The Smiley Smile Message Board

You're So Good To Me:

http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/You%27re-So-Good-To-Me-lyrics-Beach-Boys/DCD105977B65740748256982002BB4B8

Those aren't great, but there are plenty of lyrics far worse to be had from the 80's/90's.  Case in point - "Summer of Love" :

http://www.lyricstime.com/beach-boys-summer-of-love-lyrics.html (http://www.lyricstime.com/beach-boys-summer-of-love-lyrics.html)

Gah, those lyrics are bad when read out. More like summer of (mike) love. :lol

Heh if those were in a Ac/Dc-song it would be some of their best lyrics.

What's the particular problem with "You're So Good To Me"? I don't seem to get it. ???

I know! It's not Kafka, but it's the way he sings them!

Susie Cincinnati makes me want to wretch.

Again, anyone naming anything that happened before 1980 can GTFO imo.

That one line in Got to know the Woman:
"Come on...come on come and do the chick-un!

What were you thinking Denny?

God Only Knows!

................Just kidding

Please don't stone me to death, but basically all of the Smile lyrics aside from Surf's Up/Wonderful/Good Vibrations leave me cold and don't touch either my heart or my mind.

Having said that: Surf's Up might be up there among the top 5 greatest lyric sets of all-time!

Hey little tomboy, in just over 2 minutes the beach boys manage to damage their legacy significantly. Why did no one object to these lyrics? i can understand that Brian, Dennis and Carl were out of it to various degrees but what about Mike and Al? what made them think that this could be a good idea?



Cabinessence, Heroes and Villains?


No problem better than most pop lyrics today.

The best part of it is Al and Mike were specifically the ones who chose that one, of all the songs Brian had written recently (among them was "Still I Dream Of It"), to be on the album.

Mike and Al are both obviously sex perverts and pedos!

The mind boggles. Did they also reject it's over now? The only reason i can possibly think why they chose this song over all the others is cause its a bit more upbeat than say still i dream of it or it's over now (regardless of how it makes them sound like a bunch of paedo's).

"It's Over Now" was supposedly rejected because the subject of the song was above the age of 15.

With HLT, I think it was a case of them just being the Beach Boys and (on MIU as a whole) just trying to go back to the more innocent and fun days of All Summer Long/Today without realizing those lyrics would have been creepy enough even way back in 1964

Just an editorial note: we've had several new threads lately that are asking, what's "the worst" of this or that--lyrics, vocals, albums, songs, etc.

Yes, it can be fun to do this a little bit, but I want to put out a note of caution--as we get into the latter days of BB history, with new releases, new rereleases, and even the group and its people themselves, likely coming to an end, it gets a little too easy to start dipping into the desperation of topics like this.

I'm not trying to spoil anyone's fun, or constrict anyone's free speech or anything like that--I'm just saying that there's a risk of slipping into a more negative atmosphere here on the board, when I'm sure we'd rather be upbeat and having fun. I was on another board (not a BBs one, but I'm sure you know which one I mean, if you've read many of my posts), where the negativity ran rampant to the point that hardly any of the members liked anything at all. It was a constant barrage of "the worst song of so-and-so" and "why this new thing sucks" and on and on. It was a truly weird aberration of fandom: the fan set that doesn't even like anything by the object of that fandom itself. Eventually, people wound up saying the same negative merda over and over and over again, intelligence and courtesy went by the wayside, and board members began to treat each other poorly and insultingly. (Some of the worst offenders were the people that ran the board--which led to a rather patrician sort of moderation: if the insults came from the moderators, or agreed in tone or content of the moderators, it was allowed. Bleah.)

My point is:as long as this is done in a fun spirit and people don't start going medieval on each other, maybe what we have here is OK. Given the increased negativity here over the last year, I feel it's worth a mention though, because this is a great place to be, and it would be a shame for it to either go sour or collapse in flames.

Moderators: maybe my post belongs in the Sandbox--if so, please feel free to move this there. I felt that this location would be a good starting point for it though, since it's another "Worst" thread that is of late making the top of the list.

Oh, and by the way, "I'm Bugged At My Old Man" is the worst BB song. See? On-topic! 8^)

It always strikes me as weird how people can get into petty arguments about which song is worse than the other. Is it strange that i'd like i'm bugged at my old man to be redone in a plastic ono band style? with some changed lyrics of course.


I think thats a good guess given how Mike Love would have been blown away by the success of Endless Summer.

