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I thought it might be fun to pick out all the "nods", riffs, etc that have made appearances in other songs.

To get started...

"Morning Beat"
- Maumamayama Hallejulah is from a mid-70s song (Clangin?) referenced in a Rolling Stone article during the whole Brian's Back campaign if I recall correctly
- the line "Hear those guitars gently strumming" is musically similar to a line in "Rio Grande"
- the line "It's hard to feel down, living in this town" is musically similar to a line in "Let's Go to Heaven in My Car"  "Huggin the curves and I'm outta control"

"Forever My Surfer Girl"
- piano part at the beginning is similar to "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey
- the whole song is of course about Judy Bowles, the original Surfer Girl inspiration
- the line "First love is the moment you can't repeat but you'll always own it" could be in reference to the song "Surfer Girl", the first song Brian wrote

"Venice Beach"
-the musical backdrop is virtually note-for-note identical to the instrumental break in "Another Way" from Wondermints "Mind if We Make Love to You"

"Live Let Live"
-new lyrics to a song by VDP for the "Arctic Tale" soundtrack
-chorus is musically similar to "Sail On Sailor"

"Mexican Girl"
-the intro rhythm makes me wanna sing "Saturday Morning in the City"    :lol   More noticeable on the demos
-the whispered "Tequila" at the end of the second verse is of course a shout-out to the old Champs song

"California Role"
-started life as the unheard "Wonderin What You're Up to Now"
-the bassline is similar to "Shake Rattle & Roll"
-"Every girl the next Marilyn"   (yes he's meaning Monroe, but I can't help but think it might also be Rovell)
-"You don't have to climb the Capitol Tower or play the Hollywood Bowl", but of course Brian's doing just that   :)

"Oxygen to the Brain"
-musically reminicent of songs like "Too Much Sugar", "Just Say No", etc from the Landy era
-lyrically referencing his dark days and finding the benefit of exercise
-the bridge musically reminds me of a part of "I'd Love Just Once to See You"

"Can't Wait Too Long"
-self explanitory... cover of the unfinished Beach Boys song
-Darian apparently put it in the suite/song cycle/album/whatever just to satisfy his own whim

"Midnight's Another Day"
-apparently began life as an uptempo rocker before Scott got ahold of it!!!
-lyrically references Brian's dark days in a manner similar to "Til I Die"

"Goin Home"
-lyrically references his dark days and new-found life  "At 25 I turned out the lights..."
-the Shortnin Bread riff returns, as well as a riff from his version of Proud Mary
-the background "rock, roll, roll around heaven" during the bridge is musically similar to the background vocals of Rock n Roll Music
-the harmonica solo is played by none other than Tommy Morgan!!!

"Southern California"
-"Nodded off in the band room, woke up in history"  sums up Brian's career quite well (not a trained musician), not to mention genius wordplay

Any others?!?!?

Morning Beat also has some similarities with the unreleased "Walkin'," from the 1960s.

Brian actually says Forever My Surfer Girl is about Melinda. Scott wrote it with the understanding that it was referencing the song "Surfer Girl." A piano riff in the song also sounds like the vocal hook to Van Dyke's "San Francisco."

They are not whispering "tequila." They are saying "tiquero," I believe.

Southern California uses a chord pattern similar to "Love and Mercy," "Imagination," and "Christmasy."

My interpretation is that the whole song is not about Judy Bowles, the surfer girl, but about the song "Surfer Girl"...

If it actually would be about Judy, I don't think Melinda would've been too happy with it.

During "Morning Beat", right at the 1:13 mark, when Brian sings "hear those guitars gently strumming, hear those voices softly humming", I hear a piece of "Rio Grande".

... except that it wasn't the first song he wrote.  ;D

Another myth shattered.

The (very poorly pronounced) Spanish words whispered on "Mexican Girl" are: "Te quiero" ["I love you'] thereby quoting the spoken piece on "Please Let Me Wonder".


The opening passage of "Good Kind of Love" sure sounds like "Brian is Back" to me.

Maybe it's the first "good" song he wrote.  Just casually listening to the CD I took it as reference to the song.

Is it me, or do all of the uptempo songs sound like a mix between Shortnin' Bread, Proud Mary, and/or Rolling Up To Heaven?  ;D

There's an even stronger link at the ends of the verses..."she keeps them in a jar..." and "we traveled the world..." both have the same chord sequence behind them. 

"It's hard to feel down living in this down when you're so far away" in Morning Beat sounds a lot like "Our friends splash in the surf, the whole beach is our turf" in Living Doll.

