The Smiley Smile Message Board

Does anyone else have this problem? This song is so beautiful and evocative and poignant that the only way I can channel the feelings through me is by slitting my wrists. Otherwise, I fear I'd explode with emotion.

By the way, was Mike sick when he recorded this song? His voice sounds really strained, but the struggle is what sells the song. When it's that hard for a guy to sing, it makes you appreciate the frailty of the human condition.

https://soundcloud.com/mikelovemusic-3/mike-love-pisces-brothers

HARE KRISHNA
LOVE + MERCY

Seriously? Slit My Wrists?!

"shudder"

I just slit my wrists reading this thread and

I only made it to 0:56.

It kills my soul hey, hey.

I sh*t my pants :/

The one thing I can say with confidence about this song is that George Harrison would have absolutely hated it.

Holy crap, those fake strings sound HORRIBLE.

:lol

My first laugh of the day!

Like the track. The lyrics are the sort you love when your grandpa makes them up for you but lazy for a published song.

This song has been floating around YouTube for years.  And, it doesn't seem to conform to the Mike-"style" that is generally attributed to him.  It is more lyrical in nature, "telling a story" and truly a "snapshot" captured of a more spiritual experience that became a commonality for many of that era's musicians, looking "beyond and outside of themselves" but which, according to an interview of Olivia Harrison, after George died, left a lifelong change in lifestyle, which, George carried to his death.  She reported that George meditated more, as he was in Hospice, and that his exit from life, was more accepted as peaceful.  

This whole Eastern mysticism was perceived as a whole new way of looking at life, throughout the Western world, as a means of looking inward, and in a detached (from material goods) manner, brought to the masses via the translation in the Beatles' music and to a certain, perhaps lesser extent, the Beach Boys, and other high profile actors, etc. gave the Eastern philosophy perspective a "voice" with their music, and the use of the sitar.  

This song isn't "news" per se because it has been around for about 10 years, but has a certain "official dedication" in a timely fashion, to George Harrison, whose absence is no less felt, alongside John Lennon, and the departed Beach Boys, Dennis and Carl.  And, in a certain sense, John Lennon's death was as incongruous as Dennis' drowning.  And Carl's death seems analogous to George's; lung to brain cancer.  

I guess Mike had a story inside himself to tell that isn't an easy one to put into words, that took shape in that song.  But it is, I find a "snapshot," of an era and influences that won't be duplicated, and oddly the TM thing is being carried forward, as a vehicle to make schools less violent in the States.  Especially schools, where there are metal detectors at the door, a sign of kids coming from homes where guns and violence are just part of their lives.  Mike got that award, in part, as a result of the social conscience that the music world acquired from Eastern influences, grounded in a difference in perspective from Western thinking.  And the encouragement of tolerance.

That post had me reaching for the razor blades...

Good thing most pharmacies keep them locked up!  :lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FONN-0uoTHI

The delivery has the turgid pace of an instructional video.

Mike writes a song which doesn't have nor nostalgic fun in the sun lyrics neither references to old BB hits.

WHAT MORE DO YOU PEOPLE WANT FROM HIM?????  :-D

This song helps me empty my bowels.  It's a real good colon cleanse.

I don't think Mike will ever get a record deal for this music.

While eastern religions aren't my cup of tea,Mike's delivery is heart felt and this IS a good song.

I love this song.

Isn't this the second thread for this song? Why have two?

Pisces = plural.
Brothers = plural.

I like the vocal melody. It's one of Mike's better vocal melodies in awhile. The music is pretty ok.

But rhyming "Hare Krishna" with "Gonna miss ya" is NOT cool. It's cringeworthy. And hold back the repeated washes of sitar. Not that I don't like sitar in general, but the manner in which it's used on this tune is just. so. cheesy.

It's very MOR, but if Al can get a record deal Mike can. He has the name.

"I still remember
Their soundin' sweet and tender
Singin' "Danny Boy" on Grandma's lap
And those harmony highs
Could bring tears to my eyes
I guess I'm just a sentimental sap"

This is what I'll think of when I think about Pisces Brothers...and I will think about it.

I like it!  

It sounds very Mike to me for what it's worth........there are worst songs out there to cut your wrists to..

I think the only detraction from the song is the digital sounding recording.....doesn't have the 'warmth' it needs...

RickB

Teenage gamblers
Sittin' in a Rambler.

Let us turn to the guru.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6NpfllZrdg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6NpfllZrdg)

I love "Brian's Back," very glad you added that...

But, I wonder how much different is this, than "A Friend like You?" from "Gettin' in over my head" with Sir Paul that Brian did?

This song does the stream-of-consciousness, thing for me reminding me of the very sweet corpus of George's work...

