The Smiley Smile Message Board

I've been thinking about how Brian has a tendency to incorporate a musical phrase or passage from another song. It always gives us a sense of what records he was listening to at the time. These little call-backs are almost like a secret language to other music fans. There are obvious ones, like duplicating Frankie Valli's falsetto part from "Walk Like A Man" on to the tag of "Surfer's Rule" (which was a light hearted challenge to the Four Seasons themselves) but there are others that are less famous....

...like the way he uses part of the vocal arrangement of Nino Tempo and April Steven's 1963 version of "Deep Purple" for the Beach Boys' own "The Man With All The Toys" released a year later (listen at about 2:14 and you'll see what I mean): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OpGIG8UlSE

Can we think of any more? (and no jokes about "Surfin' USA" and "Shortnin' Bread")

Fannie Mae by Buster Brown and the LP version of Help Me, Ronda? www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVNcqb2a3KA
Get A Job by The Silhouettes and She's Goin' Bald. Mostly the "What a Blow section." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysKhbaLyIFw
There is also a Phil Spector produced song that has chords similar to Heroes and Villians.

"Do It Again" contains themes from The Frogmen's "Underwater"...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xN8RgVFoBY

You know that horn fanfare between verses in Brian-produced Cotton Fields? Is that a quote from somewhere? I could swear it sounded familiar the first time I heard it...

Little Children and Mountain of Love.

Only obvious ones from me:

Twelfth Street Rag in Look
Here Comes Santa Claus in Child of Winter

Brian's opening falsetto line in "Getcha Back", whether consciously or unconsciously, is an ultra-slowed-down version of the opening line of The Shepherd Sisters' 1957 single "Alone (Why Must I Be Alone)": 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kna-t50vGic

Brian must have heard this song, "glued to the radio" as he was in those days.

It has something of "Penny Lane" about it, or even "For No One"-----sort of a baroque feel. I'm sure there are others among the more jaunty pop records of the mid sixties that resorted to this effect. It also reminds me (rightly or wrongly) of Herb Alpert...     

I can think of a few where he references himself. He references "This Whole World" in "Imagination". He has random "Shortenin' Bread" jams in "Belles Of Madness", which kinda cracked me up. They get Brian Wilson to collaborate on a tender ballad, and he decides that what the song really needed was his favorite riff - and actually, I'd rather hear that then the rest of the song ("clang ding dang it, now the bells are ringin'!"). He quotes "God Only Knows" at the end of "Oh Darlin'".

Outside of himself, y'all gonna hate me for this: "Heroes and Villains" bass quotes "River Deep Mountain High". I've always thought that Brian copying that for his own "hit single" was a sign that he was cracking a bit, or getting "eccentric" with his instrumentation, as Al Jardine once said. "South Bay Surfer" riffs off of Stephen Foster's "Old Folks at Home". The intro to "Fun, Fun, Fun" quoted Chuck Berry ("Johnny B. Goode").

Very good point. But it's not only the bass. "I've been in this town so long that back in the city" and "When I was a little girl I had a rag doll" have the same descending sequence of four notes, beginning with the subdominant. Indeed, those opening bars are almost a direct quote. So don't count me among your haters. ;D 

I hear elements of Lou Christie's I'm Gonna Make You Mine in the opening of Brian's imagination.

TWGMTR and You Only Live Twice. Also, Forever She'll Be My Surfer Girl and something by the Four Seasons that I can't recall right now ...

The bass line of A Thing or Two is used in Do It Again.

Not to go off topic, but Kiss borrowed the Bicycle Rider motif on "I Was Made For Loving You."

I like this one, as short as it is  ;)  :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmdQ0jc6rQg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmdQ0jc6rQg)

Heroes and Spector's "River Deep" definitely share the same groove, pulse, and bass line, and if you hear the instrumental takes of "River Deep" it comes through even more clear. Rodney Bingenheimer says he met up with Brian the day Spector was holding that session at Gold Star and they went there to watch, was this confirmed?

Question: I know there were stories that God Only Knows was inspired by Brian hearing a Lovin Spoonful song, but i can't remember the details. Can anyone remember what Spoonful song was the inspiration, if it was ever named?

Ike & Tina's "Save The Last Dance For Me." I nearly passed out when I heard that on the radio!

Surprised when my son noticed Kiss Me Baby and TWGMTR !
Didn't spot it myself, but it's all there.

Good call: From the same "River Deep Mountain High" album and sessions, which again if Rodney B. is correct, Brian attended at least one at Gold Star.

Here's "Save The Last Dance...":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=406bQoEhWgs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=406bQoEhWgs)

Here's "River Deep...", a portion of the studio tracking session at Gold Star. Listen starting at around :45 and you'll hear the bass line and groove being rehearsed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zfNx8qNKL0 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zfNx8qNKL0)

Put those two recordings together and you basically have the "Heroes" verse groove in a nutshell. No doubt.

This article says that it's You Didn't Have To Be So Nice and says that Brian was inspired by the vocal layering. It doesn't say where it got that information though.

http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/music/beach-boys-our-top-50-hits-1.3794840 (http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/music/beach-boys-our-top-50-hits-1.3794840)

That would make sense! You Didn't Have To Be So Nice is a terrific record all around, and those vocal layers and harmonies just sent it into the stratosphere: They're not as stacked or as full as Brian's productions from that era, but that one phrase where the backing vocals overlap and "answer" the melody and at one point end on the major 7th harmony is brilliant. I can see where Brian (along with 99% of their peers in the music biz) was tuned into the singles the Spoonful was releasing in 65-66-67 up to the infamous "bust".