Morning Beat -

The sun burns a hole through the 6am haze

White Lightnin' - Big Bopper, etc -

Well in North Carolina, way back in the hills


Southern California -

I had this dream Singing with my brothers

Mount Vernon and Fairway -

Dum Dum Dum Dum Dummm Ooooooooooohhhhhh (dum dum dum)

 :)

This thread, I think, points up why I'm not as ecstatic at the release of Lucky Old Sun as I'd hoped I would be. There's this nagging voice in my head that says Scott Bennett is the "new best friend" for Brian, a role that has been played by many in the past: Van Dyke, Jack Rieley, Andy Paley, Landy, Gary Usher, Joe Thomas, Don Was, etc. The fact that you can point out a couple dozens quotes from past BW works merely heightens the possibility that this new album largely resulted from tossing a bunch of BW signature riffs into a blender and serving them up as indications of Brian's continuing creativity. With the exception of Midnight's Another Day--and Can't Wait Too Long, which is awesome but ancient--, I don't hear much here that is gonna make it onto the "BW is a genius" compilation. And if I never hear 'Mexican Girl' again, I won't mourn. Oh, and I have never understood the appeal for Brian of the Shortenin' Bread riff. How many more times is he gonna draw from THAT well?
There are pleasant moments here...but I don't see evidence that Brian is super-involved or especially creative these days. Not that he needs to be! If he never writes another note, his place in the pantheon is secure. But LOS is not ground-breaking or amazing, and that's what BW music used to/should be.

I'm curious as I don't have the album yet, is it "Forever She'll Be My Surfer Girl" or "Forever My Surfer Girl"? I mean websites say different things and of course it originally appeared as the former yet now it seems its the latter.

Shadow -- I don't think there's much to worry about, really. Brian wrote some 20 songs in the summer of 06. Scott helped him with lyrics and the shaping of some tunes, but Brian was the prime motivating force.

As someone who's familiar with most unreleased BW material (at least the often-circulated stuff), this is simply not like GOIMH. That album had two new songs (HCWSBD and A Friend Like You). The rest were reworkings of Paley sessions and Sweet Insanity material. It's not even like Imagination, which included three remakes of 60s tunes. TLOS is based on songs written by Brian in a very specific period of time.

And the songs are good. The extra bonus tracks prove that. Message Man, Oh Mi Amor, Just Like Me and You -- and the production on I'm Into Something Good -- Brian is writing and producing quirky, cool new songs. Are some of them reminiscent of the past? Sure. Do some riffs come up again? Absolutely. Did he revive a Landy-era tune? Yes. But none of that negates the fact that this was a creative explosion for the modern-day BW -- everyone connected to him attests to that, and more importantly, the music attests to that.

Despite the similarities that I (and others) note here, most of them are just not cases of Brian rewriting old songs.

Stop me if this has been noticed already, but....  anyone else spot the melodic similarity between the opening lines of "Midnight's Another Day',  and the bit towards the end of 'There's So Many', i.e. " To get you in my arms....to feel my love...that is so strong...." ?

In "Oxygen To The Brain" Brian is playing around with the same discordant shifts as in "Happy Days" ("So far from life.." becomes "Life was so dead"), but to better effect. He also alludes to brother Carl's "The Trader" with the line "reason to live".

"Mexican Girl" features some similar vocal phrasing to "The Waltz". I like how Bennett uses a "SMiLE"/Parksian pun with "cast a net"; in fact, the "family tree" line suggests that the song is a possible extention of Parks' "Americana" theme from SMiLE with the subject matter being about race and society in the guise of a love song.

"Southern California" recalls "Passing By" in the chorus melody.

Goin' Home is a re-write of a mid 90's Paley song titled.........Goin' Home which was written like a cowboy song. That version even had the phrase "magic lanterns" in it that is a refernce to another Paly/Wilson track. I like ALOT of this LP. And seeing Brian on Leno last night doing Goin' Home.......Loved It!

It's "Forever She'll Be My Surfer Girl".  :)

Going Home is not really a rewrite of the Paley sessions song. The two sound nothing alike. They share the title line -- "I'm Goin Home" -- but little else.

Not quite TLOS but in the bonus tracks, check out the "How Could We Still Be Dancing" steal in "Just Like Me and You" during the "Come along, come along" part at 54 seconds.  Used far better in this new tune, I might add!

