The Smiley Smile Message Board

What's everyone's thoughts on the records that do exist?
There's the early version for MIU, the normal album track, the single with the intro cut out (I believe), the Live in Knebworth version, and of course Lady Liberty.

Now I recall the song pops up in a movie, doesn't it? Was it Almost Summer? Is it the same LA recording?
I really love the album track but when it's performed live, I love it! The vocals are tremendous! I do agree with Mike that the last bit is really awesome, just wish he didn't sound like a tool when he request to do it again.

Lady Liberty on the other hand, it's ok. I don't really enjoy the "80s" overdubbing that went on. Did they redo the track or just overdub some parts? At the beginning, it sounds like it's gonna be kinda heavy on the drums, but then as the verse starts, it's not too great of a drum part, very basic. And what's with Al's speaking lines at the beginning? I swear, Al must have done that half of his tracks that are almost really good but kinda get ruined by his speech (i.e. Santa Ana Winds, California Energy Blues, and Tide Pool Interlude & yes, I know it's not Al on that one).

BTW, just looking at his WIKI entry, whoever put together the track lineups for Postcard, they must have had a different album because Al sing "California Calling" on track two and not California Feeling.  ;)

I do enjoy the early recording of Lady Lynda as well. and speaking of the title, the 45 for Lady Liberty says that the song is derived from Lady LInda, thought the spelling was a little off but then again, that's all over the Beach Boys' career.

First off, my UK 45 has the intro

Secondly, I absolutely love this track. It's probably my favourite on L.A., and I don't get why they didn't learn it for the 2 UK dates on the 50th Celebration tour considering it was a reasonable hit here!

I always liked Lady Lynda.  The main part of the song is nice, nothing earth-shattering, but the "ooh lady..." vocal bit at the end knocks me out every time.

As for Lady Liberty, I understand Al's reasons for re-writing the lyrics, but man is it bad.  Maybe I wouldn't dislike it so much if I didn't know the original so well, but the new lyrics are so cheesy and don't really fit well with the melody.  Carl's vocals are nice, but they can't save it.  And don't even get me started on Al's spoken word part at the beginning.  ::)

Al hasn't liked singing it since he and Lynda split up. When they performed it in the late 80s/early 90s he changed the lyrics to "Little Lady", but I can see why he might just not want to do it at all.

Lady Lynda is a very underrated song among BB fans, and the general public too.  One of the reasons that LA is my 2nd favorite BB studio album, right behind Friends.  That being said, Lady Liberty is obviously a hasty and awkward rewrite.  Even if one didn't know about Lady Lynda, this remake would still sound very awkward.  Last year, I remember it being at the very bottom of the track rankings that someone here put together.  They surveyed anyone who wanted to participate, and they ranked 100s of songs, and it came out at the bottom of the barrel.

Ah yes, forgot that little, and rather key, point. That's fair enoughski then.

I always liked the song, any version. I think it's Al's best song. "Lady Lynda" is one of the few "new" songs I saw the Beach Boys perform in the late 1970's that the audience really accepted and responded to with loud applause.

I'm a sequence freak, and with the lines, "you cannot deny there've been hard times" and "evolution is drawing us near" and "your love is like the coming spring" and "won't you marry me", I think "Lady Lynda" would fit nicely AFTER "Goin' South" and BEFORE "Shortenin' Bread". To me, it's more of an ending song.

Great tune. Totally lame in a late 70's yacht-rock way, but that's cool. You just can't hate Al, at least when he isn't mangling a classic 50's tune or singing "totally rad".

"Lady Liberty" sucks like a Dyson on steroids. They couldn't even be bothered to redo the vocals properly, as you can clearly hear the original bvs in places. I can only hear Alan & Carl on this. Horrible.

The Almost Summer version is the original 1977/78 recording.

US 45 had intro/outro excised: I think all other single releases had the full song.

+100.  Lady Liberty was never released in any official capacity was it?

Side note:  As much as I like Lady Lynda, I can't listen to it anymore without thinking "AL JAAAARRRRRR-DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNEEEEEE."  Thanks, Mike.

It was released as the B-side to California Dreamin', in 86. And yes, it's awful.

Big Al fan...but can't stand either "Lynda" or "Liberty" (though I'm sure both are super nice in real life).

I feel like I'm gonna break out into "The Hustle" when I hear the former...lol.

Glad you brought this one up! I've always loved it and the Bach influence from "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring," as a classical music inspiration, almost a parallel to  Barry Manilow  using Chopin for "Could it Be Magic." The merger of classical with rock.  Beautiful.

Even more reason to love Lady Lynda. The Hustle is great too, made by a guy who worked with The Beach Boys previously.

