The Smiley Smile Message Board

If we believe Stephen Love and Rocky, there was a lot of lying on the Mike Love side of the copyright trial that resulted in numerous co-write credits for Mike Love on songs previously credited only to Brian.  That would mean Mike exaggerated or outright lied about some songs he was claiming credit for - otherwise what were the "smoking gun" lies that were told?  So for fun I've looked at two albums where a LOT of songs were summarily credited to Mike, and I've tried to suss out (purely speculation) which ones Mike "stole" from Brian and which were legit ("stolen" from Mike and now rectified).

The Today album:

7 songs now with a Love writing credit:

All Brian:  She Knows Me Too Well
                In the Back of My Mind
Looking at these two, I see preoccupations of Brian, particularly In the Back of My Mind - the sentiments expressed are pure Brian and would be anathema to Mike, no way he wrote those.

Probably all Brian:  Good to my Baby
Very simple lyric easily within Brian's writing ability although the theme isn't incompatible with Mike's typical writing style - still no "groovy" or "chicks" or typical Mikeisms.

Mike:  Don't Hurt my Little Sister (2nd verse is a dead giveaway, Mike all the way)
          Dance Dance Dance
          When I Grow Up
         
?Mike or Brian:  Rhonda - "out doin' in my head" - could be Mike as he sometimes stretches the limits of grammar and sense to make a lyric scan or rhyme, but could be a Brianism as well.  Unsure here.


Summer Days and Summer Nights:  6 songs granted a Love co-write

All Brian:  You're So Good to Me - again, very simple, very Brian, no Mikeisms
                Let Him Run Wild - a more complex lyric but I think still Brian

Clearly Mike was involved:  Salt Lake City
                                         California Girls
                                         Amusement Parks USA
                                         Girl from NYC

Any other songs where someone perhaps Mike was given inappropriate credit?  Like Wendy from All Summer Long?

I'd take anything Rocky says with a grain, scratch that, a handful, of salt. You've got an interesting case though...

Enter Mam Cott to defend his master Michael in three, two.......

Aww. I thought the thread title was a punny "What songs did Mike love?"
Anyway, I always thought it was strange that writers used the lyrics to "Good to my Baby" and "She Knows me too Well" to analyze Brian. I always thought the machismo in those lyrics were much more Mikish, but I may be projecting a sensibility onto Brian that isn't there.
By the same token, I agree about Back of my Mind - the fact that Brian returns to it reinforces that for me - and You're so Good to Me.

Obviously Stan, Steven and Rocky were not around when these songs were written.

So we have to wait for Rocky's book to find out how this conspiracy was carried out?

Or Brian's book, which we will no doubt be reading sooner than Rocky's.

"Good To My Baby": "and when I give her my love, it's between her and me" - to me, sounds more Mike than Brian.
"Ronda": Mike's on record as saying he came up with the opening line, "Well since she put me down, I been out-doin' in my head", which I can totally see.

Funny - just earlier tonight, I was thinking about three songs that totally prove the genius of Mike Love as lyricist: "Warmth Of The Sun", "Good Vibrations", and "Let The Wind Blow". In the case of "WOTS" and "LTWB", I'm not speaking just of the cleverness of the words themselves, but of the whole concept of both: in the first case, how his love has left him, but as long as he has the warmth of the sun, he'll be OK...and in the second, let all these things happen, but don't take her out of my life. There's a poignancy at work here that's akin to, say, Ray Davies at his best. And from "GV", we have a couple of lines like "she goes with me to a blossom world" and "I don't know where, but she sends me there" - very trippy. If only Mike had written two whole albums worth of this kind of stuff, or at least a dozen or so song lyrics of this quality spread throughout the career, I think his detractors (regardless of how they may feel about his role in the band's politics) would give him more credit on the aesthetic front. Regrettably, a lot of his lyrics since this time have amounted to, shall we say, well..."Some Of Your Love" and "Summer Of Love"...

