The Smiley Smile Message Board

So, I guess everybody here knows The Ballad of Ole' Betsy, right? I mean, one of Brian's greatest melodies and of their greatest "ballad" vocals... So there I was, listening to that beautiful song and thanking God it was one of the few ones that had nothing to do with cars, surfboards and other 60's-teenage stuff (common, the Little Deuce Coupe album can be EXTREMELY tiring in that aspect...). To that point, everything was fine...

Then I saw the CD's booklet and decided to check it for the first time (it's the twofer version), and in the liner notes about the song was written: "this ballad to an aging auto..."

WHAT?? SO I'VE BEEN FOOLED MY WHOLE LIFE? The deep lyrics about loving/admiring a woman even though she's growing old are all about A CAR??? Yes, it can be a little strange thinking about Brian in love with an "old" woman in that time, but whatever! I'm really disappointed ):

Does anyone else has another frustration related to the Boys and/or their music?

(And sorry for eventual English mistakes, I'm from Brazil, haha)

You thought "She may be rusted iron" was about a lady? :-D
Hi and welcome to the board !

I just came across a '66 coverversion of that song, posted in the media section. Check it out here:
http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,8890.msg320992.html#msg320992

what is up with [ Ole' ] anyway? especially the apostrophe!

YES! Actually, i thought "rust in iron" it was a metaphor to an honest, trustworthy woman (I don't know, aged people can be very stubborn some times, haha)

But anyway, thanks for the hospitality!

That apostrophe has been driving me nuts ever since I first put that song on a selfmade BBs compilation.  :P

Great, great tune though.... and hearing it live this year... phew! Can't wait for the new mix(es) on the reissue of Little Deuce Coupe.


Oh, and by the way - the song's intended to have a double meaning.  ;)

Oh, I hope so! I actually had that in mind too... So possibly Brian had a more, "mature" lover by that time?? hahahahha (i love you Brian don't get mad at me)

*sigh*

My greatest disillusion with BB "fans" is their snobbiness toward the band's early material.

Indeed. I mentioned it a few months ago but gladly repeat again how much TWGMTR and Boob are in the same style. Even the harmonies on TWGMTR are reminiscing of Boob. I tried to describe it like this: TWGMTR is as much a new Boob as "Good timin'" was a new "Surfer girl"

You really thought it was about a woman? That gives lines like "Betsy took some beatings but she never once complained" some new meaning!

All right, first of all: you shouldn't misinterpret things. And I AM a Beach Boys fan, don't ever try to question that! I never "snobbed" anything (for who am I to be snobbish with any of Brian music?) That's the thing about any group "fans", they should know the good AND the bad points about their idols music! I love their early material (musically speaking), but if BRIAN WILSON himself got tired of that fun-in-the-sun-with-hot-rods image/lyrics of the band, why can't I think it's a little bit superficial?

(Sorry if it offended someone, I'm not trying to cause any confusion, just defend myself!)

HAHAHAHAH indeed.. but that's all about interpreting, I thought those "beatings" were all about the bad moments that everyone goes through in life.

All the lines in that song are supposed to be ambiguous.

Wow...this thread premise is perfectly symptomatic of the continuing trend this board has taken. And that's saying it in as nice a way as I can.

Note* Just saw you are from Brazil, so you get a pass for not knowing that "Old Betsy" is a well-known Americanism for describing an old car. But Jesus, stop the narrow minded view of the surf/car/sun/fun themes. In the context of their place in time they are as deep and important as Columnated Ruins Domino...really.

BOOB  :)






just to prove jon's point.....

Would someone mind explaining that to me?  ???

I just edited my original post to try and do that.

It would seem that there's pray little to talk about except how to style your hair like Brian's or why the music that made them famous is inadequate.

In other words, the conversations are beginning to scrape the bottom of the barrel.

Damn right. AMEN.

All right pal... Yes, I know about that, it was a whole lifestyle thing and etc etc. but I just think that every band has to evolve from that kind of "innocent" thematic (as they, in fact, did). Wow, i can't see how a simple thread like this can make such a mess!

There's another odd thing I've noticed... on the last tracklist page of the twofer booklet it's saying that "All songs are mono, except for 6, 13, 14, 23, 25, wich are stereo", it should be the reverse! haha

Welcome to the world of intense Beach Boys inverse snobbery, Mathen, where it is no longer OK to rate the surf/turf songs as inferior to more universally themed Beach Boys material, if you're a *true* fan.

Jeez, cut the guy some slack - he's a noob, has limited use of English and is cool enough to share this slightly embarrassing yet hilarious misinterpretation of the Betsy lyrics with us.

It's not an embarrassing misinterpretation! It's supposed to have a double meaning!!!!!

Thanks! It's nice to have someone to give me tips so i can 'survive' on forums  :)


That's why God made metaphors!

'Tis a good world.

Yeah those songs about depression and wind chimes and worms are way more universally themed than the ones about beaches and girls and sun.

