The Smiley Smile Message Board

What do you all think were the contributing factors to Brian rarely writing lyrics in the band? This obviously started from the early days, and continued throughout the years, though there are notable exceptions. I happen to think that many of Brian's lyrics are not half bad, even though there are quite a few clunky ones.

Did the band, Murry, or anyone else ever encourage or discourage Brian to write lyrics on his own? Were they supportive or not about it? I wonder if he didn't have confidence due to somebody early on questioning his abilities in that arena.

I've always liked Brian's lyrics,  and am happy he seems to be writing them more often.

Hard to say. I'm by no means any sort of expert Beach Boys historian, but I'd suggest that Brian simply didn't have confidence in his lyrics, mainly due to the fact that he seems to be such a perfectionist. Maybe I'm totally wrong. But I think he realized Mike Love, Gary Usher, Van Dyke Parks, et al., could simply write (more often than not) better lyrics than he could; lyrics that would appeal to the masses. Brian is a genius, after all, and surely he realized his strengths and his shortcomings.

As to why he is such a perfectionist... was it because of Murry? Was he just born that way? Who knows, except the man himself.

Whats a good lyrics by Brian, just so I have a frame of reference? All I can think of are Wind Chimes, Love You and Busy Doin' Nothing. That first example is alright, but a whole album of simple lyrics in that style might be a detriment to the music. Love You works in spite of the lyrics rather than because of them, and are forgiven due to the quirky Brian style as well as the fact that it was his first time producing a whole album in 10 years. Busy Doin' Nothing also works in spite of the lyrics. As a one-off song it works great, but a whole album of lyrics like that would be a negative.

Judging by those examples...Brian didnt write his own lyrics very often because they werent that good. Not enough to produce a hit record, anyway. I love his distinctive idiosyncratic style, but it's not gonna get you a #1 hit, which is his measure of success. So unless there's some great, commercial sounding Brian lyric Im forgetting...theres your answer.

 In addition to what you mentioned above,  Brian clearly wrote the lyrics to "Surfer Girl", "Girl Don't Tell Me", "The Little Girl I Once Knew", "Til I Die", and "Still I Dream Of It".  Recall that "Surfer Girl" was a pretty big hit.

  We really can't say Brian did not contribute to the lyrics of many of the co-writes, can we?  

  This seems a form of revisionism in my view, implying that Brian Wilson was some sort of mute who came up with only wonderful music to which more verbally gifted individuals supplied the themes and concepts. Most songwriting partnerships can't be broken down in such black and white or arbitrary distinctions. Think of Jagger and Richards. Both have supplied words and music; some have been true collaborations and others more or less solo compositions. Lennon and McCartney as well obviously.

I completely forgot about Til I Die, and didnt realize he wrote those other tracks! Well, that changes my analysis...

Brian wrote the lyrics to This Whole World!
That song has very spiritual lyrics, that were very fitting to the hippie culture of 1970.
Not to mention Brian wrote the lyrics to…
Surfer Girl, Little Girl I Once Knew, and I'll Bet He's Nice which are all classics!

 Damn, I forgot about that one. I'm glad Mike finally got the credit for all tunes he wrote or co-wrote lyrics for, but the increasing perception of Brian as a "non-lyricist" is inaccurate.

Brian has written some decent stuff lyrically... but he's also written some of the most god awful stuff ever, and I'm not talking about when he was on drugs.

I don't know, I don't think he was ever that strong at it, so he probably just appreciated it when somebody else popped up and wrote them. 


Plus, think about this: Brian's always been very willing to work with musicians to change the sound of the songs he's working on.  Collaborative is the word that's usually thrown around about this.  You hear it all through his music, from the very beginning, right up to this last album!  He lets the session musicians create the sound with him.  He's always been like that, and it's a very unselfish way to make music.

He likely, similarly, is willing to let lyricists pitch in and do what they're good at.  Mike Love is only good at lyrics (and singing of course), he can't very well come up with good musical ideas with Brian, so if he's going to contribute Brian's going to have to let him write some or maybe all of the lyrics on a song. 

I just think Brian probably saw it as less formal and everybody pitches in, Gary Usher is good at lyrics so he's going to write the lyrics, i'll make the music, blah blah.  Lyrics weren't Brian's strong suit so he just did practically everything else!

If there's any truth to that too, that may explain why he screwed Mike out of songwriting royalties.  Just like Hal Blaine helped make up how the drums sound, Mike helped the song by writing a lot of the words.... Hal didn't get a credit and neither does Mike.

Gary on the other hand was specifically brought in as a lyricist, and the only way he got paid was if they specifically paid him as a lyricist, real cut and dry relationship there.  Hal got paid session time to play the drums.... Mike was already getting paid as a member of the band, so it blurred the line and Brian (or Murray) may have felt like he was just pitching in and didn't need a seperate credit (like the studio musicians didn't).

Hard to say, we weren't there...

There are times when Brian 'logs out'.  When WTF becomes his guiding 'battle cry'...or back in the day when he felt like he was being pushed around...WTF would come back into play and then we'd get some shyte-filled lyrics.  I'm thinkin' the '15 Bigguns'/'Love You' era for example.

Brian writes great lyrics when he has a mind to.  But I get the impression, from time to time and depending on the subject matter of the project at hand, that SOMETIMES Brian feels that there are others who may be able to put his thoughts and ideas down on paper as song lyrics more effectively.  Roger, Tony and Van Dyke quickly jump to mind.  When he wanted to dumb down the subject matter he'd collaborate elsewhere.  Quite obviously Brian doesn't WANT to do that all that much anymore.  Pretty much a been there/done that...and then did it again kind of thing.

Peter Gabriel once said something along the lines of 'The great books were not written by committee.'  He was explaining why he preferred to do 'it' on his own.  Brian seems [often enough] to be able to do it both ways.  Although now he  seems to illustrate that he has more 'books' he wants to write.    :hat

I have to take issue with the Gary Usher lyricist thing. I'm pretty sure he actually did quite a bit of the music on "Lonely Sea" and probably others as well.