I don't think She Knows Me Too Well is at all machismo-ish, myself. It's talking about a theme that's *very* common in Brian's writing -- the flawed, hurtful man who is redeemed by the love of a woman who's much better than he is, and who's scared of losing her. We see that in everything from Don't Worry Baby to Don't Let Her Know She's An Angel.
Which isn't to say Mike didn't have a hand in writing it. We know that the way their collaborations worked at that time mostly involved Brian coming up with a track and title and Mike writing words to it -- it doesn't seem at all implausible that Mike would be able to finish a half-finished Brian lyric.
As for In The Back of My Mind, I'd bet that's 90% Brian's lyric, yes -- but there are a few bits in there that sound more Mike (notably "I try to rationalise/But some day I might realise" -- that sounds like Mike's too-clever-by-half rhyming to me), and remember that the 1975 version has distinctly different lyrics in places.
My personal guess is that Rocky is exactly as trustworthy as he seems -- not at all. I expect that in almost all the songs Mike won credit for, he made *some* contribution. But I'd also bet that if we knew what that contribution was, in some cases (maybe quite a few) many of us would think it wasn't worth him getting equal credit for it. I'd guess that some of the songs mentioned here, he only added a line or two (like with "good night baby/sleep tight baby), while on others he wrote the whole lyric or very nearly all.

Which I believe has always been Mike's only claim, he made a contribution to some songs that was not credited. Sometimes he was un-credited for a line or two and sometimes he was un-credited for the entire lyric, he's usually been pretty specific about the extent of his contributions.  I believe Mike has said he was also under-credited for some songs that he did get credited for (like Asher claims he was).

He's been specific about a handful of songs, but I don't think I've ever seen him talk about a lot of those mentioned in this thread. I don't know if he wrote the whole lyric for, say, Amusement Parks USA, or if he just suggested the change from "do amusement parks, USA" to "mess around at the park all day" in one chorus. (Not saying that was his actual contribution, just talking about the different levels it could have been -- I suspect in that case the lyric is all Mike's work).

Right, I meant when he has discussed what his contributions were to specific songs he has usually been pretty specific as to how much or how little his contribution was.

And it's been shocking how little he contributed to some songs that he is now credited with a third or a half credit.  woudn't it be nice and 409 come to mind.

I'd like to see his response to the question of what he specifically added to You're So Good to Me, In the Back of my Mind, Good to My Baby, She Knows Me Too Well and Let Him Run Wild.

I think the credit for 409 is fair if, as he claims, he came up with the "She's real fine, my 409" hook and "giddy-up 409" line, that's a good chunk of the finished song, both music and lyrics. The song would be unrecognisably different without them.
The Wouldn't it be Nice credit, though, is risible. Even assuming he wrote the two lines in question, which I think Asher disputes, they're an absolutely minimal part of the song.

I agree with your final paragraph.
According to Roger Christian, the lyrics to Don't Worry Baby were already written when Brian saw them in his notebook and wrote the music to them, so the writers using that for Brian analysis also gets on my nerves. Don't Worry Baby also doesn't have the 'I'm justifying being a jerk' element to it. The lyrics to Good to my Baby and She Knows Me too Well are two sides of the guy who's a jerk to his girlfriend and knows it. One day he's justifying it entirely and the next he's half justifying by saying 'she knows I love her even if I'm a jerk'. I agree that maybe Brian has that aspect, which used to be regularly glorified in song and film, but it seems more of an obvious Mike Love trait.
But, that doesn't mean I'm disagreeing with your final paragraph above. There's no smoking gun, here. We already know that Mike Love is credited due to five words in Wouldn't it be Nice, so what we know is what we've known for a long time: some of these songs, Mike Love was THE lyricist; some he tweaked or added a bit. Which are which and how much, we don't know.

If this is a double post, I'm sorry. My phone just did something strange.

One of the interesting things that (unfairly) undercuts Mike's claim to writing lyrics for this batch of songs is that he never talks about most of the songs. It's always the same three or four songs.

I think it was Howie Edelson that mentioned he has specifically asked Mike in interviews to comment on tracks from the "Wild Honey" album for instance (which weren't revised of course, I believe his name was always on those), and Mike never has anything to say about them.

Would Mike have even filed the suit if the batch of songs missing his name were all later era songs that weren't hits or popular, like "Aren't You Glad", "Add Some Music to Your Day", and "Funky Pretty"?

Although it's never - as far as I'm aware - been explicitly stated, my impression is that all Christian's lyrics were lifted from the famous notebook. Certainly "Shut Down" was adapted and condensed from a much longer poem.

Something is fishy from that lawsuit and maybe reading the lyrics is the key to the truth! 8)

An issue I've had for a long time was the number of songs entered into the lawsuit, and how that number changed as it worked its way through the legal process.

