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So what's the full story surrounding "You Are So Beautiful To Me"? According to Wikipedia, it's a fact that Dennis Wilson helped with this song, but here I always thought it was more of a rumor. That's interesting, for one. Also, while Wikipedia claims that Dennis helped with the lyrics, I have to say that a few of the chord changes seem distinctly Dennis. It recalls, to me, the dramatic changes in songs "You and I".

Give me the scoop. I'm counting on you people.

Whole thing sounds like Dennis to me.

I believe Billy Hinsche was there the night it was composed and has authenticated the Dennis input.

Checkout Jon Stebbin's FAQ page:

http://thejonstebbins.com/realbeachboy-faq.html

Yes this was substantiated by Billy Hinsche's eyewitness account of the Dennis/Preston collaboration on the song, which was first published in my DW book in 2000. Billy also told the story on camera during the making of the Endless Harmony doc., although that footage was not in the released film. Many of Dennis' closest friends and associates have also backed this up with remembrances of Dennis telling them he'd co-written the song. There is a pretty strong consensus  among some very reliable sources that Dennis had a hand in creating You Are So Beautiful. Preston claimed he didn't at least once, but he also claimed he didn't know who Dennis was, which everyone on the inside knows isn't true.

Did Dennis really contribute enough to the song to be credited as a true "co-writer", or did he just offer suggestions as Preston composed it on the piano? Many songs over the years have incorporated minor contributions from producers, girlfriends, etc. without those contributers being listed in the writing credits.

Yes, we've heard many a time that Dennis Wilson had something to do with the creation of this song.  But it begs the question--why did he never receive songwriting credit for it?  The song is credited to Billy Preston and Bruce Fisher.

He never asked for it, and probably didn't care about it.

Mr. Desper makes it quite clear in our interviews that Dennis had that melody kicking around in the early seventies. The basic feel and construction are all his.

Is Billy Preston a d*ckhead that even today he won't acknowledge the truth when asked? Is he even still alive? I'm not even going to check.

Sadly, Billy Preston left this plane of existence in 2006.

Billy was a great musician and deserves respect, whatever he said about the composition of You Are So Beautiful.

 He deserves respect for his musical abilities, but NOT for his  theft of composer credits( at least for this one song)

Agreed.

.

Sounds like Dennis, I'd say.

Dennis had the perfect attitude to the song. Sang it in concert most nights. The BB's must have known why.

I can imagine if anyone asked him why he would just give them a wink and a smile. Better than any credit IMO. ;)

I've always found this story very hard to swallow. Always. Not impossible for Dennis to have written something that sounded like YASB -- and maybe that's what people remember -- but it just seems a little too neat in retrospect. That is, Dennis, who never composed a big hit, was actually behind someone else's number one. Now that both of the principals are no longer with us (and given that Billy was in declining health for the last couple of years), it's all to easy to rewrite history.

So what you are saying is that Billy Hinsche was lying when he told me on the record that he witnessed the Preston/Dennis collaboration on You Are So Beautiful while it was happening...first hand, and that Billy H. was also lying when he told Alan Boyd on camera for the Endless Harmony documentary that he witnessed Dennis and Preston working on the song together? And what of all the others like Jim Guercio, Karen Lamm, Gregg Jakobson, Stephen Desper, Tom Murphy, Christine Mcvie and about two dozen other of Dennis' friends and family members who are on the record that Dennis told them he helped Preston write the song back in the '70's? Are they part of a conspiracy to rewrite history? Rewriting history is not easy at all when there is an evidence trail going back to 1974. BTW...when i stumbled upon this story in 1998 or so, I thought it was REALLY hard to swallow, but the deeper I dug, the more credible it became.

I myself found it hard to believe at first, just for the fact that if it was true it'd be yet ANOTHER case where a Beach Boy doesn't get due credit from the general public, but considering the sources, I believe it totally.

I wish Dennis had recorded a studio version himself, as it would've helped dispel the general public's image of the BB only being a 'surfin' oldies' band. Plus. Dennis Wilson > Joe Cocker.

So you were present for their writing session?


I don't think there is any reason to accuse you, Hinsche or anyone else you mentioned of lying.  I'm more than willing to believe that the story is either entirely true or at least partially true.  It definitely sounds like a song Dennis would write.  That being said, it isn't unfair to suggest that there is some elbow room in this story to question it.  Especially in this day and age, it's extremely easy to take something you merely want to believe is true, and run with it like its fact written in stone.  Just trying to look at it objectively.  Did Preston himself ever really comment on it?

Yes, he denied the story.

I'm not sure what Dennis supposedly contributed. Was it lyrics, melody, or what? Did Billy already have the song started or did Dennis start it?   People say it fits Dennis's style, but it also fits Billy's style on slow songs (I'm thinking of "That's the Way God Planned It"). I'm wondering if Billy wrote the song in a gospel style and Dennis contributed a different style of rhythm.  There's a version that Billy performed on Jools Holland's show that's up on YouTube, and Billy performed it in a more gospel type of style. Though the change in style may have come from whoever played keyboards on the Cocker version and neither Billy or Dennis had anything to do with that.

