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There is such a strong focus on the lyrics for the new album, that I thought, now that the album's out, there should be a thread dedicated to their dissection, inspection, verification, interpretation, celebration, and vilification, and uhhhh....vibration!

I will get the ball rolling with a few odd bits that I have noted so far:

TPLOBAS- "California to Mexico"- WTH? Aren't they literally right next to each other on the map? I'm assuming the lyric was intended to convey some wide sweep of notoriety, but that's like saying "all the way from A to B".

"It's paradise when I lift up my antennae."-  Now unless the person singing is named Henry Pym, this line just don't make a whole lot of sense. They SHOULD have made it "It's paradise when ya put up your antenna", thereby having it actually, y'know, make sense, and making it more universal by switching the person from "I" to "you" (everyone).

"There's a place along the way that maybe we could stay, Listen to the waves at my front door". Shouldn't it be "at OUR front door"? That's just a sore thumb on a brilliant song.

"Don't you understand the words are singing in the wind, I wish that we could get from there to back again."- This strikes me as a callback to the title song- "Tuning in the latest star", as both lines recognize the music that always surrounds us through radio waves. Also, the song seems to be about an older couple, but the "from there to back again" part could also suggest the Beach Boys own fade from the airwaves, looking back at their glory days so to speak. Speaking of callbacks, the older couple angle of this song also clicks with the lyrics from Isn't It Time.

I nominate for the special Lovester Award  (or simply the "Lovester"), given for meritoriously egregious usage of hackneyed rhymes,  the word "blast" for being used twice on the same album to describe a superlatively positive experience.

That's all for now. Hope some others will chime in some keener observations of the lyrics than I have offered so far.  Maybe you have your own nominations in mind for the Lovester. Honestly, I'm not that big of a lyric guy, so it's weird that I started this particular thread, but with this album, I just find the subject fun, fun, fun.

I believe the idea is that the "we" being discussed could stay at the narrator's home, which happens to be located near the ocean. There's so much to dissect in this song.  I'm too lazy to get into what I think of all of it quite yet, but I will in due time. 

In the line at the grocery store: where you'll find all the exploitative mags detailing the latest crap from reality shows. Makes perfect sense to me: people would be picking up the mags on impulse, and maybe commenting to each other. Perfect fit.

The line is "AT the line IN the grocery store". They used the words bass ackwards. Do you see my point now? (other than the one on my head)

I wish they wouldn't have used the words "easy money". I am assuming they are singing about THEIR current situation. It kind of rubs in. I'm still not over what I paid for the V.I.P. package. >:(

I think the lyric "Easy money, Ain't life funny" might just be the most direct, refreshingly honest lines on the whole album.

While we're on the subject of a song named SPRING Vacation, does anyone else find it a tad incongruous that they sing about "Summer weather"? If they want to sing about the Summer, then why do you name it after Spring? A better title could have been Road Vacation. That would have much better reflected what the song is about.

I go back and forth between loathing that line and thinking it just kind of means, "We're doing what we love AND getting paid for it. Easy money. Ain't life funny?"

Or something.  :ohyeah

Interestingly, that's a Brian Wilson line. It does not come from the pen of Mike Love, who is all about greed and money as every well-informed fan knows.

krabklaw, I think it's time for you to meditate. :police:

Am I coming off a little too "Lewis Black"? :)

The mags/rags are AT the line, which is IN the grocery store. Mea culpa for my own transversal.

More like Jerry Seinfeld, not that there's anything wrong with that...

Y'know what? That actually makes sense. Thank you. I feel better now. That was really bothering me for some disturbingly Beach Boys-obsessive reason. You see? This thread is already doing it's job.

Why stop at the lyrics for TWGMTR? Let's go through the whole catalogue, shall we?

The line from Good Vibrations, "I'm pickin' up good vibrations" NEVER made sense to me. Shouldn't it be "we're pickin' up good vibrations"? - they are the Beach Boys after all, not The Beach Boy. And have these so-called "vibrations" been scientifically proven to exist?

The song 'Sloop John B' is full of it: The scuffle aboard the Sloop John B was never officially documented to have happened (even the local Nassau police force have no record of a "Sheriff John Stone" working for them...ever).
_____

Gah, I love your posts KrabKlaw (including your remakes of the TWGMTR cover), but blimey this thread is a downer! Don't look too deep into these lyrics :-D

I hope everybody doesn't feel that way. It was not my intention by starting this thread to be a downer on the new album. Quite the contrary, I just thought a thread dedicated to the lyrics could be helpful, maybe a little fun, and possibly even enlightening.

haha no it's a good thread, it just seemed like nearly all of your insights were complaints....but I guess that's what this place is for: our opinions ;D

Anyways, when I get the album tomorrow hopefully I'll have something to contribute to this thread!