Sherry She Needs Me - Track and production?: Beautiful! Lyrics?: Offensive.

The TM Song... ??? ??? I still don't know WTF they are talking about..lol..

Lyrics in "I'm Bugged At My Old Man" such as "blew his cool" and "where it's at," show Brian putting his "How To Speak Hip" knowledge to use. It may make you cringe now, but it wasn't a cringer, back then, kids thought it was a funny song.

I was more bugged by the sheer awkwardness of "and he doesn't even know where it's at"...doesn't rhyme, has weird rhythm, sounds like it was made up as tape rolled...

In what way do you find it offensive?
Good choice some new age mystic mumbo jumbo probably.

I, too would vote for "Hey Little Tomboy" due to its sheer creepiness. But, it could've been much worse if they had included the ad lib part from bootleg versions!  ???

California Calling and That Same Song are my two least favorite BB songs written by the BBs.

How She Boogalooed It.  No, no, no, no, no.  It's the only thing that keeps Wild Honey from being a perfect album.  It's like the Beach Boys trying to do a song for a romp in a Monkees episode and failing miserably (cuz the Monkees were much better than that).

C'mon d00dz. As much as we don't like to acknowledge a couple of the later albums, a song from 1967 or 1976 are far down on the list compared to that stuff.

"I, too would vote for "Hey Little Tomboy" due to its sheer creepiness. But, it could've been much worse if they had included the ad lib part from bootleg versions!"



Are the lyrics to Hey Little Tomboy really that bad or creepy or is it just because the song is written/performed by a bunch of bearded and drugged out old fat guys?

I mean, if Justin Beiber or the Jonas Brothers did a cover of Hey Little Tomboy would it be creepy or cute??

When that song was released Mike was 37 and he was the oldest. Not exactly old in my book. Sensibilities were different back then. Things were less creepy in 1978, just strange.

Bad lyrics in Beach Boys songs? Consider . . .

Jet! I can almost remember their funny faces
That time you told me that
You were going to be marrying soon.
And jet, I thought the only
Lonely place was on the moon.
Jet! jet!
Jet! was your father as bold as a sergeant major?
How come he told you that
You were hardly old enough yet?
And jet, I thought the major
Was a lady suffragette.
Jet! jet!

Ah, matter, want jet to always love me?
Ah, matter, want jet to always love me?
Ah, matter, much later.

Jet! with the wind in your hair of a thousand laces.
Climb on the back and well
Go for a ride in the sky.
And jet, I thought the major
Was a lady suffragette.
Jet! jet!

I guess it's telling that I also really like Band on the Run...

I don't have a problem with most Beach Boys lyrics. except Belles of Paris and some of the stuff on Summer in Paradise.

"No-one will steal the eggs from this fortress..."

If Mars Had Life On It

I Might Find My Wife On It

...by a country mile.

That lyric is goofy, but describes accurately BW's marriage and relationship with Marilyn at the time.

Heart = broken.

:(

It's meant to be funny. Geez, even Brian doesn't take himself as seriously as his fans. "Well, oh my, oh gosh, oh gee, she really sends chills inside of me" ain't exactly learned poetry, but it works, and only Brian Wilson could get away with writing it.

"Solar System" -- "If Mars had wife on it I might find my wife on it." First of all, there's a parallelism error with the verb tenses. Second, that's wrong -- men are from Mars, women are from Venus. Third, it might have been the cocaine, but I find it disturbing that Brian is seeking extraterrestrial beings in his search for a new bride.

"Please Let Me Wonder" -- "...if I'm who you're dreaming of" -- terrible lyrics. Why? Dangling preposition, use of the nominative case of the pronoun when it should be the objective case.

"Lazy Lizzie": in a nutshell, imagine a 1976 Brian sitting in a car and watching girls leave the school. *shudder!!!*

"Roller Skating Child" -- most of the chorus: "We'll make sweet lovin' 'til the sun goes down. We'll even do more when your mama's not around." YEEK!!! "Well, oh, my, oh, gosh, oh, gee" -- wow, very thoughtful. Brian has a way with words, dunnhe?

"Hey Little Tomboy" -- ewwwwwwwwwww! Especially the Adult/Child version.

Now, tell me why you say that anybody citing anything pre-1980 can GTFO, using only these as your sources.

Smart Girls has the worst lyrics of any song, anywhere, at anytime in the history of music.