If Brian was going to write a song about an older love back then he would have written it about Dave Marks' mother. (Who was in her late '30s at the time, younger than Carnie or Wendy are now...but when you're in your early 20s anybody over 30 is old.)

Yeah, i think so  :) 

I think they are all magical branches and leaves on an incredible musical tree.

I think it should be ok to like both styles, or one or the other, and be able to voice that opinion on this Beach Boys board. Not realising the importance of either style might make you look a little foolish, but hey, I think that should be o.k too.

Fun is in, its no sin.

Brian got tired of that style because he had done it perfectly and had no need to repeat himself. That is like saying A Hard Day's Night is superficial because The Beatles got tired of making records that sounded like that.

You said it, Jon.

I had no idea it was ever OK to do that.

If that actually is happening, it's moronic. I draw no distinction between the two. I hear beauty in "I Get Around" and "Surf's Up". What's the difference? Lyrics? To heck with lyrics I'm into sound with  capital "S"!

Yeah, Betsy's about a car but that's what it makes it so great. It's the same thing that makes "Don't Worry Baby" (about a drag race) and countless other songs so great. They're about the emotions they evoke in the listener.  That's what the Beach Boys are REALLy about IMO.

Other people are allowed to have opinions too you know...

My first disillusion, was when as a naive young fan in 1978, not worrying that I missed going to their NZ shows. I expected them back in a year or two  ::)

Wait...so that one song's about worms?! I thought it was about pilgrims...


I kid, I kid..

Exactly. That's what makes the band three-dimensional. So many folks want The Beach Boys to be two-dimensional Beatles, music and lyrics that directly mirror each other. Brian is so much more creative than that. The folks fighting for their opinions to dislike essential elements of the group's music, they're welcome to have those opinions and state them. But they should be aware that the other "side" isn't promoting the earlier era in preference to the later stuff, only a complementary and respectful outlook (even if one has a preference for a particular period) that truly befits such a long, varied, glorious career.
And if it is "allowed" to gush over questionable material such as, say, Crack At Your Love here (and it should be allowed, even if 99% may disagree), then the greatness of Little Deuce Coupe on every possible level shouldn't even be questioned.

You said everything!! The lyrics, ate certain levels, are just a complement to the main thing - the MUSIC, the melody, the harmonies. That's what happens with Don't Worry Baby, in my opinion the lyrics have nothing (or very little) to do with the music. But what does it matter? It's a masterpiece!

Also, I think it is a little bit funny that the whole "personal/universal" argument is brought up to support favoring the late 60's/early 70's Beach Boys, since that is the same line of thinking that folks seem to despise Mike Love for. I'm not saying one is better than the other, but play a crowd of mainstream music fans California Girls, then Cabinessence. You'll find out very quick which one of those comes closest to universal appeal.

I think you got the wrong idea of the expression "universal" here... it's not about the acceptance of each song by the public (if that's so, than Surfin' USA might be their best and more "universal" work). It's about the meaning of each song. Friends and Smile have many different 'concepts' from the construction of America and an ode to youth to the feelings of waiting a baby son or a critic to the destruction of nature by the man, with no limitation to some themes as their early work used to be with cars, surf and sun. Now, I'M NOT saying that some stuff is better or worse, as I said, the main thing for me is the Sound, but I don't think it's a secret for anyone that any band should grow musically.

Even if Betsy was a metaphor, it would be a very disturbing one with a line like "Betsy took some beatings but she never once complained."  >:D

haha, I've been told that already.... I thought those "beatings" were all about the bad moments that everyone goes through in life, you know.

Its cool man, welcome to smiley smile.

Did The Rolling Stones "grow" musically by attempting to do a rap song, such as Too Much Blood? It is less about musical progression being a positive thing in and of itself, than in recognizing that once one method of expression is perfected, it is time to try another. That's all that Brian did. If you really buttonhole the guy, he's still gonna say that Surfer Girl is the most spiritual music he ever wrote. But he wrote great spiritual music after that too, just expressed in a different way.
I also don't agree that the "meaning" of Brian's later work, which is SO personal and idiosyncratic, is more universal. For instance, in the 1970's in the USA, pretty much everyone here watched the Johnny Carson show religiously, far more people than those who lived by a beach and surfed. Does that make the song Johnny Carson a more "universal" message than Surfin' USA? No way.
Personally, I can think of no more universal subject than the sun. We're all warmed by it. Now, Busy Doing Nothin', where he, Brian Wilson, describes his own personal life in as direct a fashion as possible, even giving you directions to HIS HOUSE, that isn't a universal subject per se. But it DOES becomes universal when you apply the feeling behind what he is singing to the circumstances of your own life. The same goes for all that car and surf material. The car, the wave, all that can also apply to the everyday challenges, the glory, the danger, the bravado, the strangeness of our own lives. With just a little imagination applied. Just as we can each be the Chinese coolie building the railroad and watching a crow cry uncover a cornfield in our own minds, we can also grasp the metaphorical meaning of having "a fuel injected engine sitting under my hood".