I think the lyrics overall are classic Beach Boys lyrics.  A little bit corny but at times with an unbelievable amount of depth to them.  I really think overall this is your classic Beach Boys album where you have your "Fun In The Sun/Surf & Turf" sound and the latter half of the record the introspective, gorgeous ballads of Brian Wilson.

Complaints, observations... who's to say what's what.  Maybe I am venting a little bit, but I am really very happy with the way the new album turned out. I am actually not as particularly bothered by "hackneyed rhymes" as a lot of the people on this board seem to be. Like I said, I'm not really a lyric guy. A good tune is still a good tune for me even when the words being sung aren't meaningful (or good).

let's go back to spring vacation...
"look where love finds us"

hmmm...."look where LOVE finds us"

perhaps this lyrics is ACTUALLY A SUBTLE DIG THAT THE BAND IS ONLY SURVIVING TODAY BECAUSE OF MIKE LOVE.

or. something.  ;D

I think I liked it better when I thought it was "Peas and honey, ain't life funny?"

I'd like to thank Mike Love and his horrible lyrics for ruining this song for me - before you choke on fresh air, yes I know Mike didn't write the lyrics - its just that every time I hear this song I feel compelled to sing "California to Kokomo".

CURSE YOU MICHAEL E LOVE!

 >:D

...only if you also include the "Hey what's it to ya?" Which shows not just that they have it in perspective, but that we probably should too.  :-)

I've literally just listened to the album for the first time, and I'm still reeling from "Summer's Gone".  But one thing that hits me is that the song isn't quite as bleak and final as it sounds:

Summer's gone
Gone like yesterday
The nights grow cold
It's time to go...
...I'm thinking maybe I'll just stay.


Maybe that's me, clinging to any ray of sunshine.  But after "Pacific Coast Highway", for a moment I was worried Brian had completely given up!

Gulp,
Jon Blum

I agree. Initially the song sounds bleak, hopeless. But then there are lyrical hints of a season cycle starting again. "another summer's gone", he sings. It makes you wanna wait til next summer.

They're saying that they're on the cover of the magazines, which isn't in the line, it's AT the line, on the shelves beside it.  Makes perfect sense to me.  If you said "In the line", that would mean that you actually saw them, in person, standing in line. 

Sorry just noticed you already caught it.

Thanks, Ron. I get confused sometimes. I hope the CD comes with printed lyrics. :-D

Oooh! You just gave me a great idea for a song for the BBs to cover: "Season Cycle" by XTC! And it has a rhyme just as weird as "when I/antennae": "umbilical/season cycle"! Can you imagine the guys pulling off those counterpoint melodies? Man! AGD, you better phone this one in to the guys...

Y'know- people always point to Pale And Precious as XTC's Beach Boys homage, but that song you mentioned right there- Season Cycle    (   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH4oPCUoILQ  )- is just as much a Beach Boys pastiche as Pale And Precious.  It's very Smile-like; fantastic song. Another great XTC tune that is heavily indebted to the BBs is  the beautiful Wrapped In Grey from the Nunsuch album.       (   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0r4Wi2r1OU   )

So I'm looking at the lovely colorful booklet that came with the CD  and reading the lyrics for Shelter and I see "Summertime". WTF is this now? Now I know there's some songs about the beach and ocean sunsets and such on the album, but I didn't think Shelter was one of them. Listening more closely at a slowed down speed I'm pretty sure he sings "Slumbertime- Make a few calls- Make a little love" (the second time it's changed to "Take a little love"). I'm pretty sure he's singing "Slumbertime" because that would actually make sense whereas "Summertime" has no logic whatsoever in this song. One other thing about the lyrics to this song- who goes "runnin' for shade" from "the dark of night"? Isn't the point of night that it's like ALL shade. ::) We can't blame Mike for that one.  Really lovely colorful booklet though.

Here's a lyric I just don't get at all from  From There To Back Again:

The sun is shining, can we just find a way
If you just call, just fall, just fall
To the ground

To this I say: "Huh?" Does anyone have an interpretation of  what that all is supposed to mean? I love the song, but I'm scratching my head big time over this, and it's not just my flaky scalp.

I thought it was "SUPPERtime"!  That would certainly fit Brian's usual M.O. and it's something that's routinely done inside your "shelter".

For Daybreak, the lyrics read '...by my side'. Now I know he says venus, but whats the middle word?

I don't know what it means, throw it away.

Leans?

I get the impression that the lyrics are transcribed by a fan listening to the album...which is why there is a blank drawn when Mike sings "Venus leans by my side" and the lyric following "This night's a special occasion" is omitted altogether. Couldn't someone in the Beach Boys confirm what the lyrics are before they're printed?!