Originally Mike filed for his claim to 79 songs where he wasn't credited properly. That list got trimmed down to 48 during the trial. The actual finding in the case was for 35 songs.

So my question has been what was it about the claims to those 44 songs (the original 79 minus the 35 decided in the verdict) which caused them to be taken out of the claim leading up to the court's decision? There was a quote from Mike that was along the lines of "I know what I wrote and Brian knows what I wrote", so if that's the case how did more than half of the songs Mike was originally filing for and claiming in the case for credit get taken off the list?

He went for Mars and got the moon. ;)

given the Wouldn't it be Nice thing, I'm guessing that he did go for Mars. He put in every song that he added a "hm" to. Then the songs that there was no evidence at all, or judge and/or jury decided that the "hm" didn't meet the standard were removed. Their standard was pretty little, given the credit for WIBN.
I agree, as expressed on the other thread, that giving the credit for WIBN is a pretty sketchy precedent, as I'd think it opens the door for lawsuits all over the place. Happily, that hasn't happened; though I'm surprised.

If it were a matter of a few song titles being taken off the list it might be chalked up to being par for the course of legal actions in general with cases like this. But when over half of the songs originally claimed get taken off the table and removed from the case, that raises eyebrows, especially factoring in the comments about both parties knowing who wrote what in the case. How 79 gets whittled down to 35 by the time it's over is a pretty significant drop, it's over half (or a majority) of the songs being claimed getting removed from the case! Something just never made sense with those numbers dropping so significantly if the case was so clear-cut going in.

What baffles, truly baffles the mind, is how Mike wouldn't think that the perception of overreaching with credits could be something that people would vilify and/or discredit him for, and would cause people have *legit* reason to cast doubt on many of the credits.

Due to *that* many claims being shot down, Mike must know that he overreached... and even if it's "all the lawyers' fault", I cannot understand how he doesn't connect the dots, seeing as he obviously has a deep wound and seems profoundly concerned about peoples' perception of him and his motivations.

Again, all it would take for him to rectify stuff like this, is to publicly own up to it and apologize for going too far.

Yeah Howie asking him about credited songs from Wild honey and Mike having nothing to say could be most telling if did in fact overreach for credits.

Interesting point. I never knew about these statistics.
I guess one of the songs is "Surfin' USA" which Mike mentions from time to time to have written lyrics for (I believe Carl also said that in that 70s Beach Boys Story radio feature), yet Al mentioned in the "Wouldn't it be nice" documentary that he doubts Mike wrote it although he (Mike) "will tell you that he" did. And for years it was said that the brother of a girlfriend of Brian's (?) came up with the surf spots.

I do wonder what Mike makes of Dennis' not seeming to have given much of a f*ck about not being credited on You Are So Beautiful.

GF...The missing songs from the list?  Just hand-claps on those ones.  ;D   Perhaps it was deemed that hand-claps weren't really meaningful enough as contributions to the actual melody and lyrics.  Close but not 'lightable' as cigars.

Smoke and mirrors aside...I don't believe him PERIOD.  Wouldn't It Be Nice, as Emily mentioned, is the perfect example of the validity of his royal heinous' claims.  Yes...he wrote some lyrics.  No goodnight baby/sleep tight baby don't qualify as a valid and dollar worthy contribution to anything other than lazy filler as the song fades out.

The judge was smoking something. :hat

The issue of what constitutes credit for writing a song is so grey and ambiguous. Add to that various legal maneuvering, an apparent/alleged dysfunctional, ill-advised situation in on Brian's legal side (e.g. stories of a pre-trial offer to settle that was apparently much more advantageous to Brian), and there aren't clear answers.

If a lawsuit like this were happening today, I think Brian would be much more well-advised and the outcome would have been somewhat if not quite different. I would guess it would be more of a cash settlement and maybe a few less credits. I could see them fighting on at least stuff like "Wouldn't It Be Nice."

With a more detailed, sharkish defense (and offense), a lot of other things could have been established, such as whether Mike ever had as much *musical* help on his solo writing credits as Brian did *lyrical* help on stuff without Mike's name, and if so, why Mike didn't feel he needed to credit those who helped with that. I've always tended to doubt Mike always *fully* fleshed out all the chord changes to songs like "Big Sur", "Everyone's In Love With You", "Goin' to the Beach", "Alone on Christmas Day", and so on.