That reminds me of the Jim Webb story he tells about Wichita Lineman - Many years after writing it and being praised by everyone with ears for it, he noticed, quite out of the blue, that the best line in the song,

'And I need you more than want you, and I want you for all time/and the Wichita Lineman is still on the line'

is actually a half rhyme. Safe to say, he's very angry at himself  ;D

Exhibit A: http://www.surfermoon.com/lyrics/summer_in_paradise.html (http://www.surfermoon.com/lyrics/summer_in_paradise.html)

etc. etc.

I'm shocked no one's mentioned Winds Of Change!

Awful lyrics and possibly Al's worst vocal!

Not an awful song by any stretch, but the whole thing just seems desperate.

Al's a GREAT singer. I've always wondered why he sounds so bad on here. I get the feeling he just could not commit himself to selling those lyrics no matter what his best intentions might have been.

Song interpretation is an (often overlooked) art form in and of itself.

I really like that song.

I like the melody a lot! It could have been perfectly great. Mike sounds good on his part. He should have done the whole lead. I think he could have pulled off those lyrics with a bit more believability than Al.

Controversial though they may be with some, I think the lyrics for Cabinessence are lovely and evocative, and even Mike had nice things to say about H&V (except "sunny down snuff"!).  Some of the other lyrics on songs like Vega-Tables and Wind Chimes aren't necessarily anything to write home about, but for all their indulgences, I certainly wouldn't put any of the SMiLE lyrics in there with the worst that the Beach Boys have ever done.

I have to admit that some of that Love You/Adult Child stuff is pretty creepy. . .

FIYURR WEEIND. OH DESERT WEEIND. SHE WAS BORN EEIN A DESERRRRT BREEEEEEEZE!

You guys are thinking of Santa Ana Winds. that's a great song, too, though. Winds of Change is the last track on MIU.

Actually, I was referencing "Santa Ana Winds" as feeling it was a worser vocal performance imo, if only for the section quoted. T'be fair, there are many things I like about the song, but even the original, "ON MY PORCH. THINKIN' ABOUT THE TORCH," line is kinda dumb.

Hello, first post here.

I'm going to have to go with "Match Point of Our Love" as a nominee for bad lyric with the potential to fully drag down a potentially class song. This is the closest to writing a pure Bacharach-esque melody and chord structure that Brian (who presumably wrote most of the music) ever got, and it's a sexy, romantic, sad tune, with an excellent Brian vocal (little talked about is that Brian's voice had improved notably from its 15 Big Ones/Love You croak by the time of MIU--the return of Brian's sweet voice is one of the few assets of the album). But the song is essentially ruined with embarrassing tennis metaphors for love. With so many competent lyrics behind him couldn't Mike Love have come up with a better idea?

Brian's vocal on that is soooooo good and the song would have perfectly suited and could have been a hit for some other "happening" soft-rock band of the time.... Just listen to the killer repeating guitar lick that comes in near the fade.

I adore this song, stupid lyrics and all.

I'm with you Erik. I still love the song too, ridiculous lyrics and all, and think the recording is fantastically arranged. It's just that, from an objective point of view, I can appreciate that the lyrics are really really dumb, even though from a subjective point I might choose to ignore them and not care.

Love You (with perhaps two or three exceptions) and Sweet Insanity win this by a landslide. A good performance ie "Good Time" can save a mediocre lyric but Love You and SI don't have many good performances. I Wanna Pick You Up, Solar System, Love Is A Woman, Brian, Smart Girls, Spirit Of Rock and Roll, these would not make me a fan if that's all I ever heard. Love You again has some good moments but SI is partiuclarly awful. 

Still cruisin title track is pretty bad
Especially the bit about the greenhouse effect.

"Who wants to grow up who wants responsibility - not me"

"Toothpaste and soap will make our oceans a bubble bath" almost laughable whenever I hear it. Still a great song though.

Now it's not the toothpaste and soap, but the Japanese radiation....

for me it's "Summer of Love" and nothing else could even come remotely close to the awfulness of those lyrics. Not only worst lyrics, but worst song...not worst song of the Beach Boys, but just worst song. Ever.

Those lines coupled with Al's delivery is awesome. Love it.

Long Promised Road's lyrics are horrible.

"So hard to lift the jeweled scepter when the weight turns a smile to a frown."

Jack Rieley was clearly trying to be psychedelic and mystical but fell flat on his face.