Supposedly Pete Best drummed on it.  Mwaahaahaah!!

Wow, Billy Preston was an incredibly talented singer and a great piano player and yes, unfortunately he passed in 2006.  Just because he didn't remember Dennis Wilson contributing to "You Are So Beautiful" doesn't make him a horrible person.  We don't even know if he contributed that much or if he did at all.  It could just be one of those legends that gets around.  It's common for people to create and believe false memories.  I'm not saying that Dennis didn't have a hand in writing it but we don't know for sure that he did either.

Or, considering the amount of substances being consumed, it's conceivable that everyone's telling the truth as far as they know it.  Memories of composition at a party could well be hazy to non-existent, but if there was a demo tape made of the song, it wouldn't matter in terms of preserving the idea and recording it properly later.

Good point Adam.

If you want to say there's "elbow room" to deny the story that's fine, if you don't think it passes the smell test, that's your choice, if you want to question the entire concept please be my guest. But to do that you are fundamentally saying that Billy Hinsche's very clear and direct memory of having seen this song being created by Preston and Dennis is not true. So own it, because that is what you are saying. And you are also saying that you know better than dozens of Dennis' family and friends who also believed Dennis' claim about having a hand in writing the song. If you feel comfortable with that...okay. Just don't give me this maybe, kinda, could have, not sure...blah blah blah. There are twenty credible insiders and Wilsons who will back this up. Preston not only denied the story, he denied ever having met Dennis or even knowing who he was. EVERYBODY knows that was total bullshit, he knew Dennis well. They spent time together ingesting substances and playing the piano, that is documented by another dozen or two people.

This story came to me in a way that felt like the real truth, otherwise I would have ignored it, because I've heard some incredible things about Dennis that I'd never put in a book. This wasn't re-writing history. This was discovering some unknown, or unpublished history, with multiple credible sources backing it up. I first heard it from BB's engineer Tom Murphy in about 1998, by accident. I was talking about Dennis performing the song live during an interview with him,. NO ONE had ever told me, or reported anything about Dennis co-writing YASB prior to this. But Murphy just mentioned very matter of factly, "you know Dennis wrote that song." I was like...HA! You gotta be kidding. Dennis was lying or drunk when he told you that. Murphy says to me, "Dennis would never lie about something like that." So I filed it in my head as BS...and moved on. Months later I am interviewing Billy Hinsche...in the interview we are joking about Dennis' wild stories etc...I say, and whoa I heard a real whopper from Tom Murphy...he says Dennis told him he wrote YASB with Billy Preston...Hinsche stops me mid sentence and says "I was there. I saw them working on it. Its true." He went on the record. Weeks later I'm interviewing James Guercio, I ask him do you know anything about Dennis and You Are So Beautiful...Guercio says "I know he helped write it with Billy preston, but he never took credit for it." Weeks later Karen Lamm tells me the same, weeks later Gregg Jakobson tells me the same...and on and on. This is called reporting. You research, you find a claim, you evaluate the credibility, you find multiple sources for the claim...and then you report the claim citing your sources. Denial with nothing but a "feeling" is your choice. I did the leg work on this. I believe it. Otherwise I am ignoring and disrespecting all of those who know more about Dennis than any of us...and who also believe it.

I believe Dennis played a role in the song but this kind of talk is sneaky since you are fundamentally saying that you think that Billy Preston's memory of the creation of the song "is not true" and you are also saying that you know better than Billy Preston. So, what's the difference?

I'd say the difference is that Preston said he had no idea who Dennis Wilson was. I can give you 50 people who will go on record with evidence that they were friends.

So, again, you are calling Billy Preston a liar.

He IS a Liar.  Why don't you take your slimy scumbag Billy Preston fandom over to his board and leave this place to those who are fans of Dennis and the BBs?

Is it possible that maybe Dennis thought he helped co-write it, and that Billy had it mostly finished, with Dennis maybe adding a lyric or a melody for some part of the song?

I imagine it could honestly be like the history of "Sail On, Sailor". I don't have any inside access to the writing of the song, but this is what I imagine happened.Where you have Brian and maybe Tandyn Almer starting and coming up with the basis of the song, with Van Dyke Parks helping to compose maybe somewhat, not knowing the Brian and Tandyn already had done work. Then you have Ray Kennedy who put lyrics to it at a party supposedly, only to have Jack Rieley supplant a bunch of them. But anyways, you probably got a bunch of guys who claim it was them who definitively "wrote" "Sail On, Sailor", whereas they didn't know the song was already around before their minimal contributions. I think that might be what happened with Dennis. Maybe he helped with a few lines, but not something really writers credit worthy (unless of course you are Mike Love on "Wouldn't It Be Nice").