But yeah, there are other examples of non-credits that are at least as substantive as WIBN. Some have argued Al should have gotten a little chunk of the arranging credit on "Sloop John B." There's Dennis with YASB.

I've always been surprised that Matthew Fisher's relative success in the infamous "Whiter Shade of Pale" case from several years back hasn't resulted in a lot more "contributors" coming out of the woodwork and claiming their contributions constituted some level of a co-writer credit. There was probably a lot of cross-pollination within the BBs where others might have warranted credits.

There seems to be two schools of thought. Like Roger Waters mostly sole credits on "Animals" despite extenive improvising by Rick Wright. Jagger/Richards is the same deal. If Wyman had a riff, he wasn't getting credit.

Some band give credit all the way around, even arranging is considered songwriting.  I prefer that method as credits can be divided up in pieces equally 50%.

A note on Surfin USA, Brian says Mike wrote the lyrics with him here.  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/love-and-mercy/brian-wilson-interview/

“I never learnt how to surf because I was always afraid to try,” he says. “But my brother Dennis told me surfing was popular and why didn’t I write some songs about it? So Mike Love and I wrote Surfin (USA).’”

I believe David Marks testified that he remembered Mike writing the lyrics to Chug A Lug, hah. Not sure if he mentioned any other songs.

One song Mike give some specifics on is I Get Around, said he wrote the Round, Round Get Around I Get Around bit. Brian had 2 lines & they finished it off together. Read
this in an interview before the lawsuit.

Someone refresh my memory.  - what songs did Mike give testimony in court concerning his exact contributions?  I thought before the trial got very far along, they wanted Brian to testify, he freaked and rolled over and gave Mike everything he asked for.

As for 409, I feel it's very similar to WIBN - Mike came up with a two line bass vocal for the fade, while for 409 he came up with a five word intro bass vocal - "she's real fine my 409."  The giddy up, giddy up 409 bass backing vocal took a phrase already written by Usher and Brian and put it as a backing vocal - that's arranging, not writing.

Even if your claims are 100% true you have to show a preponderance of  evidence I believe, so if you didn't any witnesses or just hearsay etc. it wouldn't meet the test.  Another way to look at it is the remaining 36 were very well vetted.

As far as I know, this is the only published account:
http://www.surfermoon.com
Cam, in a civil case, if the plaintiff testifies, "I wrote X" and the defendant doesn't counter it or offer any contrary evidence, that will usually be considered a preponderance; so if the defendant doesn't defend, the plaintiff wins without any vetting.

That wouldn't disqualify it as vetting though would it? 

The person who would benefit if something were true saying it's true? It's not what I would consider vetting.
British people, what's that Profumo Affair quote?

Edit: they're asleep so I looked it up. Not too complicated: 'He would, wouldn't he?'

The defense not disputing it if it were untrue.  They apparently disputed plenty of claims by your criteria.

I don't know. I don't know by what process the others were eliminated. It reads as though there was a lame attempt at defense but that Brian's lawyers did a bad job and that Brian didn't help himself much. So I'd guess the songs that were eliminated were just really easy to eliminate, because all the evidence we have indicates that not much effort was made by the defense.
We don't know what happened really. We know that he got credit on WIBN for a contribution the level of which is most likely very rarely credited. So I guess we can assume he contributed even less to those songs. But it's pretty hard to be confident in any assumptions with this one.
Does any one know at what stages those other songs were eliminated? Pretrial? Discovery? Trial?

Though, this got off track because I was responding more to the notion that they were 'vetted' which I wouldn't say they were if we are only relying on the plaintiff's testimony. But, i don't mean to imply in this specific case that the plaintiff was lying. I think perhaps he was perfectly honest and, as I said above, testified that he contributed even less to the other songs and it was decided that those contributions weren't credit-worthy.

Nice summary--this is pretty much what I believe.

Ah, you brought up Animals!  Nice!!!

Yeah, listen to the first one minute and 40 seconds of Sheep--it's an electric piano piece with a bunch of weird, jazzy chords (the kind that Rick wrote with and Roger didn't).  It's clearly at least somewhat 'composed' as well, as the droning bass part changes as the chords do. That piece has Rick all over it, and doesn't sound like anything that Roger wrote by himself...  yet the songwriting credit is all Roger.  I would lean towards giving Rick a credit there. 

