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Mike Love has just released a new single called This Too Shall Pass

What a fun record! Produced by Scott Totten. Great energy. Nice 50's/60's rock feel. No audible autotune, Mike's voice sounds more natural than on UTL.

Have to admit, this is a very nice surprise. I'll be spinning the song a lot.

Yes, it kinda gives me some "student demonstration time" vibes with the hamfisted politically "conscious" lyrics, but musically the song is so fun and optimistic, it brought a smile to my face.

A new Mike Love single nearly 60 years The BB's first single. How cool.

Totten did a fantastic job with the production and arrangement. Mike's voice sounds great.

And god willing, "this too shall pass"!!

Love and Mercy everyone.



ESQ review : https://esquarterly.com/2020/05/01/mike-love-offers-this-too-shall-pass/?fbclid=IwAR2v-F4QhWU-zgz2BHrz-qGA2-DxM1avr4PO-SSXnkbpFZpuCzxWGE_Fhfg

Music video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8OVy33V_OI

Not the worst thing he's ever done, surprisingly strong lead for Mike, just wish the chorus wasn't "Fun Fun Fun, In the Sun"

"let's get back to having fun fun fun.... in the sun"

Don't f*** with the formula, boys

Thought the keyboard player in top left was Carl Wilson for a moment :D

At first I had an issue with the "Fun Fun Fun in the sun" line...

But it's been stuck in my head for hours since I heard the song, so I think that would make me a hypocrite at this point.

I am beyond speechless by how bad this is. Does Mike really wonder why Brian didn't write more songs with him if this is what he comes up with? Or who wrote it? Well, I guess Mike meant it in a nice way... Did George Harrison at least get a writing credit for his melody in the chorus?

I thought it sounded similar 😂

But yeah, oh my god. This just made me appreciate Run James Run a thousand times more.

This Too Shall Pass sounds like something that would born if somebody held an 80 year old rockstar at gunpoint and said "write a new song".

Here are the credits for the recording, via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LikQHYbW43M. Somewhat amusing the actual credits don’t exactly match up with the miming in the music video. (Stamos is only there for the video, in particular.)

Vocals: Brian Eichenberger
Vocals: Christian Love
Saxophone: Randy Leago
Engineer: Scott Hull
Bass, Drums, Engineer, Guitar, Keyboards, Producer, Vocals: Scott Totten
Keyboards: Tim Bonhomme
Engineer: Tom Gordon
Additional  Production: Tom Gordon
Composer: Mike Love

What instrument would Mike write on? Not aware of him ever playing any chordophones :-)

Great cause...….BAAAAADDDDDDDD song, and not in a good way.

Its not terrible.
But the self references really need to stop.
Also, not to make this political, but its amusing to see Mike mention masks and no more handshakes, when his buddies in the white house can’t seem to remember those things.

I really wish I could get on board with this, but I just can't. Today we'll hit 236,000 coronavirus deaths worldwide. We're not yet ready to have fun, fun, fun in the sun. The families of the dead are especially not ready. Also, while I commend some of the lyrics, such as when he suggests that we do what the doctors say, I could do with out the jingoistic "God bless America, that's how we roll." Yes, we have suffered more deaths than any other nation, but this is truly a pandemic. No nation has escaped it.

Let's not get back to having fun, fun, fun in the sun just yet. Not until the experts tell us it's safe.

He does play a little guitar, I believe.  There's a video of him with an acoustic playing one of his solo songs(from UTL?), but I can't remember which one.

EDIT: Just listened.  I know he means well, but this wasn't that good (at least lyrically).  The music is all right but it sounds like a pale imitation of a rocker than a real one.  Enjoyed Scott Totten's slide guitar work though, it'd be nice to see him do more of that with Mike's band.  Did he play any slide during the reunion tour?  This is the first time I've seen him do that.  But as much as the "Fun, Fun, Fun" reference is stupid, the damn thing is stuck in my head.

SECOND EDIT: The comments are turned off.  :lol

It seems the music video is a differenet mix - at the very least the "Fun, fun, fun in the sun" backing vocals are more prominent.

Here's a safer link to the ESQ review with Facebook's tracking removed (everything from the question mark onward):

https://esquarterly.com/2020/05/01/mike-love-offers-this-too-shall-pass/

It is what it is

Sounds to me like Mike wrote the words and Scott wrote the music, but Mike is credited as the only writer on it.