Billy Preston had no role in the original report. Go read my book. I don't give a sh*t about Billy Preston. I wrote a biography about Dennis Wilson. I reported that MANY of DW's friends, family and associates believed the reason Dennis sang that song in concert, night after night, year after year, was because he felt he had helped create it. Billy Hinsche went on record in my book as saying he witnessed the collaboration. Billy Preston was in prison at the time and unavailable for comment. I would have gladly included his side, except that later, after my book had come out, Preston was asked about the possibility of Dennis helping write YASB....his response was that he did not know who Dennis Wilson was. An army of Dennis' friends in turn responded that this was utter bullshit. You got it now?

And again...to Sweetdudejim...Dennis NEVER asked for credit, never sought it, never went on record to the press etc... he just told his close friends and family that he felt the song was partially his creation, and Billy Hinsche remembers why, because he was there when Preston and Dennis were working on the song.

I'm with Jon on this one. Too many people can back this up. I'd believe them over a convicted sex offender who also committed insurance fraud. The man may have been a great musician but let's be real here. Has anybody else besides Preston denied Dennis's involvement?

Also I have NEVER heard anything about Billy H being anything but a standup guy. So I would believe him.

No

Billy Preston no doubt was worried about losing what I imagine were substantial royalties.  Dennis might not have cared about the credit and royalties but his estate would be a different story.  Understandable if not excusable that he cut off that line of questioning as abruptly as he could have.

To say he lied is not to say he was a liar.  Some very fine people thought very highly of Billy Preston as a man.  We can leave it at that.

Keep in mind that I started off by saying precisely that Dennis played a role in writing the song. But clearly even that's not enough to make me a Beach Boys fan.

I think bgas has a point - if being a Beach Boys fan requires me to call one of the great musicians a scumbag because he didn't acknowledge Dennis's involvement in a song, then, I certainly don't want to be a Beach Boys fan and this is certainly a community that I would want no part in since it seems to suffer from a fundamental illness.

Agreed, BBs fans don't need to be nasty about talented musicians.

I think maybe you are over-reacting. I would never call Preston a scumbag or anything else. I never met him, and don't know much about him personally. I liked his contributions to Let it Be. I can report that he claimed to not know who Dennis Wilson was, and that a bunch of Dennis' friends found that laughable.

That's not nice, Bgas.  RockandRoll is an OK dude.

I believe the story. How many creds do you need? I trust Hinsche and Guercio. Hinsche was there and more than likely was clear headed that night. He doesn't seem like the type to get all f*cked up on alcohol and drugs at a party and not remember things right. He knows what he saw and heard. Seems Gregg and Karen weren't there but they were close to him. Desper remembers the melody kicking around in Dennis' head in the early 70's. Don't know about Murphy, but why would he B.S. the story?

Speaking of Billy Preston fandom. I saw Billy play a show in Santa Cruz in the 90's. After the gig, he was selling CD's on a table just off stage. My daughter was with me and I asked that one of the two ladies selling the CD's go back stage and ask Billy to come out and shake hands with us. He wouldn't come out. The lady told me on the sly that he couldn't come out; "he was too inibriated". That soon after the gig? So we asked that he just sign my daughter's CD. That took a good 15 minutes for the CD to come back and he just scrawled "Billy P" on the cover. I was a little put off by that. F U Billy, I don't care if you did play on Beatles records!!

A lot of time musicians play around with ideas together -- it's part of the the joy of making music.   When a song arises that way among friends, as opposed to being a result of a calculated partnership, one party it likely to say "It's yours, don't worry about it."  In this case, the collaboration becomes a megahit worth much money.  Yes, the gracious thing would have been to have voluntarily changed the credits, but by the 80s Preston was no longer a superstar and he had quite an expensive freebase problem.  So again, we can understand without excusing his denial.

I wouldn't go that far myself.  All I am saying is for whatever reason (see below) Preston had either A)not been honest   or B) honestly didn't remember due to his addictions at the time. It doesn't take away from his other musical accomplishments, and hell, 99% of our favorite musicians have done some deplorable things as well as having selective memories when it comes to songwriting. I mean, this is a BB board for crying out loud...we KNOW this already!


^ This is a very good point.

Read up the thread, Jon. You did not call Preston a "scumbag" - bgas did. He called him a "slimy scumbag" in fact and then suggested the usual line of BS echoed around this place that I'm not a real BB fan. Something that would sting if I took it seriously.

Again, I believe that Dennis co-wrote the song if only because it legitimately sounds like a Dennis song. But I do have a problem with the fact that there are two positions to be had here and both sides are saying two different things so it is difficult to say with any degree of certainty who is right and who is wrong and so I don't find the "So you're calling X a liar" that productive, especially since nobody has an objective memory.

Lame.

Yes, that guy wrote a song with a drug addict/alcoholic who married his teenage relative and fraternized with murderers. While we're trashing people, that is.

I wonder how many other cases in music history have occurred. As a songwriter myself the idea of someone not getting proper due bothers me, but at the end of the day, we know the truth, as it were, and Dennis obviously didn't seem to have an outward issue with not getting credit.