From what I understood, even HCWSBD had it's roots in an earlier version. Don't know where I read it, and if it was 80-ies, or 90-ies. Anyone familiar with this?

I think it was an Imagination-era recording, at least the backing track was?
Also, GIOMH definitely sounds like an Imagination-era backing track.

I could be wrong as I'm no expert on this era, but wasn't it Dancin' The Night Away?

Yeah, folks have suggested that. Dancin the Night away is from 95, I think. HCWSBD was from post-imagination Thomas work -- 99 or so. I've listened to them side by side, and they're less alike than you might think. This may be because the earlier song doesn't have lead vocals (bridge excepted). But I don't make the leap that just because BW wrote two up tempo songs about dancing within a few years of each other, that the latter is a rewrite.

I had this dream, singing with my brothers

Its finally here, that special season

Yeah. There is much here borrowed form other places.  But I love it.

Kind of reminds me of MIU and the MIU Christmas songs.

But I've been thinking of how many artists reference themselves or "borrow" from their earlier work.

Seems like anyone whos been around this many years is doing it.  Stones, James Taylor, Neil Young (talk about retreads) but I just keep eating it up.  I think people want to hear this sort of thing, they enjoy the familiar or a twist on a favorite riff.  Brings a smile.

The melodies of those two lines are actually somewhat different.

It's the descending chord patterns beneath them that are alike.

And it dates back further than Christmasy --

Those are the Love and Mercy chords. And the verses to Your Imagination.

The book about the music of Brian Wilson that came out a year or two ago is very spot on with this -- in the 80s, Brian started using a descending bass pattern in a lot of his songs. It's shared in all of the ones we mentioned. It seems to be a device he uses to get started on songs -- because few would argue that all of the songs we mentioned don't ultimately sound pretty different by the time you get to chorus and bridge.

And I would like to retract some posts I made earlier --

"Morning Beat" is indeed "Walkin," from some 40 years ago. The tempo is different, the riff has been slightly altered, the vocal melody has been tweaked -- but damned if you can't sing one directly on top of the other. The bridge and chant sections of course are not included in "Walkin," but it's otherwise a definite re-use. Truly nothing ever goes to waste in the world of B. Wilson.

technical stuff aside....Christmassey sounds like southern california on those lines...

am I alone on this?  Do my ears deceive me?

Donald -- Your ears do not deceive you. Those lines certainly sound similar -- not identical, but close enough to catch the ear. Some folks mentioned this over on the BW.com board too.

I'm going to take this opportunity to break down the new-old song ratio on TLOS.

Total songs (as in pieces that aren't linking tracks -- this excludes the narratives and CWTL).

11

Cover versions

1

(The title track, which has been re-arranged and abridged, according to BW.)

Total recycled songs

1

(This is "California Role," which was "Wondering What You're Up to Now" from the mid-80s. I don't think the original is in circulation, but I'll count it as a re-use.)

Total reworked songs

2

("Morning Beat" is a collage of "Walkin'" from the 60s, the chant from the 70s, and a new bridge and lyric approach. "Goin Home" takes the title line from the Paley sessions and merges that with riffs from "Proud Mary," "Rock and Roll Music" and a newly written bridge.)

Total new songs

7

The rest of them. Of those, two have strong nods to other songs -- "Live Let Live" to the title line of "Sail On Sailor" and "Southern California" to "Christmasy" and other "Love and Mercy" type tunes -- but are largely original.

This ratio, interestingly enough, is similar to "Imagination," where of 11 songs you had three covers of 60s material (one a cover of an unreleased tune, true) and 1 reworked collage of older fragments with new bits ("Happy Days.") On the bright side, though, the reworked material on TLOS has been far more creatively modified.

To make matters sweeter, we have a half-album's worth of tracks recorded during the same time. We have "Oh Mi Amor," "Message Man," and "Just Like Me and You" -- none of which (to my knowledge) are refashioned from past work. We have a rollicking, creative cover of "I'm Into Something Good." And we have the soundtrack version of "Live Let Live," which presents a much more expansive (if somewhat dryly recorded) version of the song.

I haven't been this excited about new BW work since the late 90s. And honestly, I think most of this stuff is better than the "Imagination" songs. (A lot of it is better than Paley stuff, too.)

I'm in agreement with you most of the way there. I wonder if in the future people will see Imagination as a "Sweet Insanity"-type deviation in a very erratic solo career whose highs deserve wider popular credit. Brian needed BWPS to get back on track. Any future retrospective, if it is comprehensive, will contain lots of very accomplished pop songs.