One has to let this stuff soak in for awhile, so it's too soon to say for sure, but this may reach the pantheon of the collection of most embarrassing pieces the man has ever written. It's literally as if someone got stoned and said "hey, let's imagine if Mike Love wrote a super generic, full of musical cliches song with the most ham-fisted lyrics imaginable about a global pandemic, oh, and also, let's make it sound like Adrian Baker produced it in 1983", only Mike Love beat them to it.

"It's like a viral super bowl".......

And yes, of course, one can't fault the cause. But really, they should be digging into the vaults and releasing the THOUSAND HOURS of quality material and selling *that* for charity.

You hit the nail on the head, HJ.

I will give Mike credit for three things:

-The song's meaning is well intended

-He seemingly lyrically actually isn't falling in line with his imbecile buddy Trump

-The quality of his voice is most definitely better/stronger than expected, and brings into question why on earth the man drenches his vocals in Autotune on other studio recordings. He doesn't sound almost 80. Perhaps having given his voice a rest from touring for a couple of months is the reason why he sounds better here?

Everything else about the song is unbelievably embarrassing. The lyrics are soooooo cheesy and awful, this song will probably wind up in the legendary realm of Smart Girls and Wrinkles. And yeah, he ripped off his Pisces Brother, George Harrison, too.

There's a lawsuit for a couple decades time then

 This ridiculous song too shall surely pass into obscurity without raking in enough royalties to be given to Covid-19 relief efforts. What a frail, pathetic and embarrassing method to raise money. I Mike Love seriously wants to help de-tarnish his dismal reputation, I challenge this piker to cut out just one of his many millions and donate that but don't hold your breath for anything close to that to happen.  ::) ::) ::)

Hasn’t the world suffered enough?

But is it worse than Paul McCartney's Freedom?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpOwePJdzO0

Yes, it's worse. McCartney's track was well-intentioned, but completely ignorant as to how it would/could be used in the US political/social climate. But he actually later went to express some level of regret for the song, and it was dropped by the following year.

McCartney's song may have had a more conceptually damaging message (albeit one that required some stretching) than Mike's track. But McCartney's song was at least a decent song with a (frustratingly!) great late-era McCartney lead. The song is kind repugnant, but his voice sounds great on it.

Mike's is just really, really bad song craft. And it takes pretty mediocre craft to be worse than "Freedom."

Mike's lyrics aren't damaging per se, they just show a completely odd (and quite Love-esque, a la "Student Demonstration Time") way of tackling a serious subject as if the lyrics were written by a third grader.

Is that seriously a lyric? Seriously?? UGH. I’m glad I decided to refrain from listening to this. Talk about a virus I’d do anything not to catch. Listen Mike, I’m glad your heart was in the right place, really. But where your head is at, who the hell knows where.

Having just read through all these replies I am saddened that all the ML and Trump haters can't get past their biases and support someone who has given us so much wonderful music for almost 60 years has done something good for the hungry in this troubled time. I bought his single on I-tunes to support this charity. Bash away!

This too shall pass.....like a gallstone.

Oh, dear, what cornball, cringe-inducing lyrics.  ::)
 

That was exactly what I thought it be. Unfortunately, I had to shut it off...couldn't wait for it, too, to pass.

I’m hating on the terrible song, which I just listened to finally (well, more accurately I got as far as I could without my ears bleeding). I did say that I was glad that Mike’s heart was in the right place and others have said similar things to that effect. But bad music is bad music. I’m not gonna bash you for supporting this, why would I? More power to you and to Mike. Shame he couldn’t deliver a decent tune.

Meanwhile, I loved watching the Honeys (well, Marylin and Ginger, I guess Diane is retired or something..?) sing California Feeling. They still got it!

Why is anyone surprised this is the biggest pile of stinky $#it ever released, it's Mike Love. It's all he's capable of doing. Brian was, and is, the genius of the Beach Boys. I don't doubt he is using this time off to work on a freaking masterpiece that is going to blow us all away, and remind the world once again that Brian Wilson is a f****ing genius!

I bought it on iTunes as well.  I am a completist and buy everything, and I like that it supports the charity.  But I also take issue with a lot of bad lyrics, and not giving Totten credit for writing the music.  BTW, how many songs at this point has he name checked Fun, Fun, Fun in?  I count at least 3 which is 3 too many:

Brian's Back
Summer in Paradise
This Too Shall Pass

"Beaches In Mind"

"It's a Beautiful Day"

this song kind of reminds me of a Ray Stevens song, a tongue and cheek comedy type song, with the lyrics purposely written this way at an attempt at humor. probably meant to not be taken serious and lighten the mood a little.

Can this not turn into a Mike love hate fest about how much Mike sucks.

The man is a genius, he's written words to some of the greatest songs of all time, he wrote most of the words on the wild honey record, don't forget these things.