Oh no doubt...just trying to point out that neither Dennis nor Preston were saints of any sort (like, honestly, most musicians aren't), but when someone like Billy Hinsche (who, as previously stated, is a standup guy who to my knowledge has never had any negative things said about him by anyone, which is a rarity in this business) states something and is backed up by others, well, I tend to believe that person.

Billy either has a selective memory (probably) or he was just too messed up at the party to even remember what town he was in. And Dennis never came forward and approached Billy or the publishing company claiming credit after Cocker made it a hit. And who's the other guy who got credit for writing the song? Never heard of him. Somebody oughta ask him what his involvement was and if he knew about Dennis contributing to the song at the time.

I believe the story myself.

I seriously need to fix that word filter...I mean, I'm no huge fan of Joe Cocker, but that's just sad :lol

edit


fixed

this is the dude in case anyone is on linkedin

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/bruce-fisher/a/161/ab0

of course, we are talking about potentially messing with his royalties, too!

Thanks, Billy! I thought it was funny and was just gonna mention that! I can understand the filter catching part of the name, but "Cocker"?   ;D

Bgas was joking, so I'm glad you didn't take it seriously. The "two sides" from my point of view are many, many, many, many of Dennis' family, friends and associates who recall Dennis telling them his belief that he'd had a part in creating the song, plus one of Dennis' closest friends and family members claiming he actually witnessed the collaboration with his own eyes and ears. The other side is Preston, not saying DW didn't help him write the song, but saying he did not know who Dennis Wilson was.

Regarding certainty, i am certain that Dennis told his inner circle that he'd co-written the song, there are too many of them, and too many that don't communicate with each other, who had the same story in their memory. So it is a certainty that Dennis shared this claim with his loved ones. Not a single one of them said they did not believe Dennis when he told them this. Secondly I believe Billy Hinsche... most of all because he didn't volunteer this story to me, I put it to him as a probable tall tale that Dennis had told Tom Murphy, I treated it as a joke in the midst of an exchange about Dennis' wild and unpredictable nature. Hinsche got very serious in a hurry when i mentioned it. I have it on tape. He was setting me straight. Don't joke about that because its true was his point. He was there. He saw it happen. He knew the year, the place, and the other people in the room, all of whom remember the night, some of whom do not remember the collaboration, but who don't deny it either. But this incident, the night Hinsche refers to with Preston and Dennis at the piano is verified by other witnesses. Hinsche takes it a step further by remembering what was being jammed on by Dennis and Preston, and that a song called YASB came out of it. The time frame checks out perfectly.

If there is evidence that refutes the collaboration (other than Preston saying he did not know who Dennis Wilson was) I have not found it. And now we have Stephen Desper claiming he remembers Dennis working on the song prior to the night of Hinsche's story. It seems that dozens of people would have to be untruthful for this story to not be credible. As for Preston, again dozens of people would have to be untruthful for him to not know who Dennis Wilson was. So maybe it wasn't a lie, maybe it was mental illness, early Alzheimer's, or instinctual protection of a revenue stream. I don't know. But I'm comfortable that all the others are not lying.

Erm, no he wasn't. He made his views on Preston clear already in the thread.


Again, I reiterate that I have always agreed with the position that Dennis co-wrote the song, though for the record I don't find the fact that "friends say that Dennis told them he wrote the song" to be particularly compelling evidence in it's favour. If anything, relying on that as evidence only serves to harm that position, to be honest.

My issue was your response, "So your calling Billy Hinsche a liar." I just don't think it's a particularly productive response, given the kind of evidence that exists. Really, we don't have lots and lots of people who are providing evidence on Dennis's side. Hell, I could tell all my friends that I co-wrote the song and they could say after my death that I told them personally on countless occasions that I had a hand in the song. Wouldn't mean much. So ultimately it's Billy Preston's word against three people Dennis, Billy, and Stephen. And in that scenario it would indeed be possible for Preston to be right and Dennis, Billy, and Stephen to be wrong even though there's more people. Again, I don't think they are, but it's not out of the realm of possibilities.

I'm reminded of a real life story I experienced. It was in grade school when a discussion race came up in class. One boy put up his hand and explained to the class that everybody is born white and some become different colours/races as they grow up. The teacher explained that this was not true. The boy responded, "Are you calling my Dad a liar?" Funny, of course. But also interesting. Because of course the Dad probably isn't a liar, just misinformed. The world is a complicated place - people can't be reduced to liars and truth-tellers. People can be misinformed, have bad memories, be conditioned by other information they hear, etc. So I guess my point is that just because someone might be questioning Billy Hinsche's version of events does not follow that they are accusing him of being a liar. That's just unsophisticated thinking.

But then again, pointing that out makes me not a Beach Boys fan.

Not that it hasn't been said but at least one of Dennis's bandmates ( Al) also said that Dennis told him he wrote that song and he definitely believed it. I'm not sure if any of the others ever commented.

Did anyone ever ask Bruce Fisher (the other co-writer of the song) about this?