I've seen this interview before, but I'm pretty sure that it's the interviewer's mistake.  Brian is talking about SURFIN', fits perfectly with the story we know (Dennis pestered Brian to write about surfing, so he and Mike wrote 'Surfin'.  The interviewer, who may not be a big BB's fan, put in the (USA) part himself, not knowing that they had an earlier song called 'Surfin.'   

I've taken him saying he came up with the "giddyup 409" part to be him saying he actually came up with that phrase, which given the simplicity of the lyric would mean he'd written about a third of the lyric just from that one line. If he did only suggest using the already-written phrase as a backing vocal line, I agree that's an arrangement contribution.

I have a vague recollection that Mike mentioned this aspect in some interviews, but I could totally be wrong: On the songs where Mike's name was added (and he got back royalties and of course ongoing royalties), he may not (I would say probably didn't) have received a 50/50 split with Brian. Obviously, he gets a 50/50 split on the actual printed credit (to my belief, they all say "Words and Music by Wilson and Love", rather than "Words by Wilson and Love, Music by Wilson", etc.), but on a lot of these songs he may be getting a 25% cut (or some other negotiated or adjudicated amount lower than 50%), as in many if not most cases, Brian wrote some amount of the lyrics and presumably pretty much *all* of the music.

For instance, in the classic, oft-cited example, while Mike often says he wrote all of the words to "California Girls", we have him within the same interview also saying Brian wrote the main refrain "I wish they all could be California Girls."

I would tend to doubt, even going up against what sounds a bit like shooting fish in a barrel with Brian's "defense" in that court case, Mike would have or could have "demonstrated" in court how he wrote any substantive part of the music. I think it's possible he (and other vocalists and co-writers in the band) may have helped to mold the lead melody sometimes.

The song was "Surfin'" and not "Surfin USA", that is correct.

Maybe someone can correct me if I'm remembering it wrong, but Surfin USA was not part of the 90's credits lawsuit, and for a very confusing maze of credits, trace the history of Surfin USA releases since it first came out. It was published/owned by Arc Music, which is where many of the Chess label's music resides, including Chuck Berry. Credits on various releases ranged from "Brian Wilson" to "Brian Wilson - Chuck Berry" to "Chuck Berry" and going so far as "words and music by Chuck Berry". The latter is obviously not the case, factually...so why does it appear that way?

Murry signed over the song to resolve the copyright claims with Chuck's Sweet Little Sixteen.

Which means, if Mike had wanted to claim credit for Surfin USA, he'd need to bring Arc and Chuck Berry into a court case, separate from where he took Brian to court over the 79 songs, since Chuck and Arc technically "own" Surfin USA ostensibly thanks to Murry 50 years ago. It's almost comical to see Arc's catalog of song titles and see one and only one Beach Boys song on that list, even though Chuck Berry did not write a single word of that lyric, and the main hook of the melody sounds nothing like Sweet Little Sixteen.

Wonder why Mike didn't take Arc to court over claiming that lyric credit, since it's one of the most familiar songs in the Beach Boys discography.

It would be almost an impossible suit to win, if Brian/Murrayould have made an agreement to split copyright, there may be a case. The reason I was looking for if Brian ever suggested Mike wrote part of Surfin USA, is someone mentioned on another board they
saw Brian say it in an old interview, was trying to find that interview and found that.

I think in some ways it would be an even easier case to prove if Mike had chosen to file a claim against Arc for publishing and even whatever interest handles Chuck Berry's songwriting affairs, since it is absolute 100% fact that Chuck Berry had no involvement in writing the lyrics to Surfin USA, yet on many credits he's listed as writer for both music and lyrics - thanks to Murry back in the 60's. But it's a matter of who to take to court and how Mike I guess could have shown a court that he had a hand in writing those words.

Would have to get a lawyer to take the case, Chuck is official songwriter (at least by copyright), whether he had a hand in the lyrics or not (they were influenced by him). He would most likely have to get Brian to agree to go in with him so they could agree to split the lyric credits and any compensation. He would most likely end up with a  small perecentage even if he won.

Yeah, thanks. I was about to post the same. If you quote and add something that isn't in the original quote but implied (or implied by your understanding) you write that in brackets. But everything here speaks for a misunderstanding of the interviewer.
But thanks KingSurf! I hadn't seen that interview before!