Being born under a certain astrological sign seemed to bond people as they often have a common set of traits...as were George and Mike...I think it's a great song.  ;)

What are these common sets of traits?

Well, in an overly broad generalization I found on examiner.com it says that the Pisces sign is "incredibly misunderstood" and it suggests that they are elusive and etheric...and are the "chameleons of the Zodiac" and I guess that thirty day birthday window was a commonality as between the two.  Perhaps they discussed this phenomenon of being born at the same time of the year and was a basis of connection for them... ;)

Oh for Pete's sake...this is jive. EVEN though many of my pals were born late November/early December, I can't buy any mystical bond between Pisces or Virgo or et al. Commonalities perhaps, but not worthy of deep discussion.

What Pisces Brothers really is, is an attempt by Mike to gravy-train upon the whole Beatles thing. Like the guy at the party that tries too hard to fit in. Call it like I see it. Koo koo ka joob.

Why don't you like cosmos?

Probably not worth deep discourse, but I do think there are certain generalities with astrological signs.  One of my kids is the same sign as me and his grandfather. And, given the choice, it is always the water that we chose ( or would have) and that isn't the case with his brothers, ever.  At least it is a topic of conversation. Back-in-the day people often asked what "sign" you were.  

I think that everyone is struck by this Beatles thing...and even if they aren't your favorite band, they did have a huge impact on that generation.  

But they are my favorite band. Mike just wants to deflect some of the 50 years ago on Sullivan media spotlight and say 'hey...both me and George studied TM in India! lemme tell ya all about it!'

I never ever doubted George's spiritual belief (and the music it created). Mike on the other hand...

It may be worth noting that George, out of all the Beatles, was the only one who stuck to TM. Strangely enough, though, both Paul and Ringo showed up at a David Lynch TM event in 2009, so apparently they're now at least somewhat back into it. Or are willing to advocate it for other people. Oh, and look who they appeared at the event with.

(http://www1.pictures.gi.zimbio.com/Ringo+Starr+Mike+Love+David+Lynch+Foundation+bfh5S8f0pEVl.jpg)

Paul looks like he is bemused by Mike's presence. >:D

Ringo is thinkin 'f*** mike, just say 'peace and love' and get it done with.

RickB

I find the whole TM revival sort of weird. I don't think there's anything wrong with meditation itself, but transcendental meditation and the Maharishi cult is something different. Yet seeing articles and pictures from TM events of the past few years, there are tons of prominent celebs, including news media people and retired military personnel, who show up at David Lynch Foundation events. I'm sure Mike feels vindicated, but it makes me slightly uneasy that there is a slate of prominent citizens who are trying to introduce it into schools and the military.

TM is a scam to be honest. Its paying thousands of dollars for basic Indian teachings.

Has also seemed like a less profitable, less cultish, less famous scientology.

Mike definitely gets a benefit for writing and talking about it constantly.

I may doubt his 'friendship' with George - how many times has he met him between 1968 and 2001? Once in 1971? But Mike's spiritual beliefs seem to be very real and genuine, he's kept them through decades when it was extremely unfashionable to have a guru and paint a tilaka in your forehead.

I doubt he had any relationship with George outside Rishikesh, and maybe not even one inside Rishikesh.  I remember George talking about how Mike had brought all kinds of survival items with him and was trying to pawn off batteries and things like that.  Perhaps that was done in jest but I don't remember any of the Beatles saying positive things about him.  I remember Lennon was quoted as saying he was a jerk but not sure how solid that information is.

Either way I'm sure Mike was just beside himself because he got to pal around with the Beatles for awhile. 

Seems like if anyone wanted to slit their wrists to music why not choose something by the Doors, "I feel my cheek slide down the cool smooth tile. feel the good, cold stinging blood"...

Whateversongthatwas.  ;D

In this particular case, perhaps it has something to do with the fact that it has been billed as a "tribute" to someone Mike professes to have been "friends" with who, by all accounts I've ever heard, didn't seem to give one fig about Mike Love (or the other BB's for that matter) after 1968, to say nothing of the alleged attitudes some or all of the Beatles had about Love even in 1968 (I believe Van Dyke Parks has related in the past that John Lennon related to him what the Beatles thought of Love). The nicest thing even McCartney said about Love in his own "authorized" biography was that Mike was an opportunistic capitalist even in India with the Maharishi; Love would go into town and buy a ton of camera film or batteries and then come back to the Maharishi compound and sell the stuff to everybody with a markup.  :lol

Mike seems to need to pad his resume so to speak when it's not needed. Just write a song and put it out, don't try to hook us in by pretending you were "friends" with George Harrison. Same thing with the live concerts: Just do the amazing songs from the BB's catalog, don't feel the need to try to get extra points by telling people you know John Stamos.

