The Smiley Smile Message Board

so little bird is probably my most beloved songchild born out of the beach boys' womb.

always has been, really, since i first heard it.

dennis' voice, and the dry mix, and the cifotm bit.

little bird is like dennis' approach to what i've seen called brian's 'slice of life' songs.

anyway, my theory is that 'little bird' is charles manson.

dennis was hangin with manson and his women back in 67/68 and perhaps 69, right?

they were pretty close, dennis giving them a place to rest their heads and some money to pay their bills.

not to mention clothes, cars and god knows what else. oh yeah, std treatment.

but everyone knows charlie was known in his early 67- days for two things only: his music and his women.

his charisma and intense take on religion and drugs were on the side.

so people describe charlie as being a great performer, being able to freestyle and amaze any listener (wouldn't help if they were high).

"little bird up in a tree looked down and sang a song to me of how it began."

that could be a paraphrase of peoples' descriptions of the effect of listening to charlie sing.

he'd throw everything out there in the open and take their minds where he wanted to.

it's easy to manipulate people if you either have no care for them as individuals or truly believe you know something they don't and should. manson was/is probably a mix of that.

anyway, what do ya'll think about this here theory o' mine? that charles manson is the little bird that dennis sings about. i should mention that dennis' other cut on the friends album is 'be still' a song which also reflects charlie's early sort of philosophy, although it could also fit into a thousand other categories... and yet somehow i imagine dennis was more impressed with manson and his women and his drugs than mike love and tee em.

(4:51am post... no way i'm going to bother trying to sound coherent and educated).

Speaking with Steve Kalinich who wrote most of the lyrics strongly refutes this. Manson had nothing to do with Little Bird, Be Still, Be With Me, and All I Want To Do. Actually he specifically told me about co-writing all these songs (two uncredited) and is pretty annoyed that Manson gets connected with them. Besides Dennis didn't even know Manson when Little Bird was cut.

MBE, I'm relieved to see Manson had nothing to do with "Be With Me".  Now I can go back to enjoying it again.

And to say Dennis knew Manson in 67, 68 and 69 is wrong...Dennis' only direct association with Manson was for six months of 1968, and definitely post Little Bird. I've never really believed that Be With Me was written with Charlie, Manson has claimed so in later interviews, but unlike Never learn(Cease to Exist) there is no hard evidence to back the claim. However, there are other experts around here who believe him. I would say that BWM has a Manson influence because of when it was created, but that's as far as I'll go until I hear a Charlie demo.

I wasn't saying that Manson wrote them, I was saying it might be about him. Are you sure Dennis didn't know him by that time? Charles "Tex" Watson picked up Dennis hitchhiking who invited him back to his place where they hung out with several people including Manson which is where that Watson fella had his first exposure to his future... uhm, friend. I'm trying to find out what year it was exactly.

It was definitely Spring '68, during the "Friends" sessions (per details in David Leaf's book and I thnk Vincent Bugliosi's "Helter Skelter").  The first song recorded for "Friends" was, in fact, "Little Bird" (February 29th), so logically Dennis didn't know Manson yet when that song was recorded.  Plus, the lyrics came from Steve Kalinich (with later modifications/additions from Dennis & Brian), who claims different (more mundane) inspirations. 

Ok, cool, thanks for the clarification.

Anyway, to change the direction of this thread: does anyone have Brian's quote about how Little Bird surprised him (or them) when they first heard/did it? He said it was a real spiritual song or something to that effect. It's beautiful how Brian's influence wore off on Dennis in the music of that song. The Gm F/G, keeping the G root seems very Brian.

Are there any live versions of the song? I LOVE the recording of it but it would be a real treat to hear a different version. Is it on the SOT boots? I might try an' find it.

A 'live' vocal (over the pre-recorded track I think) does circulate ... taped from a 1968 TV appearance on the Mike Douglas show ...  8)

Little Bird was a regular part of the set in 1968. It may have been done in 69-70 too.

while looking for an article for ian i came across a bunch of old beach boy interviews i hadn't looked at in years. this one is from dennis in the december 21st 1968 issue of record mirror. talks about manson and his girls. thought i would share it because dennis talks about writing songs (with an s) with manson.

read it with microsoft office picture manager and zoom in and you can read the article.

just some food for thought.....

link: http://www.sendspace.com/file/q9hyjh

that was great, thanks.

i find the whole manson thing really interesting. his personal magnetism is the only thing he really had going for him. if he didn't have that, none of his ideas would carry as much weight as they did (and do). he took a mix of eastern mysticism and philosophy, mixed it with some esoteric christianity, a whole lot of l. ron hubbard scientology stuff, various other fringe groups of the time, and his own experiences on drugs and locked away in isolation cells and fed it to a bunch of kids who didn't know much more than their sunday church going experiences.

He probably did write more then one song with Dennis, but the ones on Friends aren't among them nor are the other  two on 20/20. Kalinich told me very specifically about how he wrote those songs and his mild annoyance over not being credited. I think he detests the fact the Charlie gets credit. Cool interview btw, amazing that this interview isn't better known.

When I tentatively gave CM credit on "All I Want To Do" (based on someone I considered to be a very credible source), Stevie got back to me real fast with the evidence of his lyrical involvement. However, he said nothing about having anything to do with "Be With Me", even when I asked him about it. I still think Charlie had more than a passing hand in that. Others better qualified/connected don't. Which is cool.  :)

All I can again say is that he told me flat out that he wrote Be With Me. He didn't make a big deal about it but said (ironically) that Brian was a lot better about giving credit to him.