As to the "lift up my antennae": since the song establishes the singer is in his car, it's passable that he refers to it as my antennae.

I love the "fall, fall to the ground" lyrics in FTTBA because it's so obviously Brian writing those. Who knows what's in his head, but it's so unexpected that it gives the lyrics an edge they might not otherwise have (all those lyrics are pretty good 'though). Perhaps the singer imagines he's addressing an angel or someone disconnected from reality (head-in-the-clouds) and is asking for the person to be more grounded or to return to earth to help him recapture what's been lost...

Now that I think about it, in an odd poetic way, it might be a wish for God to return.

He's singing "Venus fades from my sight". He's referring to the stars fading from the sky as the sun starts coming up, although you can still see the moon. I think the song is sung from the perspective of a sailor or seaman. Mike Love did a very nice job on the lyrics for this song- it's very fleshed out.

I guess it's becoming apparent that the quality control on the lyric booklet was atrocious. If indeed it was created by someone just listening to the tracks, that's a really half-arsed process. I like the colors and the picture though.

On the lyric sheet for Spring Vacation, Mike's line "An encore or two won't take much persuasion" is missing completely

I did, however, appreciate the transcription of the radio report at the end of Private Life Of Bill And Sue, because it explains the whole dang song you just heard, and you can't hear it on the CD because it's mixed so low and fades too early.

The word is antenna (no 'e' at the end). That would be something on your car  or on the top of your house (back in the olden days) that receives radio waves.
Antennae are those things sticking out of this guy's head:

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/52684612/gazoo-good.jpg)

And so, on June 6, 2012, the Great Gazoo makes his first of many appearances on the Smiley Smile message board.

But, of course, the two words are related, right?

Nevertheless, you're correct; I misunderstood your complaint to begin with.

Not having the CD at hand, I forgot how the "Daybreak Over The Ocean" line actually went. It's a good line...I'm just flummoxed that half of it is represented in the booklet by "_____"  ::)

What is happening during this line in Summer's Gone:

Summer's gone
Gone like yesterday
The nights grow cold
It's time to go
I'm thinking maybe I'll just stay

That is how it appears in the lyrics, but it sounds like Brian starts to say something else (change?) and then Bruce comes in with "stay."

It's a pretty interesting moment in that song.

Yeah, I was thinking about this too. It doesn't quite sound exactly like change, but that's the closest thing I can think of.

But isn't "antennae" just the plural form of "antenna"? I don't think natural vs. man-made has anything to do with it. The lyrics printed in the CD say "antennae." So perhaps Brian was envisioning a creature with a pair of antennae coming out of its head. Perhaps he was playing with words a bit, likening his own receptors in his brain to a radio antenna. Works for me.

I think they got the lyrics right on this one. Brian sings "I'll just stay", but it's hard to hear because of the studio processing of his already slurred enunciation. AND there's a background vocal line (Bruce I think) singing "I should stay" (pretty sure) that also camouflages  Brian's line, giving it that 'ch' sound that we hear. So- yeah, really interesting that this would suggest the subject of the song, maybe BW himself, is hearing voices in his head telling him to stay. Many of us have heard about his medical condition of constantly hearing internal voices.

The proper plural form of antenna is antennas.  http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=93958
But I also see what you mean about the wordplay, which is something I had already considered and deemed kind of lame.

Thanks for that link, I love learning new things about words. Antennas for radio/TV, antennae for living creatures.

antenna / &n"ten@ / n
a (pl -nae / -ni: /) (Zool) antena f
b (pl -nas) (Rad, TV) antena f

The lyric book says "Santa Barbara to Jersey Shore", but it sounds absolutely nothing like "Barbara" to me. Does anyone  know what Brian might be singing there or is it just another case of vocals being processed beyond recognition?

I hear Oak Ridge, and it's Jeff singing those lines.

It's Jeff singing the geographic lines. Brian sings the answer answers.

And the line is, correctly, "San Onofre to Jersey Shore." It's a callback to "Surfin' U.S.A."

Cool!  I never understood that line in Surfin USA either- never heard of San Onofre. Thanks for that info. Boy, that lyric booklet is really amateur hour. Now, isn't that Brian who sings "San Onofre" and then Jeff who sings "to Jersey Shore"? Sure sounds like it to me.

Seems pretty straightforward to me:

Jeff: San Onofre to Jersey Shore
Brian: At the line in the grocery store
Jeff: Everybody you ever knew
Brian: The private life of Bill and Sue

There may be some mixing and ghosting of voices in there (it sure does sound like Brian singing the single syllable of "San," for instance) but that's how I hear it.