(http://addictedtonoise.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/MikeLoveGeorge-300x336.jpg)

There you have it.

I think we're getting  a bit carried away in the Mike bashing. Brian invited McCartney to sing in a track named 'A Friend like You' and no one criticized him for hyping up a friendship that just isn't there. Mutual admiration society, yes, but... Or maybe the song was so boring that it was easier to just moan that after all there years we finally had those two guys in the sane studio and it happened to be for that miserable track.

By the way, Mike wouldn't be the first person in the world that I'd ask to know more about Van Dyke. And the opposite may very well be true.

Now's the time to repost this one.

(http://i.imgur.com/DqZNcai.jpg)

That is so perfect  :lol

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

You know Mike could be saying that in the middle of one of his rambling speeches

:lol

Were Brian and Paul in the same studio or session for "A Friend Like You"? Or did Paul "phone it in"?

To write a song with decent lyrics in this century?
"Hare Krishna, gonna miss ya" - really?

No worse than George having Badfinger singing "Hare Krishna" on the backing vocals for Ringo's "It Don't Come Easy." For no particular reason. George loved his Hare Krishnas.

Difference is Paul himself decided to be on a song about him and Brian being "friends."

George as of now cannot vouch for his supposed "friendship" with Mike Love.

I don't mind the Hare Krishna, just the lame rhyme.

Not this time.

In all the books about George and the Beatles, is Mike Love mentioned as a friend of George Harrison?  It's been a long time since I read any of those  books, but I don't remember reading about this friendship.  Why wasn't Mike at the tribute concert for George they did in London with Clapton, Ringo, Paul and Billy Preston, among others?

Because he was still upset at the way the reunion ended, his wife didn't tell him about the tribute concert, and George took passive-aggressive swipes at him in 1968.

I thought maybe his astrological chart indicated it was not a good time for him to be in London. 

 ;D

I never knew George Harrison but I am friends with Tony Bramwell who worked for the Beatles and was George's friend since childhood.   I will ask him if George and ML were pals.   
Either way I have no problem with the song and I'm glad Mike wrote it. 

Brian was there when Paul added his vocals.

Thanks. I really didn't know. I thought I would've seen some photos of that historic event. Seriously, no sarcasm intended.

Is Mike really claiming to be close personal friends of George's in the song? I thought it was more about being on a spiritual quest together and being bonded for life by meeting the Great One (funny guy in robe) together. And sticking with their beliefs after the other Beatles thought TM was silly. I haven't listened to the song but once, though, so I'm not sure what the complete lyrics are. Mike may feel a similar bond with David Lynch, who has worked with him on TM projects. That doesn't mean they're close personal friends who go to dinner at each other's house, but can still consider themselves soulmates of a sort.

Don't know about the lyrics, but the title of the song is hopelessly, incredibly, outright silly. Does having similar signs really mean anything, let alone brotherhood/sisterhood (I know, that was meant as a metaphor, but still)? No, the whole astrology thing is a big bore. Anyway, I like the song (minus "Jai guru dev" because to my ears, it seems to not fit Mike's all-American accent), think the arrangements done masterfully, the track is not overwhelmingly busy. Don't mind the Red Book of rare animals imagery I get too. In general, I'm glad for the song to get more exposure among the audience. Go on this path, Mike!

Um, yeah, not the same thing even remotely. I can't say whether Brian and McCartney's relationship constitutes a friendship either, but they have both spoken about each other and each other's work about a billion times in interviews over the years, they have met and spoken numerous times since 1968, attended each other's concerts, and even "A Friend Like You" wasn't written specifically about Paul as far as I know; he simply sang on it.

On the other hand, George never even spoke about the Beach Boys or Brian Wilson much in interviews (I recall only one instance I can think of in an interview of George even uttering the phrase "Beach Boys"; that was during one of the "Anthology" interviews where he recalls Paul's being influenced by the Beach Boys in doing the "Paperback Writer" vocals; that's not to say he didn't mention them at some other stage that I'm unaware of or not remembering), never professed to be in love with "Pet Sounds", and certainly never discussed Mike Love at length as far as I know.

I would imagine if Mike were pressed to offer more background and information on what he feels the song is about, he would probably offer an answer along these lines.

I think the issue is that, to some, writing a song and/or paying tribute to someone without any context or link other than what’s in your own mind can seem a bit tacky and off-putting. Not completely unlike Mike singing “Imagine” in 1983 presumably in part to pay tribute to John Lennon. Mike can have the best of intentions, but in presenting this “tribute” to a mass audience, people will sometimes attempt to link Mike to the subject of his tribute, and sometimes those links (or lack thereof) will seem very ironic if not offensive or tacky. In the case of “Imagine”, I don’t know that Mike ever mentioned in concert a claim of being “friends” with Lennon, but his roundly-criticized off-putting vocal turn on the song (Mike’s voice is not made for that type of ballad, see the 1979 Easter Seals Telethon for a similar awkward vocal turn on his one attempt taking the lead on “Good Timin’”), coupled with a contrast with Lennon and Lennon’s personality and politics that made the tribute appear, to some, about as appropriate as Al Jardine singing a Tupac song in concert, made the whole thing kind of laughable.