Has he been weirdly caught in 1963 for the last 20 years? Yes, but he is a genius.

Yeah, "This too will pass" ...passed right by my attention. It's awful. Thank goodness Brian has passed on writing with you.

The lyrics are incredibly cheesy but the song itself isn't horrible, just generic poppy stuff.  I've heard much worse.  Not worth making a fuss about, in my opinion,  and I guess he was trying to do a nice thing.

Music to drink bleach by?  (Warning! Don't drink bleach!)

It's not magic but it's certainly agreeable enough for something whipped up in a few days at home. 

(https://media1.tenor.com/images/0a7306409497fcbc4a642a65ae91b069/tenor.gif?itemid=5910757)

Based on his recent track-record, I somehow doubt Brian is about to release a masterpiece. But who knows, maybe he is on the phone to Joe Thomas right now asking him if he has any of the old 90s riffs still in a briefcase that they haven't used yet.

Must have been composed on the sax
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flhaZZszgoc

:o :o  There's only one genius in the band and that's  :bw period. Before you go pinning that label on Mike Love, I'd rank Carl a semi-genius and the closest to Brian's talents in general. Mike Love is the least talented member of the group as witnessed by his awful songwriting and no ability to play an instrument  well except for maybe a tamborine. As far as being a "front man" there is none worse or more embarrassing than Mike Love.

Obviosuly Brian is on a different but I disagree with everything youre saying

"awful songwriting", hope can you serously say that

I partially agree with OSD. Only Brian is the genius. People like to throw that word around too much. There’s talented, which Mike once was. Even Dennis, whose music was outstanding, I wouldn’t label as genius. They only come around rarely within a generation.
Now, Mike was pretty damn good at writing lyrics, once upon a time. He sure as sh*t hasn’t been a good lyricist since at least ‘Brian’s Back’ up until today with this odious new offering. Once, he wrote the words to one of my all-time favorite Beach Boys songs, ‘The Warmth of the Sun’. Damn good words too, an essential part of the immense beauty of the band’s best early tune. I wanna know what happened to that guy.

Mike peaked as a lyricist with "The Old Soldier."

Seriously ,though, having observed ML for decades and being familiar with his work, the man is clearly not stupid.  He's of above-average intelligence, is a good businessman and is indeed capable of occasionally penning non-asinine, even clever, lyrics.  

One thing to keep in mind, though, is that on some of the '60s hits for which ML is the credited lyricist, he often didn't write 100% of those lyrics.  Gary Usher once said that if Mike Love was in the house while a song was being written, he wanted credit.  Oftentimes, Brian already had a song title, a melody, a chorus and partial verse lyrics, and Mike helped flesh out the verses.  And he did a fine job at that.  But when we step back and look at all the truly great songs in the catalog, we see:
Brian Wilson / Mike Love
Brian Wilson / Gary Usher
Brian Wilson / Roger Christian
Brian Wilson / Tony Asher
Brian Wilson / Van Dyke Parks
Brian Wilson (alone)
etc.
Add to that:
Brian Wilson / Jan Berry (Surf City) and many others.

As Al Jardine told Rolling Stone a few years ago, "Brian is, let's face it, the golden goose of all time."

Here's my take. I think the song is sh*t. I guess I'd say the only positive is that he's making the most of his voice with this kinda growly lead. He, like Brian and McCartney and Dylan and others doesn't have the voice he used to, but is making it work.

However, the lyrics....

I don't even know. For a while I've been searching for what it is about Mike's lyrics post-"Kokomo" and I couldn't figure out what it was. And I think it was yesterday after hearing this song that it finally hit me. Mike's lyrics are just very, very amateur. When I listento a lot of the stuff he has released from the '90s on, I just think of how a lot of those sound like if a fifth grader was tasked with an assignment in music class to make a song about achieving world peace ("Unleash the Love", "Make Love, Not War"), or environmentalism ("Summer In Paradise") or a historical figure from the '60s ("Pisces Brothers"). It's crazy, he knew George Harrison (though I don't think they were really friends), but the song reads as if all he knew of George was what he read on Wikipedia.

I really don't want to go there, but a "viral Super Bowl" is just mindblowingly bad. And you know what? Even though he's around 80, I think it's possible that Mike hasn't "lost it" as it concerns his writing abilities. I just really think his figurative "writing muscle" hasn't been worked out for so very long in a serious way, that when he tries something new you get slop like this. Perhaps its that most talented big players in the industry rightly or wrongly won't work with him, so he's stuck with what maybe would be a very rough first draft type lyric. Or maybe I'm wrong and that after, say 1974 (or maybe 1988) he just lost his mojo for writing either commercially or artistically pleasing lyrics.

