thomas. I’m not sure precisely how that animus developed, because it seemed to have occurred literally *during* the tour. I don’t know if Mike just had slight misgivings about having Joe so heavily involved, and those misgivings just ballooned during the tour, or if there was some sort of inciting event that occurred that soured him.
I think the “writing alone with Brian” had less to do with the writing method or precise scenario, and more to do with being alone. Mike has gone on record that he has usually had “mixed feelings” about Brian working with other writers.
I think there had to be some cognitive dissonance though in getting involved in the reunion, because it was Joe Thomas that was a huge part in making it all happen. He helped secure a record deal. He helped secure the money and infrastructure to launch the reunion tour. And he was involved in the other ancillary products (two DVDs, the live album).
I think Joe Thomas teed up this big reunion project, with an album deal and a tour with advances ready to go, and Mike couldn’t turn it down. I suspect on some level Mike wanted to, or felt they should do, some sort of anniversary reunion project. As we’ve seen in interviews, his initial ideas in the years leading up to the 50th tended to involve one or maybe two shows taped for TV, not a 73-date world tour, a new studio album, two DVDs, and a live album.
I think Mike had to make a lot of concessions to do the reunion, a lot of loosening his grip on being in charge of everything, and he should be (and WAS) commended for that. But I think there was probably no way that sort of “power shift’ (whether we’re talking from Mike to Brian’s “camp”, or specifically Melinda, or specifically Joe Thomas, or all of the above) was sustainable. Mike clearly likes to do his job on his own terms. Is he willing to be passive and let someone else do stuff, is he willing to defer? Sure, but on his terms and by his choice. I think the reunion project was obviously a choice they all made in terms of getting involved, but once they signed on, Mike found himself having someone else to answer to in doing some elements of his job, and I don’t think Mike wants for any prolonged period of time to be *told* what to do. Again, I think he’s fine if Brian in the studio tells him to sing a vocal track again. But he doesn’t like the larger business machine telling him that they will placate him and let him add some lyrics to a song Brian, Joe, and two other guys wrote X number of years ago.
I’m not justifying or criticizing any of this really, it’s just how it was/is, as best as I can tell. I think Mike didn’t want to be the third wheel in a Brian/Joe/Mike “team”, but that wasn’t something he could bemoan for most of the reunion “year”, because Joe Thomas was a big part of making all of that happen.
I think the reunion was so good on multiple levels, Mike should have sucked it up in order to keep it going. Would it have also been nice if Brian’s side did some things to, well, essentially placate Mike? Sure, especially if that could have helped the reunion continue. It wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world to, after seeing Mike start to complain *during the tour* that he hadn’t had a chance to “write with Brian” the way he wanted (which meant “not with Joe”), Brian and his camp went to Mike and said “Look, let’s do another album, and we’ll set aside the extra Brian/Joe songs for now, or we’ll use some of those but we’ll stop and take more time and see if we can do some true Brian/Mike collabs.” And hey, even though their initial idea of a “rock and roll covers” album would not be my first choice, if offering to do *that* could have also helped keep the reunion going, I’d be all for that too. I’m not saying offering any of that would have saved the reunion. I think Mike just wanted to go back to being his own boss. But one can’t help but wonder if a ton of smoothing stuff over and extra compromises and negotiations could have allowed the reunion one or two more sort of “cycles”, to maybe get one or two more albums out of it, and another big world tour. An album and tour in summer/fall 2013, and then maybe another year of touring, and maybe a final album (if they had done the covers album first), and they could have wrapped this thing up nicely and nobody would feel like it ended prematurely.
But obviously, in 2024, we might as well be talking about the Monterey Pop Festival.
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