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really like the track of this song but the vocal/melody is all over the place, really feels like Dennis is having a less than together kind of day :smokin. Am i right in hearing he says

"my needles kinda dirty so i thought id mix myself another drink"

hmmmm wonder how this song would have fit on MIU?  :lol :hat

Well the track was a bootleg for years under the name "New Orleans". I like the vocal verson a lot better. Dennis is so gritty and rocking on it.

Funny you should ask...the song was actually rerecorded for the Light Album, in a session produced by Bruce & Jimmy G., and engineered by Chuck Britz, at Cherokee Studio.  Carl played on it.  Looks to have been an instrumental track only, but I'm sure if they would've done vocals for a Beach Boys version, the lyrics would've been majorily rewritten!

I'm really warming up to Bambu - finally! Right now I can't get Love Remember Me out of my head. Time For Bed might be hard to swallow in one way or another, but at least Dennis was still writing about the things that really moved him.

Glad to hear you are getting into Love Remember Me. I really think its one of Dennis' best tracks ever. From the opening section with that Bicycle Rider style clarinet, and the flutes...the heartbreaking lyric...and the broken-down but somehow hopeful voice singing them, and THEN the giant and glorious choir with Spector-esque production and Dennis growling and shouting C'mon, C'mon, C'mon...MAN that track just slays me. I think it's genius.

I guess those lyrics were just to have something to sing. Don't think they were ever to be used on a release.
IIRC there's another version of TFB that uses a part of "San Miguel". Like that version even better than this one....

That alternate version is likely the Beach Boys cut from Cherokee. 

I agree it's very likely one of DW's best. While I hadn't thought of Bicycle Rider, Surf's Up instantly came to mind when I heard that guitar part in the second half of the song. Tug of Love and the utterly angelic I Love You have also become big favorites of mine. And boy are those Piano Variations on Thoughts of You ever gorgeous...

I think it's funny that Dennis Wilson always tried to deny Brian's influence on his music as much as possible. He desperately wanted to have his own identity, but in reality, he and Brian kind of shared their identities. To me, with POB and Bambu, he grabbed the baton Brian dropped after the collapse of SMiLE and ran with it. POB was his Pet Sounds, to me. The music was inventive, full of feeling, and earnest, although Brian was a little more musically sophisticated, that also meant he wouldn't take some of the chances Dennis did.

Of course there are some major differences. Brian, at the time of Pet Sounds and SMiLE, was trying to create a fantasy world because he couldn't deal with reality. You could say he's done that ever since. Dennis, on the other hand, did the opposite, he lived within the bitter truths of his reality. But in the end, I think both of them were trying to get the same message across, their lonely struggle to find love in a world that felt so cold. Dennis's brutal honesty allowed him to get the message across more directly, while Brian sort of communicated through a fantastical haze that never gave up the real meaning to anything, I think because he was scared to death of the real meanings. Sadly for us, Dennis ran out of gas before he could carry the baton to the finish line for him and Brian, but we'll all remember the way he ran.

I like your post, some of the analysis is definitely true...but to say Dennis tried to deny Brian's influence isn't exactly accurate. There are plenty of quotes from Dennis when asked about his music where he refers to Brian as "his biggest influence" and his "musical master"...the quotes are well circulated and have been for decades.

It is genius; it's also one of Dennis's most beautifully HAUNTING songs. When Dennis actually sings, "Love remember me", I can almost see him walking away.

Dennis had a way with words, or with his lyrics. Some of them are so simple yet sophisticated. For example:

"I'm the kind of guy, who loves to mess around, know a lot of women, but they don't fill my heart with love...completely free"

"Open up my wallet and dust falls out, that's alright with me"

"Lonliness is a very special place, to forget, something that I've never done"

"We all have our dreams, it's wonderful to know we're alive in the end.....it's over"

Nobody wrote words like that. They are so bitterly ironic, in many ways....

I would say Dennis did show Brian's influence in several ways. Emotional directness, complex voicings, and ambitious production. Certainly all of the Beach Boys has some facet of Brian rub off on them, but Dennis is the only one who ran with the ball and made a sound truly distinct. if certainly influenced by, his brother's. I know some like one or the other better, but to me it's fantastic that we have the music of bith. In my case Brian's music got me started, but discovering Dennis' music helped me maintain my interest.

Now that is one of my favorite lyrics on Dennis' work. It sounds like something Kris Kristofferson would write. Very touching imho

cool, didnt know that, had heard about san miguel being considered for KTSA before. Would love to hear the LA version of Time for bed. Has it been booted?

It's out there. Search for "Mexico (Part 2)".

Pretty sure that a goodly percentage of those lyrics are by Greg Jakobsen. In the interests of accuracy. Jon will correct my (probable) error.  :)

Didn't Karen also write some of the lyrics on POB? But yeah, I'm not so sure Andrew, obviously it doesn't mean much, but I remember reading a quote from Daryl Dragon who said something like "Gregg would write one word and Dennis would give him credit"... of course I'm sure most of the time he wasn't around them when they wrote together, but it's obviously virtually impossible to tell exactly who wrote what.