Basically the real point of all this to me is that despite being the Beach Boy who has always been touted for his "professionalism" it's Brian and Al who put out the music that sounds like it was done by a professional, with Mike putting out stuff that sounds it was barfed out in an hour on GarageBand.


Cute. You're sticking up for Mike. I get it. And of course, we gotta stick it to Brian who is what, 77 years old? How dare he not be preparing new material to blow all our socks off! I love when my favorite artists put out new material, and I'm not one who thinks any of the guys will ruin the "legacy" by putting out garbage like this. However, it makes me embarrassed for them when people read articles on Mike and listen to stuff like this. In the big scheme of things is any of this important? No. And is the money going to a good cause? Yep, so that's great.

Tony Asher has said before (the liner notes of the Pet Sounds Sessions box set) that when he and Brian were writing together, the general tone of the song’s theme was largely his, and Tony would put it into words. I suspect it worked in a similar fashion with Mike. I still think that Mike was capable of writing a good lyric on his own, like ‘Big Sur’ for example. When Endless Summer came along and changed the direction of the group for good, I think Mike wanted to attempt to write lyrics that were of a piece with their early output, as in songs like ‘Kona Coast’, which essentially cannibalizes ‘Hawaii’. That’s where he started to go wrong, since often he wasn’t writing closely with Brian as once before. Or, you know, I could be way off.

I get what you're saying Summer_Days, and I definitely think Mike's lyrics were more often that not getting worse as the '70s went on and into the present day. But I have to say, even something like "Kona Coast" (derivative as it was) or "Getcha Back" had a degree of professionalism to them. They sounded like a guy who had written some good, sturdy songs before. When I heard this new one or something like "Unleash the Love" it's jaw-dropping in how much it sounds like somebody's 50 year old uncle in 1993 writing "original" material for his bar band to record in a special weekend booking at a recording studio. And maybe even that is giving Mike too much credit.

Mike needs to collaborate with OSD on his next song! >:D

I agree there. A song like ‘Getcha Back’ (which I hate) does have lyrics that aren’t really all that bad, whereas the things Mike wrote on SIP is beyond juvenile and embarrassingly bad. Wowzers. The missing ingredient: Brian Wilson.

@ SMiLE Brian, I’d bet the song that Mike and OSD would write together would be a hammy ‘Good Vibrations’ retread with Mike growling about pickin’ up bad vibrations from his writing partner and saying a prayer to Gita or something. By crackie, that sounds like a million and two seller.

Presumably no-one he works with can say, Mike, that's a really bad lyric, you need to come up with something better.

Maybe if they finally gets in a room together, Brian can tell him  ;D

He seems to have a formula in mind with this kind of song and tries to hit each part of that formula no matter how awkward it makes the lyric.

My husband pointed out that the "fun fun fun" part kind of sounds like the Sunrays' I Live for the Sun. 

I really think Mike is fixated on appealing to the lowest common denominator audience. And he's consciously writing lyrics that even the least sophisticated folks in the deep cuts parts of the country could understand. It feels like that's his first priority, over everything else, which is his biggest mistake and what killed him as an artist. That literally seems like his modus operandi; write words that are so literal and on the nose, where there can be no ambiguity or misinterpretation in the listeners' minds.

Maybe this is his gross overreaction to "the crow cries uncover the cornfield", where Mike descended into songwriting craft that could be understood by a little kid. Or that could be written by a little kid. It's as if Mike despised "acid alliteration" soooooo very, very, very much, that he decided to evolve to we have today.

On the other hand, maybe it's just sucky and embarrassing because he's a completely out of touch guy who's been famous and rich way too long.

A friend of mine told me that he can't imagine if a parody version of this song were made how it would be any different from the song itself.

 Suggested title: Train Wreck  :lol

I think after Endless Summer he got lazy in every way except actually touring. His vocals immediately declined around this time and seemed like he was intentionally trying to sound as nasal as possible. As far as his writing over the years he just got out of practice. I think he’s trying a bit but this is all he’s got left.

Hey, SB, let's get him in a room with us and we'll show him what it's all about. You can produce and we'll sell a million units by February. ;)

Cheers to Mike for contributing to a great cause....Song-wise, maybe he should've co-wrote with Ringo Starr and maybe between them they could've come up with something that musically would be good enough for an 'unavailable on LP" B-side of a single that only came out in Portugal.