That's great. But, I still don't like it.

The Knebworth version of Lady Lynda is really pretty, especially when they do it a capella.  But I've never thought much of the song itself and I've never heard Lady Liberty.

I like Lady Lynda because it (and MIU Album) evokes the late seventies in all it's cheesiness--wood paneling, shag carpets, white socks with stripes, dorky looking gym shorts, Star Wars styles, goofy looking lamp-shades and an overabundance of pubic hair--like no other music I've heard.

Lady Liberty I've heard maybe once. It's worse than bad--it's utterly pointless.

I really dig the Knebworth recording, all the other (studio) versions never did it for me.

My feelings exactly.

I think Lady Lynda is absolutely gorgeous,  and it is what got me started on my BB fandom.  I heard it on the radio, thought, that's beautiful, and when the DJ said it was the BB's I couldn't believe it.  That's when I started looking more into their post Pet Sounds music.  Lady Liberty?  No. I understand Al may not have wanted to sing it because of the split,  buy to change the lyrics?  Why bother.

That isn't possible.

I think it takes a long time for Al to write a song. A lot of his songs he brings to the table are covers. There are a lot of songs that he has credit for that are re-writes of other people's music (this song is a re-write of "Jesu, Joy Of Man's Desiring", "Lookin' At Tomorrow", "At My Window", etc.) and there are a group of BB songs that he has co-write credit for that were virtually already written by other members (anything from Friends, "Loop De Loop", etc.). It took him forever to come out with his first solo album and what do we get? A lot of rather nice remakes and songs that have been kicking around for a long time. Therefor it seems to me that writing songs for him does not come as easily as it does say to me (not famous) or others (Zappa, McCartney, etc.). He's still a fantastic vocalist however you look at it and seems like a genuinely nice guy.

Al doesn't claim to have written the music for Lady Lynda - it was Ron Altbach. Google it or go on Youtube and find the interview with Altbach about the song's genesis.

For your convenience: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SVB-EvYtNw  :police:

Lady Liberty is atrocious - when he's singing 'shine, shine on' or whatever, it just reminds me of bloody Shine by Take That, which obviously is a very bad thing indeed! And what's with the pretencious spoken sections all the time Al? Beaks of Eagles you just about got away with, mainly because the rest of the song was so great, but Lady Liberty, Santa Ana Winds - arrrrgggghhhh!

Lady Lynda on the other hand is a nice, light song. Nothing earth-shattering - i'd say the vast majority of the Wilson's LA contributions put it comfortably in the shade - but the harmonies towards the end of the song are pretty fabulous, and Al's vocal is typically strong.

No, that's "Indiana Wants Me" by R. Dean Taylor. A common confusion.

Which Wilson? (Sorry for being pedantic)

I enjoyed AGD's story posted somewhere a few years ago of going to a BB show circa 1991 or so and the band actually dusting off "Lady Lynda." Apparently the crowd hears the intro and applauds, and then at least hardcore fans groan as they realize the lyrics have been sterilized into an apparent post-divorce "Little Lady."  :lol

Dennis. He arranged the orchestration for Lady Lynda, but was uncredited.

Wembley Arena 1993... where everyone around me did a double take when Mike annouced "SIP" as a brand new song and I was word perfect singing it ! ;D

I've heard a recording of the "Little Lady" version. It's quite funny, because Al can never remember to change it from Lady Lynda. I can't be certain(It's been a while since I've listened to it), but I think it comes out something like "lady little".  ;D

Sorry, slight misunderstanding - i guess i didn't phrase it very clearly. What i'd meant to say was: the songs on the album by the Wilson's - i.e. Carl, Dennis and Brian - are almost all superior to Lady Lynda, nice though Al's song is.

I had absolutely no idea Dennis played any role in arranging Lady Lynda. Very interesting.

You phrased it fine. Nicko was making a 'joke' based on the fact that you misused an apostrophe. "Wilson's" would mean either "Wilson is" or "belonging to or relating to Wilson" (as in "Dennis Wilson's singing that song" or "Dennis Wilson's contributions"). If you want to talk about more than one Wilson, you say Wilsons, with no apostrophe, as in "the Wilsons were the heart and soul of the band".

If you want, as in your original post, to talk about the contribution of multiple Wilsons, you should say Wilsons', with the apostrophe after the s, as in "the Wilsons' songs were the best on LA (Light Album)".

Everyone got what you meant, but Nicko thought it would be funny to pick you up on your error.

I'm pretty sure the thing about Dennis arranging Lady Lynda was another joke.

So not so much a joke as just really pedantic. Blimey, if i corrected all the bad grammar and/or spelling mistakes that cropped up on here i'd never bloody leave....