I'm sorry but I never read Billy Hinsche's account of what he saw. What exactly did Billy Hinsche say about what he saw, specifically about what Dennis contributed? The intro, the melody, the lyrics, what?

Yeah, that's the guy.  He lives in L.A. No mention of "You Are So Beautiful" here, but:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Fisher

Notice here it doesn't give Fisher credit; just Preston and Dennis. Ha Ha!  Jon, did you write that up?  :-D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Are_So_Beautiful

Hey Jon, isn't it incredibly possible that Billy Hinsche saw Denny and Billy Preston working on the song? And then after Dennis told him "hey, we wrote this song!" while not knowing the Billy Preston may have basically had it written beforehand without Dennis or Billy's knowledge? I think its very possible that could happen. And that would not mean that Hinsche was a liar, but just possibly not in possession of the true facts of the situation.

And the way you told Wirestone that he was calling Hinsche a liar was kinda weak.


I didn't know that I ever said anything about Dennis asking for credit. Cuz...I didn't.

I would imagine there are many songs that have similar stories with their creations. Would it be hard to believe many jams at parties happening where one person or another joined someoneone at a piano and added bits and pieces that went uncredited?

If, for example one day Micky Dolenz says that he was at a party at such and such a place and added the idea for a song that Brian Wilson eventually wrote, I wouldn't necessarily doubt him.

....so I said to Paul, "Hey, why don't you add "the Ukraine girls really knock me out...", like a California Girls kind of thing..."

double post

Billy was a good friend of George Harrison. After seeing what George went through for the lawsuit for "My Sweet Lord" with the authors of "He's So Fine," do you think Billy wanted to make any type of legal action possible by acknowledging Dennis's contributions (whatever they were, after three pages of this I"m still not sure)?  It's not just giving Dennis royalty money. It's giving Dennis royalty money after the fact, because that involves lawyers, which I'm sure Billy could not afford, not could Dennis, really.  The legal fees would eat up much of the money made from the song.

The time for Dennis to claim his credit was when the song was written, which was before it was even sold to Joe C0cker and before it became a hit song. So, wasn't it Dennis's personal responsibility to ask for a portion of the song rights and royalties? It's not entirely Billy's fault for that. Maybe Dennis owed Billy some kind of favor and passed on asking for a songwriting credit. Given the sometimes-sleazy lifestyles involving both men, who were both into drugs big time, who knows, maybe it was a barter exchange or blackmail or something that caused Dennis to not ask for the songwriting credit. In any case, I understand why Billy might want to pull a Sgt. Schulz ("I know nothing! I see nothing!") to avoid a legal settlement with Dennis or his family over the song royalties.

I see. So if I'd been told the YASB story by Hinsche while writing a bio on Dennis, and then I'd subsequently mentioned it to 8 or 10 of the other Dennis associates and family members I interviewed afterwards, and all of them said "no, Dennis never mentioned anything about it to me"...that would make the story more believable to you?

Again, Hinsche was clear, he is credible, he says he witnessed the song being created....anything is possible, but i believe him. The fact that so many of DW's friends, family, and associates recall and believed Dennis' assertion that he had a hand in the song's creation obviously strengthens that position.

You posted something about a collaboration not necessarily being worthy of a credit, I assumed for this to have any relevance you were thinking Dennis might have wanted a credit.

It's definitely a valid point that many of DW's friends say that he helped write it. But lot's of Billy Preston's close friends might say the opposite. So who's right?

I will admit however that this does sound like one of Dennis' sappy love songs, the kind of which I'm not too fond of. I think he was an extraordinary artist, but some of his love songs were so.....how shall I say this.....un-poetic. And "You Are So Beautiful" definitely is pretty straight up, just like a few of Dennis' love songs.

What I don't get is how this song ever took more than one person to write. It's one verse long, and most of that consists of just the title repeated, and it's not as if there's any sophisticated melodic development or massively complicated chord sequence.

Of course, Ding Dang apparently took two people, but *three* for You Are So Beautiful? (I'm assuming that since he's credited, Bruce Fisher did something too). I'm not saying it didn't happen, I just don't see how.

At the time I wrote my book on Dennis this was a completely unknown thing in BB's fan circles etc... No one had ever put forth this possibility. I was told something offhand by Tom Murphy who engineered much of Bambu...nice guy...but I thought he was off base. When i mentioned it in passing to Hinsche he gave me the story, his clear recollection of seeing this collaboration, the time, place and who was there. he told me the song was unfinished when they started playing, and that as the night went on Dennis and Preston had the song completed as we know it. Who did what, I don't know. I do remember thinking, how come Hinsche knows about this and no one else does? I was wrong, a lot of people did, it had just never been printed in the mainstream. And as I started asking others that i interviewed, to my surprise...a long list of people recalled Dennis telling them he'd had a hand in writing the song. They were all willing to go on the record about it. This was a revelation. Dennis not only sang that song, but he, on some level, believed he had helped create it. No Beach Boys fans or Dennis fans knew that, so I reported it. What Preston's friends think was meaningless to that succession of events.

