The Smiley Smile Message Board

I was listeneing to the BB version of Seasons in The Sun today and started wondering why they bought in Terry Jacks to produce themselves. Recorded in late July early August 1970 post Sunflower and just before the Landlocked/Surf's Up recording period. For a band so fiercly independent when it came to producing their own recordings since the early 60s why Jacks and why then? Surely there would have been other better known producers had they wanted outside input - after all Jacks hadn't had any major recording success at that time (a few hits in his native Canada but that was about that)?

Maybe they had lost confidence in their own abilities? The whole Terry Jacks affair is just amazing when you think about that Seasons In The Sun could have been the path for the boys instead of Surf's Up... I reckon Seasons would have sounded unfitting and utterly desperate as a Beach Boys single in 1970.

Unfitting and utterly desperate, I don't think so.  It made for a very good Beach Boys track and might have meshed well with the times if ti had been released.  The organ in background on the Terry Jacks version has a real good sound .

Um.....he was brought in because he owned the song? It was part of the deal to get the track.

The Beach Boys track is so awful that I wonder what went on from negotiations to finishing the recording. Auto-sabotage?

Bad producer?

Brian was increasingly withdrawn and unwilling to "produce" the Beach Boys as he once had - and his last big attempt, Breakaway, was a failure.  The Beach Boys were desperate for a hit and turned to outside producers - Murry, Rick Henn, and Terry Jacks - to try to make something commercial.  This was at a low point for the group in terms of public acceptance/reputation/popularity, before the Carnegie Hall concert, Fillmore East concert and Surf's Up album and Jack Reilly's master plan turned things around.

With the unfortunate passings of Dennis and Carl, and some of the Beach Boys-like lyrics of "Seasons In The Sun", it would make it an emotional track on the next Beach Boys' album.

Jacks penned some additional lyrics to the song; don't think he owned it. It was of course originally written by Jacques Brel as 'Le Moribond' or 'The Dying Man'.  

The English lyrics were written by folk singer Rod McKuan (sic) and it was covered in the 60's by The Kingston Trio amongst many others. Terry Jacks removed some verses which change the meaning of the song somewhat. Brel addresses the song to the parents and wife of the protagonist and refers to her infidelity. Simply bizarre to think of the BB's recording it.

Terry Jacks' lyrics to the song are so much of a sugar-coated version of The Moribond it's hard to take really, with all of the original song's sharp cynicism so carefully removed in favor of Jacks' immoderate sentimentality. That said, I quite like another song of his, If You Go Away, which was yet another adaptation of a French chanson and turned out a genuinely touching love song.

In terms of The Beach Boys, I'm so glad they didn't release Seasons In The Sun as a single as I think it could have done lots of damage to the group's self-esteem if it would've been more of a success than Break Away and Add Some Music. Also, they might've subsequently moved in a direction even cheesier than the M.I.U. Album...

Beach Boys should have done it like Nirvana: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUkFedIw6TU That is the best cover of any song ever!

Still, the BBs version contains the "you cheated lots of times but then/I forgave you in the end/Though your lover was my friend" lines which makes it less cheesier than the released Jacks version. I like the Beach Boys version and I don't think it would've been more directional than their earlier hits had been had they released it and had it been a hit. The relative success of "Do It Again" didn't make them go into nostalgic let's-continue-to-sing-about-the-fun-in-the-sun-like-we-did-all-those-four-years-ago mode. At least not until a decade later...

Yes, it was a low point for them in the United States. But in Britain they had enjoyed "Do It Again" topping the charts the year before, 20/20 reached #3 on the album charts and Breakaway was a #6 single.

As far as Brian withdrawn Add Some Music was a major production. Besides he was at the session and an article at the time says he was pissed off because Jacks was brought in and he wasn't producing. Jacks confirmed this later. Most of the info on this is in McParlands Recording Sessions book. Should Seasons have come out? No it wasn't a real Beach Boys song stylistically. It really would have hurt them image wise and it wasn't on par with their other late sixties and early seventies work.

Man, I'm in one of those ruts where I'm disagreeing with a lot of posts....Time for me to meditate....

I think "Seasons In The Sun" is a great song (it went to No. 1 everywhere), Terry Jacks' lead vocal sounds like a mellow Beach Boy-ish vocal to me (maybe like Carl or Bruce), the lyrics are very suited to the Beach Boys (then and especially now), I kinda like the Beach Boys' version, I don't see how it could have possible hurt their image any further (they were at their nadir then), and, if it was a No. 1 record for Terry Jacks, I think it probably would've at least charted for The Beach Boys. I can easily see it fitting on any of their early 70's albums. So there....  ;D

UK audiences have always been hipper and more sophisticated than US audiences! :)

Seasons in the Sun was a #1 single for some boyband over here in the UK and I can't hear any version of the song, even the BBs version, without hearing a slick auto-tuned personality-free version over the top of it.

It's ruined for me.

I don't always agree with Sheriff, but this time I am with him. Seasons in the Sun is lyrically what people would have expected/wanted from the Beach Boys, think about why Do It Again is a hit in '68 and inow this song has summer lyrics in a relaxed early 70s style. Seasons in The Sun as a title by the Beach Boys would have attracted alot of interest which they needed, hell they couldn't go much lower in the US in 69-70. I think the song would have needed some small adjustments bases on what I hear and I don't know how it would have held up over time, but time and place then would have made it a hit.

I'm at a loss to understand why the BBs would bring in Terry Jacks to produce. What, Lobo wasn't available? Or Bo Donaldson? R. Dean Taylor? Now, if they'd called up Tommy James, THAT might have been interesting...I wouldn't mind hearing the Beach Boys do 'Crystal Blue Persuasion.'

I think the BBs' version is pretty good, actually.  How can one argue against a strong Carl lead? 

But I'm eternally grateful that it never saw the light of day.  Good version or not...the song is dreadful.  Along the lines of Feelings by Morris Albert or Honey by Bobby Goldsboro. 

Or, dare I say it, Having My Baby by Paul Anka (hi Susan).  Successful songs?  Yes.  Good songs.  Hardly.  I'm just glad I don't have to try to explain 'that one' when people find out I'm a Beach Boys fan.

I'm with Greg. The song "Seasons in the Sun" is just plain maudlin, imho.