You're right, the only bad thing about it is when there's pressure to keep on doing that stuff, without giving the liberty to the artist to develop other kinds of work. And it did happen with the BBs (and many other bands, but I think they're the greatest example of it). Music is all about diversity, you know...

And there's another thing! To "grow musically" doesn't only mean changing the lyrics, but also grow musically, haha. I mean their sound evolved from a guitar-bass-drum-eventual-organ sound to a full orchestrated complex sound, with harmonicas, banjos, horns, strings, and other things that i think everyone here knows. I'm sorry, but, for me, that is INDEED a musical evolution.

Yes, and I agree that The Beach Boys, as well as their mainstream audience, have greatly limited the band's creativity by hewing to one main element of their music. It is a shame, because if Endless Summer had never happened, and every once in a while the group did a throwback to their earlier trip, ala Do It Again, it wouldn't be seen as a negative thing, and the vision of their work wouldn't be unbalanced. I know it is hard when people automatically dislike the band because of seemingly lightweight music like Surfin' USA, not to then say "But you gotta listen to Pet Sounds, that is when they were REALLY great and serious!", going along with the putdown of the early stuff. I used to be like that myself, majorly, during the dark pre-Pet Sounds on CD Reagan years.

Ah, ha!  I think Jon Stebbins has just dropped a clue that his next book will be a biography of Mike Love. 

Yes yes! I completely agree with you... what I was trying to say is that there's no problem with that kind of "innocent" music, but every artist should attempt to make more complex and deep  music after some time...

Thanks for the welcome!  :)

A pretty funky (heh, heh) little thread out of such an unusual (and somewhat unpromising) initial post. And mathen_ has turned out to be a very savvy fellow, bravo!

I think we need to remember that much of this discussion reflects the 800-lb. canary in the BB's oeuvre...namely, Smile. After creating the greatest "avant-garde universal hit" that has ever existed in the history of music ("Good Vibrations"), BW was somehow supposed to "do it again" and again. The expectations for that music--that it would blow the minds of the hippest, savviest, most highly trained musicians AND that it would reach the same level of popular acclaim--remain about as unrealistic and impossible as it's possible to get.

While this board does a fantastic job in working around the still-prevalent misconceptions about BW and the BB's, it is still vulnerable to that aspect of the band's history that made it necessary (at one point in time) to downgrade or dismiss or deflect the band's earlier material. Traces of that stance remain despite every effort on the part of the good folks here to transcend the issue. It can never completely go away--it's been with us since the late 60s, when the exigencies of those times (which the BB's were clearly weren't made for...) unfairly denigrated their early work, and generally denied the validity of Pet Sounds itself!

By the mid-70s much of this attitude had fallen away, but it has never disappeared completely, and its vestiges remain troubling, in part due to the fact that the BBs did such a poor job of capitalizing on their second chance. In attempting to work around that lingering judgment, with its half-truths and lack of historical context, many of us find ourselves taking extreme positions of our own, which help us individually come to grips with the band's complex and frustrating history.

So, mathen_, if your greatest disillusionment with the BB's is that "The Ballad of Ole' Betsy" was actually written about a car, then you are living a very charmed life among BB fans! That's the good fortune of getting into the band at a point where it's possible to ignore the slings and slurs that were hurled at the band, to look past the dissension and turmoil and years of self-imposed drift. The good news is that it's possible to put all of that aside, and simply relate to the songs on their own terms--and that is quite often one of the great strengths of this board. However, to expect a public forum to achieve a level of discourse that reflects a perfect assimilation of the band in a high majority of its posts is as unrealistic as the expectations for Smile were.

'Should'?   Nah.   Every artist 'should' only ever do whatever it is they wish to do, and if that's make supposedly "innocent" art, then more power to them.  Though I would say that even during their so called "innocent" days the Beach Boys were making some of the most complex and deep music there was at that time.  

[/quote]Fun is in, its no sin.
[/quote]

Right on Jon - Giants just clinched the National League West at the Bell.  Fun is just beginning.

OK I was out of line here. Fired off hastily before bed and somewhat half baked reasoning from me. FWIW I love surf turf stuff as I'm sure do most here. Find the thrend for eye rolling that occurs when people express a preference for post SDSN stuff over earlier material a little 'rock snobbish' though, but each to their own I guess.

A bit off topic (somewhat) but anybody heard Neil Young's "Long May You Run"?  I didn't catch on the first few listens that it is about a car.  And there is a reference to "the Beach Boys singing Caroline No".  How cool is that? 

I'm not a Neil Young fan, but I respect him for this tribute to my favorite band!

Good lord, I've just heard that pearl now, wow... and I'm not saying that for the mention of the BB's in the lyrics at all (though I was happy the chosen song was Caroline No). The song is good in everyway!