Another thing to consider is if Dennis had written most of the song himself and handed it off to Billy to finish, would it have ever been recorded by Joe if Billy had not taken possession of it? I would think not. Dennis had no "in" with having his songs covered by other people, while Billy had way more contacts in the music world to get a song recorded by a major recording artist. Perhaps Dennis considered it a gift that the song was passed around by Preston and made it to a major recording artist and became a hit. It was enough for him to know that and Dennis was content merely to sing it at Beach Boys' concerts and to know that he had a hand in it.

The chord sequence is not complicated but like many simple melodies it can be harmonized in many different ways.  My guess is that the two of them played around with different harmonizations.

Preston: [plays G chord] You so are me beautiful to!
Dennis: No, no! How about, you are so me to beautiful!
Preston: Closer. [plays G chord again]. You are too beautiful so me!
Dennis: Wait, wait, wait. I got it. Watch this. [plays G & C chords]. You are so beautiful, to me!
Preston: Dennis, I'm gonna remember this, but completely forget who you are. That why I can have the songwriting credits. Well, I might have to put my buddy in, too. But certainly not you.
Dennis: Well, it's been an honor [shakes Preston's hand].
[Preston walks away and disappears into the shadows of the party].
Dennis: Hmm... that song ain't gonna be anything. You know, I should call Mike about "10,000 Years Ago".

:lol

It's very common. John Lennon (uncredited) wrote that great riff for the "George Harrison" composition 'Taxman' (best part of the song). Duane Allman (uncredited) wrote the opening riff for 'Layla'. Matthew Fisher (uncredited -- until a recent court case) wrote that haunting organ melody for 'A Whiter Shade of Pale'. Bill Wyman (uncredited) wrote the riff for 'Jumpin' Jack Flash.' Etc., etc.

Mal Evans wrote Fixing a Hole.

I meant the ones we don't know about.

Then his cremated ashes were lost in the mail. Now that's sad!

I see I'm a little late to respond, but just wanted to reiterate that no one is accusing anyone of lying.  I think the general consensus here is that most of us (including myself) believe Dennis had a hand in writing the song.  However because there is a discrepancy between what Camp Preston and Team Dennis have said over the song (and Wilson's obvious omission in the songwriting credits), it is perfectly ok to ask questions regarding the matter.  Again, just trying to look at this objectively.  Assuming we're all adults here, how about we try not to get overly defensive or take it extremely personal when someone dares not see things your way?

Where did you hear that one?  Or are you joking?

He's not joking.

Acid test.

Does it sound like any other Billy Preston song ?  No.

Does it sound like a Dennis Wilson song ? Yes.

I thangyow.

And Preston's own version ain't good. Almost like he didn't quite understand it himself…

funny thing is Dennis probably wrote about 50 songs better than this IMO. Are there any other BP songs with a similar structure/lyric?

Billy wrote some maudlin ballads too.... With You I'm Born Again for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqTq8gckf8E

Agreed.  It is unfortunate that Dennis was uncredited for one of Joe Cocker's biggest hits. I'm watching a live Dennis concert version, (thanks YouTube!) and there is little doubt in my mind that this song is consistent with Dennis' other work, and the directness, simplicity of the melody, and emotionality of the lyrics.  To me it screams Dennis Wilson.  

People write (prose) in characteristic ways, and I would extend that to music as well.  Even if it was put side by side with Forever, Little Bird, Only With You, etc., and they have certain common characteristics.  I'm just using those as examples.

On the other hand, it does not scream Billy Preston, and seems inconsistent with his work.  Anyone can google what he wrote.  And he didn't know who Dennis Wilson was? Give me a break. That is absolutely not credible.

And, I think Billy Hinsche is credible.   ;)

BTW...Note Billy Preston's hands at the 2:00 mark in this clip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJQRxExlmy8

He didn't "not" know him for a really long time!

Double negative intended!   :lol

So how did Preston and Dennis know each other?  Did they frequent the same gatherings?

Again, it was Dennis's responsibility to take credit for his own work if he did indeed write part of the song.  I also don't think Dennis wrote it all by himself, as some here imply. In either event, he could have spoken up before it was published or he could have sued after it was a hit if it mattered to him that much. He did neither.

BTW, playing on Shindig is no guarantee that he knew Dennis at that point. Just being introduced to someone and playing on the same stage doesn't mean they were buddies. In fact, hanging out at the same parties and doing blow and getting drunk doesn't really qualify as knowing someone very well, either.

Good points, Kitty. Both of them.

If Dennis wanted credit that bad, he would've pursued it. It meant a good chunk of publishing change if he did.

It's possible Dennis introduced himself at the party and reminded Preston that they "played' together on the same Shinding show or that they knew each other after that from playing on the road or whatever, but Hinshe says they were over by the piano together at the party. Who knows. They collaborated together. I'd still like to know what Fisher knows, if anything.

It's a shame Dennis never recorded "You Are So Beautiful". Or did he?