Having said that, I think only the very best of the new stuff (MAD,Live Let Live,Southern California) is as good as the Paley sessions, being a huge fan of most of those tracks. Were these released, the songs used in Imagination de-contaminated  and some of the vocals re-done, I think the result really would be the breakthrough. The new Pet Sounds. I really think they are that good.

I just skimmed a few posts in this thread so apologies if I'm repeating something or generally missing the point, but Brian has always recycled his own melodies. I started a topic a couple of years ago about what Smile Songs were related to other BB songs and it averaged that for every Smile song there were something like 3 or 4 other songs that borrowed from it. Some songs showed up in different manifestations within Smile or Smiley Smile, some like Wind Chimes had bits recycled only a year later (CWTL) and others such as Dada had offspring showing up decades after (Saturday Morning in the City). Personally I don't see any problem in the recycling that occurs in TLOS . It's obviously part of BW's writing technique (Marilyn says as much in one of the docs) and the fact a riff like Ow mama yama (or whatever it is) has been worked into a new song I see as a totally legitimate creative decision. I haven't heard the original version of California Role but I still don't see the problem with BW taking one of his own songs and reworking it. With GIOMH where a significant percentage of the material is recycled then that is clearly a problem, but imo it's a petty criticism of TLOS that the recycled elements somehow weaken it.

Anyway it's the details that make recycled songs entirely new. That "at 25" bridge transforms Going Home from just another BW soundalike into an entirely unique rock 'n' roll song.

On a minor note, the call-and-response "until I found" part in "Midnight's Another Day" reminds me strongly of the "until I die" call-and-response in "Til I Die" right before the outro, when Brain cries it out in falsetto. To me, it's addressing that dark thought with a positive affirmation.

Great catch, I wouldn't have thought of that!  "Midnight's Another Day" really does have a sort of yin/yang relationship with "Til I Die" when you think about it. 

I've got one nobody's caught yet:  compare the first verse of "Good Kind of Love" to that of the unreleased "Our Team."  (Much better use!)

I love you, Adam, but if the notes V-I II III with an otherwise unrelated song are recycling ... I dunno.

Oh come on man...not the chord progression alone (which isn't quite the same), but the scansion and the melody...

"We look like we know what we're doing...." compare that to the first line of "Good," whatever it is.

I got another one: 

"Live Let Live Not Die..."

"Roller Skating Child..."

By the way, I don't think any of these are egregious at all.  I don't believe there's any recycling on TLOS that's at all inappropriate or troubling.  It's just a fun exercise.  I've actually been tremendously affected by the record and if I had the time (I'm still on the road) I would write an essay about it.

At a certain point here, I think, we just get to how a particular songwriter likes to write his or her songs. I think in many of these cases, Brian was not consciously reviving some past phrasing or chord progression -- that's just how his songs come out. There are definitely times that it's conscious, though -- i.e., the callback to "Walkin'."

I totally agree.  I don't think there's that much conscious recycling going on.  As I said, there's nothing that strikes me as egregious.  Fun parlor game, though.

I have a question though that I'm curious about.  Maybe AGD knows.  There's a melodic part that repeats that goes "Roll...roll...rollin' round heaven all day."  I know that it refers back to the lyrics to "That Lucky Old Sun" but is this related to the 1974 BW/Kalinich tune "Rolling Up To Heaven" in any way?  I have never heard this unreleased track, but it got me wondering if that melodic fragment came from the earlier tune, given the lyrics were similar.  Or perhaps "Heaven" was originally inspired by "That Lucky Old Sun."  Anyone heard the '74 track?

As far as I'm aware, "Rolling..." was an alternate title for "Ding Dang". But I'll ask Stevie.

The early 70s 'Rollin up to Heaven' is that the one which is also called 'Hard times' and sounds a bit like Ding Dang, and htey also sing 'Alley oop' and 'Big tit' in it? If it is, I don't think it sounds much like it myself, Or is that called something else?
On a separate note I always thought Walkin' was an Al song that he got Brian to sing on? The verse melody of Walkin' is very much like Summertime Blues but at the end it has that morning beat bit.

I know there's some melody and harmony ripped off from it, but does anybody else hear somebody actually saying "Rock, Roll, Rollin' on a riv-ver" in the background of "Goin' Home" near the end?  I think the harmony chant ends up there for a little while... which may mean that Brian actually did finally put "Proud Mary" on one of his albums, lol. 

Yes, hopefully he won't actually feel the need to work anymore on Proud Mary!