I have it on good authority that Manson wrote everything by the BBs after 1968/9, from out of prison.

he actually maintains such a theory from time to time - not specifically the beach boys, although he has mentioned them 'stealing' his songs, but he has a whole theory about how the music made in prisons makes its way to the outside world in a more palatable form. almost like prison is the unconscious element of society as a whole. in one interview manson sings a snippet of "in my room" with a boyish grin on his face. it's good stuff.  :-D

So everything in my CD racks is by Charlie then? I must ponder this tonight whilst sucking a cigar...  :-\

cease to resist, don, you know it makes sense  >:D

 :lol --> diaphragm concussion from laughter and plan to have some booze tonight...

i have one question for jon...

jon mentioned several times dennis had lsd 2 times...both times it was slipped to him. in the above interview dennis mentions going to the mountains to take an lsd trip. so what gives there? kinda confusing.... or did i miss something?

I find it hard to believe that Dennis only had acid twice. Maybe if we're talking about Al Jardine or someone like that, I could believe. But not Dennis. And not Brian. And not Carl. And not Mike. Definitely not Dennis. Besides, Manson's crew were taking acid all the time, and if he hung out with them much he probably did too.

I did say that Dennis was seriously "dosed" twice...the practice of having acid slipped into your food or drink without knowing it, or wanting it...and these were huge doses and they really messed him up for years. Dennis experimented with acid a bit on his own before that, but never after. If Ed Roach is around he can supply the details regarding Dennis and bad acid trips and the resulting paranoia.

thanks for the reply jon...i had a gut feeling he did acid more than twice. understand what you mean now... thanks again

this might be of interest to some people: http://mansonmusic.blogspot.com/2006_07_01_archive.html (http://mansonmusic.blogspot.com/2006_07_01_archive.html)

blog entry says it's the music manson recorded with dennis, and melcher.

Did a little digging, that stuff is from 1967 before he and Dennis met. Andrew, Desper among others say the Dennis Manson stuff is locked away and has not been heard since 1969.

They also say that about many things in the Beach Boys world. They're out in some form.

so it's not possible that tapes or reels or whatever were given to manson or his friends around the time they were recorded?

i'm listening to it now and there's a lot of studio chatter but i'm not familiar much with dennis' speaking voice to know if he's there.

i wouldn't be surprised if the stuff manson did at brian's studio IS out, in the hands of manson's people and underground bootleggers, but the beach boys' crew and associates would rather put that past way behind them rather than go looking for lost manson tapes 'locked in the vault'.

btw, manson's cover of frankie laine's "remember me" is really great. totally turned that song around into a freak folk sort of thing,.

did dennis have a big booming laugh?

a HA HA HA HA HAAA sort of deep throated low toned thing?

'cause i hear that.

Trust me - they're not, and very likely never will be.

You guys are as paranoid and delusional as Brian Wilson thinking that his music was causing random fires in L.A.  :-D

It's just Charles Manson... he's like a sewer rat with a guitar. o0o0o0oh, spooky!!  :o

It's the association, not the music.

Here's something I found on youtube. The first part of a Manson-interview. He mentions writing with Dennis.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnM5hxxpTPg&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnM5hxxpTPg&feature=related)

He sure did, at least from the mid 70's on. By 1982, again when I was around him, he wasn't laughing much and the voice was just about gone. But yes, you take Denny's voice and laughter, which I was lucky enough to be around at concerts, you descibed it fairly well. Instant charm enveloped the area.

Then it could be him, I s'pose.

Does anyone else care to check out the Manson recordings that I linked to to verify whether it was Dennis? He (the voice) can be heard quite often chatting with Manson between takes.

By the way, the conversations were very friendly. It didn't seem like a musician/engineer "time is money, let's get going" sort of situation. They were discussing philosophy, books, prison, music, and the guy ("Dennis") seemed to be in the 'new friend' position in their relationship.

Here's the post again in case it was overlooked:


EDIT: I HAVE CUT THREE LITTLE SNIPPETS OF DENNIS (?) LAUGHING AND TALKING. Download here: http://www.sendspace.com/file/b02u6v (http://www.sendspace.com/file/b02u6v)

If it IS him, I would like AGD to mail me $20 for a bet I made with him (which he doesn't know about yet - it occurred in my head).  >:D

Ergo, as it's from 1967, can't be Dennis.

Did you listen to the clips I linked to?

They don't sound anything like Dennis.  Sounds like a deeper voice and from an older person.

Alright. That's the whole point - I had no idea how Dennis' speaking voice sounded and no one seemed interested in listening to the audio to verify it or not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQmcovQpvdg
This is what Dennis' speaking voice sounded like until 1974.

Sure did. Not Dennis - his normal speaking voice pre-1973/4 wasn't that deep.

Aside from anything else, the sound quality is way too bad for them to be from Brian's home studio.

Andrew… interesting, but based on everything Stephen Kalinich has described on his collaboration with Dennis… Well, nothing's ever been documented about Kalinich and Manson. The words carry more of a "Kalinich prose" than anything else. 

Is it actually verified that Manson and Dennis actually wrote songs together? I don't know too much about it but I was under the impression that Dennis liked a few of Manson's songs, asked if he could record them himself or with his group, got the OK, and did it (changing words and music where he pleased). Manson doesn't seem like the "let's sit around trying to find an appropriate phrasing to match this chord change" sort of guy. More like a "I'm gonna sing this into the wind an' if you catch it you can take it and if you don't just leave it".

I owe Stevie an email - I'll ask him again.  :)

I'll be pretty interested as I do have my interview tape with him claiming the lyrics.