I saw numerous shows where Dennis did this song. It was always a highlight for the crowd. Even though I don't remember the exact details, there was an intro to the song by Mike or Carl saying "Dennis is going to do a song now.........." Maybe even more likely, now that I think about it, it may have been Dennis himself introing his song. I know for sure there was some kind of explanation of what was up next. Does anyone remember Dennis saying anything like "Billy Preston and I wrote this song together?" Since the song never made it onto an album until Knebworth, certainly it warranted some kind explanation from where it came. And it certainly wasn't, "here's a song that we never put out." It's just too long ago, '72, '73', 74, for me to remember anything specific like that, plus which the altered state.

Don't forget, the Knebworth show was never heard or seen by the general public (bootlegged audio only) up to the point it was released in 2002. Prior to that, Dennis could be seen and heard singing the song on the "American Band" video, released in 1985.

Something of a mystery i guess that was at least partially solved by this story. The Beach Boys were not exactly known for covering recent Top 10 chart material by other artists in their concerts circa 1974/75. There was Wishing You Were Here by Chicago, but its obvious why they covered that, it was the closest thing to a BB's hit since 1968. But You Are So Beautiful was perceived as completely unconnected to them in 1975. People often asked, why did Dennis sing this song, a recent giant hit by Joe Cocker? Why did he pull that song out of thin air, and plug it into the Beach Boys set? And why did he sing it night after night, year after year? Even when he couldn't really sing it anymore, he still tried to sing it.

My new book with Ian Rusten coming in June, The Beach Boys In Concert, actually proves that it was Dennis himself who kind of against everybody's better judgement, insisted this song be added and used as an encore. Some people around the band were like, "Why do that?" The book has a quote from a credible insider recalling that Dennis told them all... trust me, its going to work. And it did, it fit him like a glove. The audiences went ape sh*t, and the song was a NEW song... not a Beach Boys oldie. Maybe its hard for ya all to get your heads around it now, in the context of today...but 15 or 20 years ago when the subject of Dennis came up, people were still asking, why did he constantly do that Cocker song?

The answer, which we didn't know at the time, was that he felt like it was partly his song, and it had become a massive hit without him getting any acknowledgement for it. So, his reaction to that was, I will make it my own again, my signature thing. And he did.

BTW...the first time a larger than concert size audience saw Dennis sing this song was the summer 1976 TV special sponsored by Dr. Pepper and produced by Lorne Michaels, which is known by some as Its OK. That version was later shown in the American band film...and it is the definitive version in my opinion.

Yes! Forgot about that. In fact, I think the brief American Band shot of Dennis doing the song was from the "It's OK" special from 1976. Then they switched to the other shot where he looked wasted. I think the American Band video of him doing the song was from the Universal Ampitheatre show from '79 in L.A., was it not? Or am I confused. It's been awhile.

Prior to that, the hardcore fan could see Dennis sing it live in concert or hear it on numerous bootlegs from the 70's shows.

The American Band version has a brief intro tacked on to it where drunken Dennis asks if the ladies in the audience "fool around" but the song itself is the same version as the Its OK special, which is the summer '76 Anaheim Stadium performance.

Something I just realized: it's not like Dennis never did to anyone what Preston did to him here. Remember 'Never Learn Not to Love'? For as far as I know, Charles Manson was never officially credited for that song. And anyone who ever heard the 'Cease to Excist' demo knows that the composition is 90% his. Of course Manson was pure evil, but that still doesn't give anyone the right to steal his music.

Yes, but Manson wasnt exactly a popular recording artist at that point

I always thought Manson was paid and signed a contract for that song?

He was paid, but if he signed a contract, the contract would be illegal.. You can't sell the authorship of a song to someone else. You can sell them all your royalties, but unless something's a "work made for hire", which has to meet some criteria Never Learn Not To Love doesn't, you remain legal author, which means you have to be credited and also means that for works created before 1978 all rights revert from whoever it was sold to to the original author after fifty-six (I think) years (that's my understanding of US copyright law, it works slightly differently in the UK).

That meant that even if Manson *had* legally signed away all his rights, he'd have still been credited on the record, and he'd start receiving royalties again in 2025.

Whatever deal was made between Manson and Dennis, it wasn't technically legal. Legally, Dennis stole Manson's work, just as legally Billy Preston apparently stole Dennis'. Morally, we have no idea what agreement was made between Dennis and Preston, and only a limited idea what went on between Dennis and Manson.

Irrelevant. It doesn't matter if you're Paul McCartney or his plumber, if you wrote 90% of a song, you should get the credits for it.

Same kinda thing went down with Bob Burchman, co-author of "It's About Time". I think Burchman got screwed on that deal.

I disagree there. He got credited, and gets royalties. He signed his publishing over to the Beach Boys' publishing company, but he wasn't otherwise a songwriter and didn't have his own publishing company, and setting one up and getting it registered with the collection agencies would probably have cost nearly as much as just letting Wilojarston (or whichever company it was at that point) do it.