Would be interesting to hear whether or not Dennis did in fact help arrange Lady Lynda then. If that was a joke, well, what's remotely funny about pretending Dennis helped arrange a song when he didn't....?

I've heard he had done the arrangements from somewhere. Sorry if I was passing off conjecture as fact.

 :lol :lol :lol

Seriously, has there been any concrete evidence that Dennis co-arranged "Lady Lynda"? Has Al ever confirmed it in an interview? 

Al said in his 2000 interview with Goldmine that Dennis helped with "with the track", which doesn't make clear his precise contribution:

How did you come up with the idea for the classical-sounding introduction to "Lady Lynda"?

A friend of mine, Ron Altbach, he and I decided to write something together. I was familiar with his love of classical music. I was at the Johann Sebastian Bach festival up here in Carmel which happens every summer up here. I heard that beautiful piece sung at the Mission Cathedral here in Carmel. Gorgeous piece. It's called "Jesu Joy Of Man's Desiring." It was written for the church. When I heard that movement I went, "My God, that's too heavy! Maybe I can start the song with this thing." [laughs] Ron is such a great player that it just worked. We had to hire a classical guy to play an absolutely beautiful harpsichord that was brought in just fro the occasion. It was a monster session with a 26-string orchestra, the harpsichord. Harry Betts arranged the strings. I can't remember if Dennis played the drums. Dennis helped me with the track. We played it live at a couple of places before we recorded it. I think he played drums. I did that 12-string guitar. It was a beautiful 12-string guitar that i still have. It would have worked better if it had been on my own album, but it certainly worked. We always seemed to be five people making five different albums on the same album.

I saw the Beach Boys perform "Lady Lynda" in concert, with Dennis Wilson in attendance, three times. And, each time the song was played, Dennis left the stage.

I thought Dennis helped arrange the vocals - and I'm not sure whether it was for the released version or the earlier one.

Wow.  So many things wrong with this, but front and center - using the original backing track but stripping out the live drums and replacing them with a cheezy Roland drum machine.  Without the original drums the whole track just kind of collapses; the backbone is gone.  Lush full instrumentation, strings, all recorded in top of the line late '70s full studio fidelity - and front and center, your brother's Casio, swamped by it all, failing to keep the beat.

Then, there are of course the lyrics.

For quick comparison:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pzd4D9ndtok

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SzP8p2lFrw


Thanks for the info, HeyJude. So really it's still anyone's guess...

SJS, maybe Dennis left to conduct an off-stage string section.  ;D 

Adam, love the description! It certainly has had all the life knocked out of it----not inappropriately, perhaps.   

<<Wow.  So many things wrong with this>>

A couple of things I do like:

1.  Al's vocal double tracked.  Wish they'd done this on the original

2.  Love that Carl vocal; I'd forgotten about it.  Have not heard this in 30 years.

I actually kinda like lady liberty's instrumental track more then Lady Lyndas.

How very odd, given that all Alan (and apparently Carl) did was take the original recording, strip off most of the vocals and add theirs (apparently in a barn...) and slightly remix the track. So essentially, it's the same.  ;D

The beginning puts me in total AWE! Love the intro! That slight remix does it for me! Not just the track but the song is patriotic and not about some ones ex lover! Great song!

If memory serves, the original Lady Lynda (the one offered up - though not recorded for - MIU) doesn't have the Bach opening. I'm just curious as to whether it's been clipped from the earlier recording or added for the LA version.

I should be doing other things but I keep coming back to these words, not sure why. 

A very good song, nice melody, but remember, the composer was Johann Sebastian Bach.

<<If memory serves, the original Lady Lynda (the one offered up - though not recorded for - MIU) doesn't have the Bach opening. I'm just curious as to whether it's been clipped from the earlier recording or added for the LA version.>>

The first time I heard this live was in August of 1977.  Dennis was actually the one who introduced the song and Al - but then left the stage while it was performed ("This is a new one from Al - which is why I don't play on it!" - as he fakes running off the stage... then comes back to the mic and finishes the introduction).

For this version, there was no Bach intro.

In August of 1978, on stage, Mike introduced the song.  He had Ron Altbach play a bit of the Bach piece on solo piano... which got applause.  Then they went into the actual song.

Not really. It's clearly inspired by Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring, but only the intro is actually Bach's music. The bulk of the song's music is by Ron Altbach, and while it follows the basic harmonies of (a very small part of) the Bach piece, it's not the same piece of music. You might as well say that Chuck Berry was the composer of Fun Fun Fun.

... or "Surfin' USA".

Oh...

Wait...