Also, Tears In The Morning has really bad lyrics just because they sound so force. I think Bruce was trying to put life into his monotonous melody, but, again, fell flat on his face.

"So you moved out up to Europe
You packed your warmth and you took your soul
Well I hope you do what you're damn sure of
A lonely bed here takes on the cold"

I also find many of Dennis Wilson's lyrics bad.  He tries to cram  the word "love" in his songs as many times as possible and the result is sickening.

I often compare Dennis's and Kenny G's music (Kenny G with a raspy voice is the usual metaphor) because of his greeting card lyrics and workmanlike melodies and progressions.

People forget what a lot of waterways were like before the Clean Water Act kicked in.  In 1971 the stream in the woods behind our house often reeked of sewage and really was full of foaming bubbles.  People are not kind to the ecological lyrics of Surf's Up -- they are criticized for being too earnest and forced, but at the time this was the reality and taking care of that reality was on the top of people's minds.  Today's ecological problems are more severe, but are also less in your face, more distant and are seemingly theoretical.

I was thinking about this recently, and I think I gotta say that "Funky Pretty" has the worst lyrics of any Wilson/Love composition from 1973 or earlier. Combining Mike's TM preoccupations with some Jack Rieley's worst quasi-mystical type stuff. And pre-'74 I'm a pretty big Mike Love fan, as well as a fan of Rieley's work with the band. But this one has some pretty wretched lyrics.

However, the music and melody and vocals are so great that it doesn't matter, in my opinion. A really great song despite horrible lyrics.

It's all a matter of opinion what makes for great lyrics...... I do like the corny 'tomboy' and 'roller skatin'....
here's one song I do not like...... I like the Wilson/paley track, but I think these lyrics are crap:

Desert Drive

Hop in, honey, sit right by my side
 I'm gonna take you on a little ride
 A desert drive…out where the cactus grow
 A desert drive…hey don't you wanna go?
 Gotta get crankin' now, goin' on a desert drive

 Throw on your sneakers, T-shirt and jeans
 Better take your shades in case the rays get mean
 A desert drive…we're gonna have some fun
 A desert drive…out where the coyotes run
 Gotta get crankin' now, goin' on a desert drive

 Gotta get crankin' now, gotta get movin' now
 Fasten your belt I'm takin' good care of you

 bridge:
 (C'mon) Let's get outta town
 (C'mon) Before the sun goes down
 We'll take the 5 to the 109
 We're gonna leave all our troubles behind

 Stopped in at Needles for a Mexican bite
 Twentynine Palms is where we're stayin' tonight
 A desert drive…we're gonna get some thrills
 A desert drive…out in the purple hills
 Gotta get crankin' now, goin' on a desert drive

 Gotta get crankin' now, gotta get movin' now
 Fasten your belt I'm takin' good care of you

 repeat chorus

 Destination Caesar's gonna catch Wayne's show
 Next stop the Nugget and we'll blow some dough
 A desert drive…the hottest spot in the world
 A desert drive…won't see no surfer girls

 Gotta get crankin' now, goin' on a desert drive

RickB

I've never heard that song but oouuuuuuuuuuch

Huh - interesting. May have to rethink that one. At least no one disagreed with me on Still Cruisin... Haha

one song I can think of is "Match Point".  A decent, above average song which was destroyed by the lyrics

A couple come to mind:

My Diane
California Feelin'
Waves Of Love

"Smart Girls", "Tears In The Morning", most of Love You, the opening couplet of "Don't Fight The Sea"...

Forget that it's one of your favorite bands.  Those are embarrassingly bad.  :-[

I'm going to have to step up and defend smart girls.  :police:



Ha kidding.

But really I'll defend tears in the morning I really don't see what is so bad about that song! What don't you like about the lyrics? Oh man and most of Love You?! You're killing me!

At least the lyrics on Love You are inoffensively silly. That's preferable to the forced seriousness of the Rieley era

Bad lyrics? The Beach Boys had tons of them. Doesn't help that only one of them had a knack for writing great lyrics and he sorta fell off a cliff with his songwriting after the first decade.

Hey Little Tomboy - pervy.
Solar System - stupid, a five year old could come up with better.
Everybody Wants To Live - even more stupider, lyrics that literally don't make sense.
Be With Me - awkward, clunky lyrics.
Don't Go Near The Water - great song but a couple of lines are cringe worthy.
I'm So Lonely - Must have taken Brian and Landy a good 5 minutes to come up with these gems.
Got To Know The Woman - another 5 min job.