His main problem seems to be that Al and Carl were given songwriting credit and he has to share the royalties with them -- but they added the bit starting "it's about time" onward, so they deserve the credit too.

Did Carl get a credit?

Nope.



HE WAS ROBBED!

Burchman was pretty much coerced into the deal. He got credit and probably royalties, but his version of it sounded like he was manhandled a little bit at Brian's house.

According to Dennis in 1971, he offered Charlie a label credit, but Manson declined, preferring cash. About $100,000 if I recall correctly.

That and Manson asked for a motorbike. Wasn't the $100,000 what The Family had already sponged off Dennis whilst staying with him and Manson basically said let's call it quits in return for usage of the song? No way would they have paid $100,000 in (1969 money) upfront for an unpublished song from an unknown performer.

Especially by 1969 standards, that must have been quite a lot of money for an album track/B-side...

For the record, I DO believe Dennis had a hand in the writing, but even if he hadn't it wouldn't surprise me that he sang it in concert.

For one thing, people were used to hearing it sung in a raspy voice after Joe Cocker made it a hit, so it certainly suited Dennis voice from the mid 70s until he lost it after Rocky and Stan beat him up. But it also seemed like Dennis was singing it not to give himself a solo so much as to thank the audience. That the people in the people in the crowd were the "you" that was beautiful to Dennis, and singing it at the start of the encore was his way of letting the fans know how much they meant to him. As great as many of Dennis' songs were, I don't think there was another one that served the purpose as well.


I also liked the one he did in Australia (it used to be on YouTube but it was removed). His speech to the crowd was really good, and he sang the song well. It's amazing with the whole saga on Australia how together Dennis was (or seemed to be) on the stage for those shows.

According to an online inflation calculator, $100,000 in 1969 would be worth over $600,000 in today's money. I doubt the royalties from an album track on a mediocre-selling Beach Boys album added up to even a fraction of that.

I never understood the success of Joe Cockers career. On one hand he is an excellent singer, but then again there are many of them out there. I value musicians for their songwriting as well as their singing and if Joe is just a great cover artists then I guess I will never value him anywhere near what I value the true musicians out there. I guess the majority of people will disagree with me on that given J.Cocks enduring success ^^

I think Joe was incredible when he started out. The first three albums are incredible.

That's the time when he was ingesting the most substance, was it not?

I enjoy the Mad Dogs era of Joe.  A lot of great musicians in that band. I also enjoy seeing footage of Joe's spastic performances. I've read of people who have claimed that Joe suffers from some kind of seizure disorder and that's why he performs that way. I doubt it, but I wonder if anyone ever brought up the possibility with Joe and he either found it funny or got offended.

Did you ever see the Saturday Night Live sketch from 1976, I think, with John Belushi doing his great Joe Cocker impersonation right alongside Joe Cocker, as they sang "Feelin' Alright" together. 'Twas hilarious.  Look it up. 

edit:  I found an article on a site called 'superseventies.com' called "Joe Cocker-In His Own Words", and here are some words from Joe.  Note that Belushi had been doing his impression of Joe Cocker for quite a few years, and had done "You Are So Beautiful" on an earlier episode of SNL... 

"This thing about me being spastic is something I can't get away from. I did The David Letterman Show not long ago, and he is still going on about me being spastic. I can't talk about anything else when I go on those shows.

During the time of "You Are So Beautiful," I was working at Village Recorders, in Los Angeles, and someone comes into the studio and says, "Joe, we've got this video to show you that you're not going to like." I don't know how long Saturday Night Live had been on the air, because I never watched much TV, but when I saw this video of John Belushi doing me being spastic and pouring beer, I became hysterical.

Everyone else said, "Joe, you're not supposed to find this amusing. You're supposed to find this gross and inoffensive."

I said, "Oh, come on. You can't not laugh at this." I didn't even know who Belushi was.

Moving my hand around is subconscious with me. A lot of the time I'm more or less conducting the band, just keeping a feel. I don't know why I do it. It's just one of those things."
 
And here he speaks about his condition at the time of "You Are So Beautiful"...

"I didn't know where I was by the time Jim Price came around to my house asking if I'd be interested in making another record, which turned out to be "You Are So Beautiful." After we finished the album, Jim booked the Roxy for me in L.A. Everyone was there. Somebody should have kept an eye on me, but some dealer found me backstage and filled me up with cocaine. I hadn't performed live in a couple of years. I drank a whole bottle of brandy, and then went out there and got through two songs, and then I sat down on stage with a total mental block to all the words. It was rather embarrassing. Everyone just sort of closed the curtain and said good night. That was supposed to be my return."

Erm...no.

dealt with in the 1971 tom nolan rolling stone beach boys issues.

Hold on a tick.

A singer isn't a "true musician"?

yes it probably is the definitive version.
But the BEST version (that i know of) is from Madison Square Gardens 14 June 1975 Beachago tour. Dennis in fine fine form!

Indeed. Jon is confusing access with journalism.

oh come on, you guys are being dicks.