In that case, though, it's not a matter of who wrote it. The song was given in full to Berry because it was plagiarised from his work, and so I suspect it'd be like the Verve's Bittersweet Symphony, which is credited to Jagger/Richards because they used a sample of a string arrangement of The Last Time without permission... Jagger and Richards had nothing to do with writing the song, or even writing the bit of string arrangement used, but it still belongs to them now.

Maybe because Arc hadn't promised him 30% of their award?

Exactly! And I believe this led to Rick quiting the band. Roger totally screwed him.

Anyway, going to be very interesting to contrast Brian anf Mike's books regarding songwriting.

If it were about restoring proper credit, and Mike cites Surfin USA years later as one that he didn't get credit for despite contributing lyrics, why the inaction? Arc is listed as publisher on the earliest release of the song, and eventually Chuck Berry got sole writing credit based on Murry's agreement rather than the actual credits, which is always brought up. If Mike wants his due credit for a song where he didn't get credit, there is one glaring example he didn't pursue. Unlike those 79 songs that got shaved down to 35 by the time the gavel came down.

How many of those 79 songs were complicated legally by the plagiarism of a songwriting partner?  If a promise hadn't been made and then broken there wouldn't have been a suit against Brian.

Things get reduced in the course of a lawsuit I suppose: 79 songs down to 36, $200 million dollars in damages down to $10 million, and so on.

Don't know about Brian, but Carl actually did (in the multi-part 1974 BBC radio series on the Beach Boys):
"'Sweet Little Sixteen' was just a great tune, and so Brian just did an arrangement of it, and we changed it around; Brian and Michael did. Chuck Berry wasn't personally involved in that."
Carl says "arrangement" rather than "rewrite", but definitely indicates that Mike had a role in that, along with Brian.

Has Mike said he did?

Yep, before and after the lawsuit.

Thanks for answering. Has anyone other than Al in that one interview said he didn't? I know about Judy Bowles' brother contributing, but that doesn't mean that Mike Love didn't as well.

Again it begs the question: Why the inaction? Did Mike not want to take Chuck Berry, or Arc Publishing, or any related interests to court over lyrics he can stake a claim to have written or co-written, yet releases up to the present day credit Chuck Berry who literally did not write one single word of Surfin USA?

The parameters are similar, right? Murry signed over the song and the rights and eventually the credits to those administering Chuck Berry's music in 1963 (as Chuck was in prison at that time), then later turned over the whole shebang so Chuck is listed as sole author of the words and music.

And if Mike is mentioning Surfin USA as one which he wasn't credited yet contributed to the lyrics, and Murry signed it over, why not go to Arc and Berry's interests and file for his rightful credit?

For me whether he filed suit or not for 1 song, does not prove either way if he helped write the lyrics or not. Would likely be a complicated lawsuit with not a big financial gain. The people at Arc did no wrong to Mike, they don't know if he contributed or not.

I am always suspicious of new posters who show up with apparent knowledge of the inner workings of the group just in time to defend some point or other.  It so very Mike-Love-2005-lawsuit-false-witness-esque.  Are you Mike's manager or something?

I claim no inner knowledge, just going by what Mike or Carl or Brian have said in public. Where have I said anything that claimed I have any inner knowledge. I'm not the one who came up with the Carl Wilson information above about Surfin USA. Just commenting as an observer like most others here.

Mike went after Brian because there was a promise made that was broken.  Arc made no such promise so I guess because the premise is a red herring.

Pure speculation, but maybe he was waiting for Morris Levy to die so he wouldn't wind up in a block of cement.   ;D

Or Mike's lawyers advised him not too. But then again, these were (probably) the same sharks that advised him to sue over the Smile giveaway...

BTW, on this topic, how much of the lyrics of Good Vibrations did Mike write? Sometimes he's said that he wrote all of it...  I'm thinking he means that Brian came up with the title and he wrote the rest.  But on Brian Wilson Presents Smile, the Tony Asher version has some of the same lyrics.  For example, the first verse starts 'I like the colorful clothes she wears,' but then the rest of the verse is different from the BB's version.  Do you think that Tony (or Brian) wrote the first line, and then Mike changed the rest of the verse? 

For what it's worth, I think that Mike's lyrics are much better than Asher's on GV, but I wonder how much of the lyrics he wrote.