That's probably best described as taking a more broad cue from the feel, texture, and techniques of a record instead of a specific melody, bassline, etc. that can be pinpointed. I'd actually suggest the strong danceable shuffle feel in the drums of that record was pretty much in tune with what Brian was going for on the bigger singles of 65-66 too, only with more of a full drum kit feel than what Brian was doing in the studio for obvious reasons with the Spoonful being a self-contained 4-piece band.

Great story from John Sebastian that he told in the documentary "John Lennon's Jukebox" (highly recommended, BTW). Sebastian said someone gave him a Beatles bootleg (the Get Back sessions) where Lennon was noodling and playing various cover tunes, and he was trying to play I think it was "Daydream". He was playing along, but couldn't figure out what one of the jazzy chord changes was, to the point where Lennon finally said in frustration "Damn songwriters!".  ;D

The University of Wisconsin's fight song, "On, Wisconsin" (which must have been Hawthorne High's fight song as well...Onward Cougars) in Be True To Your School.

Most of the posters in this thread really need to learn how music scales and intervals work.

The Four Seasons song is 'Who Loves You'. They do sound quite a lot alike.

Brian Wilson

- "At My Window" is Kingston Trio's "Raspberries, Strawberries" rewritten
- "Passing By" is a whole study around Temptaions "Get Ready" chorus backing vocals
- Fairy Tale's "through the misty night" verse is identical to Beatles And I Love Her "you'd love her too"
- Brian's "Saturday Morning In The Ciry" verse sounds like "Head and shoulders knees and toes"
- Brian reused the climax of Thank Him, "the loveliest thing" melody, in a diferent context in Ballad Of Ole' Betsy "was born in '32" line and killed its power

To me Surf's Up groove was also borrowed from "You've Lost That Loving Feeling"

Brian pulled the verse melody from Bobby Rydell's SWINGIN SCHOOL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1ZNMrV7UcE
to use on Let Us Go On This Way. He also uses the rhyme scheme of Swingin' School's second verse,
("My little chick is my hearts desire. Well, the way we kiss puts the school on fire.") for the first pre-chorus of Let Us Go On This Way.

"Girl Don't Tell Me" was clearly influenced by "Ticket to Ride"

there's a line in "In Blue Hawaii" that melodically sounds just like a line in "PS I Love You"

and of course a lot of people think "Where Is She" was influenced by "She's Leaving Home" ...I'm not so sure.

I assume this means you don't hear the similarity?

There are similarities but that has to do with the fact that the musical context is terribly simple for many of these examples, not that there was a conscious effort to reference anything

It's true that I doubt Paul and Gene were listening to Smiley Smile when Paul suddenly lifted the needle and exclaimed, "that spooky shape in the bass and harmony vox would make a great melody for a disco track!"  :lol

This one is so miniscule that I doubt it warrants mentioning... I also don't know if it was a deliberate tip of the hat (or whose idea it was if that's the case) or just coincidence, but I can't help thinking that the sole vocal part at 3:28 on this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mky-UhxUKoM

Was lifted directly from 0:16 of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amDo-KqUjpA

I like to think it was intentional but that's pure speculation on my part.

Yes, exactly.  It is a common melody.  You can also hear it in a Madness song (forget which one--I believe on The Decline and Fall or 7), and it forms the basis of "Walls" by Crass.

Lifted from my other forum:

Listening to Dutch "classical" radio one morning I was struck by the similarity of the section at 3:36 in the video to the "marching band" tune in "Look (Song For Children)" from the second suite of SMiLE. 

It's the Cabaletta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabaletta) ("Vien diletto, è in ciel la luna") from Act II of Vincenzo Bellini's opera I puritani (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_puritani), in the version I heard this morning by Angela Gheorghiu and the LSO. See what you think.

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

It must be coincidence----unless Audree's (or Murry's) taste in music extended to opera! 

Oops----wrong button.  ;D

I tend to agree that Brian USUALLY didn't merely 'lift' and rework passages and sections from someone elses's songs.  There are only so many notes on a piano.  Different octaves....yes.  Notes?  Not so many.  It's math.   Similarities are bound to occur.  Even note for note theft.  I mean NO ONE noticed My Sweet Lord/He's So Fine until after it climbed the charts?  I'll betcha dollars to donuts George didn't do THAT on purpose.  [expensive donuts]

While he may have sometimes 'played' off of his own material through reference...other examples, unless tributes or nods of the noggin, were coincidence I would think.  Like Surfer Girl and When You Wish Upon a Star.  The melody was indelibly stamped in the back of Brian's head no?  That it worked it's way out and onto vinyl was just a subconscious thing.  Although, from the get-go, it made the song perhaps a little more familiar sounding to the audience without many realizing why.

TWGMTR and Theme from Midnight Cowboy
Getcha Back and Hushabye

"Where is She" and "She's Leaving Home".

remember when like 97% of "where is she" was unique from "she's leaving home" and if it weren't the beatles it never would have been brought up by anyone

I like this post a lot.

yeah thats cuz lennon was beyond mediocre, he knew he was nowhere near brians brilliance..without george martin the beatles were nothing.

Did I actually read that? Hmmm. :)

"The Flight of The Bumblebee" in "Boogie Woodie".  ;D

http://beachboysforum.freeforums.org/post6623.html#p6623

Brian got some mileage out of Laverne Baker's TWEEDLE DEE

1. Wind Chimes' bass/marimba part is very influenced by the basic instrumental riff of the song.
2. Interwoven throughout Cool Cool Water, is the 'Tweedlee tweedlee tweedlee dee' melody

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ExHOoHeXRg