With this new “tribute” to George, Mike is calling George a “friend” seemingly to make people aware of the authenticity of the tribute. That seems tacky to some, when all evidence indicates there was not that sort of link between the two. Many artists have paid “tribute” to others without knowing the subject, or not having any strong link. I remember Peter Frampton covering “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” a few years after George died, and even that seemed kind of sad only in that George clearly, despite Frampton having played all over the “All Things Must Pass” album, had completely wiped Frampton from his mind to the point of continually not including Frampton’s name on the credits on the album. Ironically, considering the earlier reference to the George tribute concert, Frampton specifically tried to be a part of the George tribute concert in 2002 and was rejected. Then, a couple years later, he covered “Weeps” as a tribute. Not any less heartfelt, but a bit ironic perhaps in light of George having seemingly forgotten about Frampton in every apparent way.

Mike seems to need some kind of weird outside validation of his work, some outside link to something beyond the Beach Boys’ awesome body of work. It’s perplexing. He sometimes hypes himself up, or tells anecdotes, that someone would tell who hasn’t ever really accomplished much themselves. Like his “Back in the USSR” story. That’s something you’d read from some random unknown person in an old issue of “Beatlefan”: “I totally helped Paul with the lyrics to a song one time!”

Same thing with the constant Stamos references. It’s something you’d hear from some unknown, struggling actor or singer: “I’m friends with John Stamos, you know, Uncle Jesse from “Full House”!” Or Mike’s pollwinners contest story, or his reference to being one of the top three bands on oldies radios. These claims aren’t untrue, they’re just bizarre from a guy who doesn’t need to say these things when he has more impressive claims like “I wrote the lyrics to “Good Vibrations” and a butt-load of other Beach Boys hits”, or “I was the lead singer on a bunch of Beach Boys hits.”

It would be like if, in every single public interview Dennis ever gave in the last 5 or 10 years of his life, he continually told the story of writing “You Are So Beautiful”, and then launched a lawsuit about it, and then wrote tribute songs to Billy Preston and Joe Cocker.

Well said, agree with all.

Along these lines, and I realize it's a nitpick, I have to confess that I find it kind of amusing that the song is called "Pisces BrotherS", a title which seems to want to drive home that there was a link between them. If the song is a tribute to George as seen from Mike's perspective, shouldn't it just be called "Pisces Brother"?

So you don't think that inviting McCartney to sing in a song titled "A Friend Like You" ever implies that they may be friends? Not remotely?

Well, that's the natural conotation that I get, but I don't think Brian - or his handlers - was searching for validation. It never passed through my mind, really. It's just a song.

Even if Mike only saw or talked to George once since 1968 - I guess they are talking in that Bangladesh era photo, would George AVOID Mike? - I don't see much harm in Mike praising George for the spiritual path both sort of followed since the 60s. It certainly beats calling other folks 'chickenshit' to a microphone.

Didn't George tell Al Jardine at the rock and roll hall of fame after Mike's speech something along the lines of "Mike didn't follow the teachings of the Marishi that night"

Exactly. He never claimed they were personal friends; the song simply implies that spiritual bond and the spiritual link he felt towards GH. And it's not like Mike was pushing this song in people's throats in order to claim frindship with a Beatle. For God's sake, this ditty remained unreleased for years and was known to a handful of fans only (all of us) who never complained sh*t about its lyrics.

I don't get the link between astrology and TM expressed in the song.  One involves the movement of the planets, the other is a meditation technique.

There is apparently an astrological component to TM.


http://www.has.vcu.edu/wrs/profiles/TranscendentalMeditation.htm

(Virginia Commonwealth University's World Religions and Spirituality Project)

Worst.
Song.
Ever.

I would slit my wrists over 'a friend like you' or 'the waltz' over 'pisces brothers'.....

perhaps, dare I say it...... I like Mikie's music  ::)

RickB

Ok,  Quote Tony Bramwell to me on the question of their friendship  "Yes, They were friends!" 

Puh-lease.  Frampton playing on All Things Must Pass is very rumour-ish, and bit background parts at most, as did many other musicians who wanted to play on that record.  George probably did not know who the guy even was, and certainly had no friendship with him, as all the others at the tribute concert did.

Mike has traded in Beach Boys song references in lyrics for Beatles ones. This song makes me laugh. Thanks, Mike!