Tony's first line was different, but was erased from the master tape - that's why it's absent from the bootlegs and official release of it, and that's why the BWPS version incorporates Mike's first line.

Interesting!  So I'm guessing that no-one remembers what the first line was? 

Apparently no one did at the time.

I think it was "cranberry sauce".

It's "I just met a surgeon from Spain".  Sadly the original "limerick" conception of the song was quickly abandoned.

 :lol

When I started this thread I assumed that the lying that Rock and Stephen referred to with regards to this suit had to do with Mike's contributions to songs that in fact he had very little to do with.  But another way to look at it is that Mike lacked documentation or "vetting" proof that he did in fact contribute to many of the songs, and needed people to lie about how they knew he had written this line or that lyric, they had seen him or spoken with him at the time and remembered that he had worked on a particular song, etc.    Because otherwise it would just be Mike's word against Brian's. 

If this is the case, Mike may have not been claiming credit for any songs he didn't have a hand in, but needed people to lie to prove he co-wrote the songs.  Then again, he may have claimed credit for songs he had minimal or no participation in - once you have your liars in place, why stop at just the songs you actually wrote?

People should start saving their work product.  The notebooks, sheets of paper, the drafts and revisions, etc.   

Take cell phone photos if nothing else that will back up in your computer when you connect your phone.   ;)

Yeah, I can't believe Mike didn't use his cell phone to take pictures of his lyric sheets for his Today and Summer Days contributions! 

There are many artists and creators on this forum who can get into that good habit going forward.

But those "analog people" who might still have kept notebooks or legal pads with lyrics might do well do well to keep their work dated or start.  It can be a valuable source of evidence for court if it becomes a contested issue. 

It's possible.
Two things, though:
1. Many songs were tossed, so if he was drumming up fake evidence, he didn't do a good job of it.
2. The account of the suit sounds like for the most part it was his word against Brian's, and Brian's word kind of failed to show up, so again, he didn't provide much evidence, fake or not.

This is a totally off-topic niggle, but 'work product' is linguistically incorrect legal jargon and I hate how it's seeping into and diluting proper English.

Work product or evidence of work product, like a simple journal or diary of appointments with notes, "kept in the course of business," or similar whether protected or not, can mean many things. 

The lyrics would be copyright or Intellectual Property. I guess I am not understanding the concept of "linguistically incorrect legal jargon."  It is a legal term of art.   

What don't you understand about 'linguistically incorrect'? 'Legal term of art' is synonymous to 'legal jargon.' As you understand that it is legal jargon concerning legal work, why are you applying it to song-writing? 'Product' means the end result. So the song is the product of the work, the 'work product'. Notes and things would be the by-product. Because by-product can be of particular importance in the law, lawyers made a special term (as they often do; there are a handful of professions in which there seems to be a particular effort to generate unnecessary jargon, apparently to make outsiders think the profession is more complex than it is) to refer to their by-product. Then other people, trying to sound fancy and educated, take those jargon terms and replace the common terms in other contexts and the specific meaning of words becomes diluted.
Sorry for O/T. If anyone wants to discuss this further or have the whole 'evolving nature of language' discussion, we should do it in the sandbox.

Emily - it was not for point of argument.  But, any work journal that anyone keeps in the course of business is work product.  Labor means "work" and the fruit is the "product." That is not rocket science.

If an electrician keeps a journal of his or her jobs, dated, with work notes that is evidence of work, that can be of relevance.  It does not have to be prepared for court but can be used as court evidence.  But if kept, if the electrician is sued for whatever reason, that appointment book helps him show when and where he or she was.  Everyone can show work product if they keep evidence of their work.   The notes can be incorporated by reference to support the evidence of the work.

In the legal context, there is a work product "doctrine" that protects the legal theories of the lawyer.

And it was a suggestion to those who are in the creative artistic process to continuously protect the fruits of their labor.  

The law, once broken down to it's smallest concepts, is not that difficult.  It is more a function of hard work than anything else.  Statistics and trigonometry, is harder than law school in my opinion. And it is relevant to this discussion.

If people had been in the habit of keeping everything that was written, copied on a xerox machine or on carbon paper (old school style) this would likely not be an issue in contention.  People can learn from other's mistakes. I hope that the music schools are teaching the students the importance of protecting their intellectual property, digitally.  It only makes sense.  Common sense.  ;)