"Tears In The Morning", as noted: 
So you moved out up to Europe, you packed your warmth and you took your soul
Well I hope you do what you're damn sure of, a lonely bed here takes on the cold

Neither of those rhymes actually rhyme.  I know it's only rock-n-roll and and more than willing to let things slide here and there but BOTH of the only rhymes in a whole verse, followed by another (albeit more common and forgivable) one in the following verse (together/forever) seems like Bruce was intentionally trying to push the boundaries.  (Take it easy, Bruce.  It IS only rock-n-roll. ::) )   And while the latter rhyme in that next verse does actually rhyme, he puts it in the painfully awkward "baby I'm never gonna see" phrase.

Then Later another gem:
Well you know I lit a candle.  It's in my heart now where it glows
Day and night feel my light it's gonna stand till, My heart believes in what you chose

"Candle" and "stand till" feels like another forced "clever" rhyme and Jeez Louise, Bruce. We know you like the saccharine style but no one can truly relate to those lyrics because NO ONE talks that way.  And THAT goes for pretty much the entire song.  The performance and production barely save the track but the lyrics sound like a school kid's writing assignment. :lol


And come on.  Love you?  :brow  Don't even get me started.  Again, I think some fans are WAY too forgiving with the childlike childish lyrics because of Brian's state at the time.  But like it or not, it wasn't private therapeutic writing assignments.  It was a major label release by a MAJOR recording act. I got it early in my foray into Beach Boys fandom (Endless Summer > Spirit Of America > In Concert > Good Vibration/Great Concert! > Love You) and it put me off the band for YEARS and it wasn't because of the voices! In hindsight I wouldn't be surprised if the band KNEW it was crap and allowed Brian the therapeutic indulgence since they knew they were done with Reprise.  (I know it's bad business sense to release something you know is bad but this band ain't exactly known for always making the best decisions. :lol )

"Johnny Carson", "Solar System", "Ding, Dang", "Mona", "Honkin' Down The Gosh Darn Highway"...  The list goes on.  To paraphrase Pinder, If Justin Beiber or the Jonas Brothers did a cover of Love You would people around here praise it for its inoffensively silly, innocent lyrics or would we call them out for saying cars look like dots from the inside of an airplane? ::)

Can't disagree with you. Most of the lyrics for Love You are horrific.

Drinks are on me!  ;D   :beer

I'm going to say Pom Pom Play Girl.

Harmonically one of their most complex classic period songs, yet hardly ever mentioned.

Why? The lyrics.

Personally I have nothing against them, and can disregard them and just enjoy the music, but with a different set of lyrics, this could have been one of their most highly acclaimed early songs.

The lyrics are cute for their time but in the real world the Pom Pom Play Girl would be an annoying slut who I'd despise.

 
 "If Mars had life on it
   I might find my wife on it"

 Dylan would have been proud to have written this.

'Your daddy knows a little hide away'
'Gotta get crankin' now'
'How can we get things crankin'?'
'The women who live on the farm they reflect his charm'
'Majesty moves through me majestically'
'Don't tell me you are a Cancer'
'...let em know it's totally rad!'
'Be bop munumunuhhhh'

Mike and Al (despite their apparent change of heart since) did indeed give Brian grief for it at the time.

This doesn't belong under a "worst lyrics" thread tho' – it's genius. Would the chances of Mars supporting life have increased Brian's chances of just happening to bump into Marilyn there?  I like to think so…

I love My Diane lyrics! GAHHH!

California Feelin' has alright lyrics in parts, the grapefruit tree line is of course pretty weak.

I remember some friends shaking their heads in disbelief (and not in a good way) when they heard that one. It's a shocker.

"The private life of Bill and Sue
Can you dig what I'm tellin' you?"
And the rest of the song doesn't get any better.

Second: All of "Summer of Love".

Third:
"Waving from the ocean liners
beaded cheering indians behind them
Once upon the Sandwich Isles
the social structure steamed upon Hawaii
Having returned to the East or West Indies
we always got them confused"

Fourth: Love You album

Songs which the lyrics are so bad it kinda destroyed songs that are great musically, such as Match Point, Make It Big, etc.
Then there's songs with lyrics and music that completely suck, such as Kona Coast, Summer Of Love, Sumahama, etc.