Yeah, virtually impossible is right. Dennis did write lyrics...there's plenty of evidence of that...some of it left behind on scraps of paper in his own hand. Gregg wasn't the kind of lyricist or collaborator that came to Dennis with a set of words. Sometimes they'd get an idea and find a piano and Dennis would develop the chords and melody and Gregg would help him along with the words. Other times it would be close to what Daryl Dragon described, Dennis would be writing or recording and he'd get stuck and call Gregg and ask for a nudge, sometimes it was a word, or a line, and Dennis would give him a writing credit. Gregg's certainly not the kind of guy like Van Dyke or Stevie Kalinich who produces prolific amounts of poetry...but he's got a way with words no doubt. He can turn a phrase, I've seen him do it myself. But, not to be a burr in Andrew's side...I'd guess Dennis wrote at least half of his own lyrics if not more. Other than a few things like Never Learn not To Love, Its About Time(which has Burchman's lyric), Love Surrounds Me(Cushing Murray words) and his work with Kalinich (which only has a minimal amount of DW input lyrically)...Most of the DW songs have a significant amount of DW lyrics. What I mean is he either wrote the lyric himself, or collaborated on the lyric with someone...like Gregg , Karen, Mike Love, Stan Shapiro etc... It wasn't until Dennis was working with Carli Munoz that he was really singing someone else's words, in the case of Companion, All Alone etc... And even then he was changing things around to suit himself. But all in all its a real mixed bag.

One of my favorite Dennis lyrical moments is in Thoughts of You...
The sea air...is flowing through my room again...like the thoughts of you...can fill my heart with joy again

That one cuts deep into something within my being every time I hear it, I literally can smell the salt air. I live near the beach now so that seems plausible, but it did the same thing when I lived 30 miles inland.

This is slightly off-topic, and probably a stupid question, but what does salt air smell like exactly? Salt? Just curious since I've always lived inland.

No problemo.

Kind of salty, but not like a Big Mac, nicer. It is a combination "feel" and "smell"--it is fresh and invigorating. I mean, unless it's polluted.

When this topic was first started, I had not listened to it yet. So, I couldn't/didn't comment on it. Now that I have heard it, I love it. I think it's one of Dennis' best songs. I have a question, if I may. In the POB/Bambu liner notes, it is said that Dennis checked into rehab following an "incoherent" session for the song. Can anybody elaborate on this? Perhaps Mr Stebbins could chime in?

What kind of elaboration are you seeking?  Jerry Schilling told me he drove Dennis to a West L.A. facility to detox, we pinpointed the dates...it was the day after a session for TFB in Sept. '78. I met and talked to Dennis that same week in West L.A....just prior to the detox, could have been the same day he was going in. He wasn't in great shape. I asked him about the new record(Bambu)...he said, "We just finished it." That always struck me as weird since we know it really wasn't finished. But now that I've heard the work that was in the can, I guess in a way it was pretty close. The incoherent comment is based on hearing the raw and unedited vocal for TFB. Dennis was beyond bombed. That's about all I know.

For a long time, the only date I had for TFB was the 9/28/78 Cherokee session, and that's what I supplied to Jon when he was writing the liner notes.  More info has since surfaced, and it now seems clear that the version of TFB included on Bambu is from October '77.  The  vocal, of course, could've been added at any time after that, but we now know that the September '78 session at Cherokee was actually a remake of the instrumental track intended for the L.A. (Light Album).  The artist name on the AFM contract (which only surfaced a few months ago, AFTER the release of the Legacy edition) is "Beach Boys".  That session was produced by Bruce Johnston & James Guercio, engineered by Chuck Britz, and featured Carl as one of the musicians (on bass & guitar).  I wouldn't think that they'd do a basic tracking session for a DW song without Dennis being present (although that did happen in the case of "It's About Time"), so I would imagine he was there on piano, but not having heard the session tape from Cherokee I couldn't say for sure.  Other players on the contract are Billy Walker on slide guitar, Phil Shenale on tack piano, and Russ Kunkel on drums.  Oh, and the song title is listed as "Time For Sleep" on that contract.  It seems likely that this version is the one we hear on bootlegs, where the chord modulations from "San Miguel" are incorporated.  There were also a couple of OTHER versions of TFB cut at the May 1, 1978 session for "Mexico".  Those haven't been bootlegged to my knowledge.

Could someone post the lyrics for it?

Yeah I can't quite make them out clearly. Does he say steal a car and run over Murry? I doubt it but it sounds a touch like that lol.

She was tall, slanky
She walkin' slow
She turned the corner
She was summer-burned and winter-blown
She headin' for that party
Where the music too loud

My needle's kinda dirty so I thought I'd fix myself another drink
What kinda rush is this, son....ahhh
Marijuana, beer and wine is for me
Don't care about my mama and my dad
I think I'd rather steal a car and cruise around
Run over one fat ugly, just for kicks
As the world goes by

I'm not (lyin'? drivin'? tryin'?) tonight
I wanna take you home

Hey thanks

The Beach Boys really should have used the original lyrics for their recording, with Al and Bruce trading leads.

Yea, thanks!

Al and Bruce singing lead? Definitely, but don't forget the a capella break with Al & Bruce on top of Mike's bass vocal: "Marijuana, beer and wine is for me"

What? Al and Bruce share leads for this? is this BB-Fan-Comic-Fiction? I mean, i loves my bits of it too, let's add a  :P to show   ;D