There are two people I am aware of that really bring out the fury, the unmitigated hatred in people, because of their public actions. Mike Love is one; Pete Rose is the other. Maybe the two of them should get together.

I’m both a massive Beach Boys fan and baseball fan and Mike and Pete are difficult figures in both. Mike deserves to be lauded for some of his good work, but raked over the coals for so many things he’s said and done. Pete is one of the best players the game had ever seen, but his actions damaged his reputation beyond repair. In Beach Boys world, only Landy is more difficult. He saved Brian’s life, then went to work full time 24/7 to destroy it.

Edit: and Murry*. More than anybody.

This is the worst thing I have ever heard.

I'm sure that's the reaction Mike expects from a good percentage of BB's fans.

Anyone who would release garbage like this cannot be in possession of their marbles. :o

What the hell, I’ll play devil’s advocate: what about ‘Smart Girls’, OSD? What about the more lamented tracks on Gettin’ In Over My Head? Was Brian losing his marbles when he wrote these? Mike hasn’t gone full dementia just because he recorded something (for charity) that is hazardous to listen to. Mike just doesn’t have the awesome capability that Brian has to bring a good song into being, and even a lot of those are labored. And even some of those don’t turn out all that good, as per my examples above. There’s a limit to hating on Mike, OSD, and you’re getting there quick.

I’m gonna go wash my hands, partly because, well, we all should, and partly because I just defended Mike “Let’s shoot harmless animals for fun with the president’s brain dead son” Love. Ick.

^ I agree

Didn't Brian write Smart Girls during just such a time, when he was not doing well mentally?

Yes, but not dementia as OSD said. Maybe I should’ve said ‘Hey Little Tomboy’, a wretched song that has too many fans.

Good intentions notwithstanding, this is awful even by Mike Love solo standards.

Mike is at least consistent in his musical stylings, if wholly unremarkable.  This one sounds more or less like the other music he's put out in recent years.  Very clunky and forgettable.

One of the YouTube comments mentioned one of the first things I thought when the song started: It sounds like one of those pre-programmed songs on a portable Casio keyboard from the 80s.

It also kinda sounds like this:

https://youtu.be/sViR_2emIfs?t=146

Honestly, most of Mike's music is not very good. There are some gems here and there, though.

Having said that, I do think its insane the amount of hate that he immediately receives for everything he puts out.

Mike, at his absolute best, has never been a Brian Wilson-level talent. I think sometimes people forget that.

And, even if he were, we can't expect top-tier material every time something gets released. For nostalgia reasons, I do love Gettin' In Over My Head, but comparatively, it is not a very good album. And, a real missed opportunity where Paul McCartney is concerned. For that matter, a lot of Paul McCartney's own music is a missed opportunity as far as Paul McCartney is concerned! Haha.

Its just meant to be a fun, harmless, pick-me-up charity single, nothing grand.

I can only speak for myself, but I don't hate ML.  Have never met the man. I've never met any of the Beach Boys. And though I've been to their concerts, I have no interest in meeting them for the same reason I'm not interested in boycotts or in worrying about whether the political preferences of the group's members align with my own.  I'm a huge fan of the music, not the personalities (though I suppose one could make argument that Brian Wilson's personality and his music are to some extent the same thing).  

In covid19 boredom, I recently read ML's autobiography.  I'll say, I enjoyed a lot of the book and found his perspective on BB history interesting (though unsurprisingly self-serving in places).  He offered a number of insights that I haven't read elsewhere, such as that his mother (Murry's sister) considered the most musically gifted person she ever met to be.... Audree Wilson.  Also, a lot of BB history was affected by (and can be explained by) the fact that Mike and Brian WERE very close as teens.  Mike even brought Brian as a guest on the Dorsey High senior trip to Catalina Island.

So, no, I don't hate ML.  This covid19 song, though?  Just  an embarrassingly bad effort, in my opinion.  I get the perspective that it's just a jokey little ditty cranked out in day or two, and not intended as high art but rather as nothing more than a fun, humorous diversion during a difficult time.  And that's fine.  It's not my kind of humor, though. And musically and lyrically, I found it a painful listen.

I guess some people read too much into other persons' critique of this song. It is bad, plain and simple. I am not a famous musician, have not written a hit or have any of my music released, and certainly I'm not the best songwriter in the world. And I would be ashamed if I came up with this. The charity aspect is a nice idea, sure, but that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the song itself. If the song's release would cure aids, it still would be a terribly bad tune. Got nothing to do with who wrote it or why he/she wrote it.

GIOMH is actually a strong album from a songwriting perspective. The songs on it range from good to great. The problem with the album is Brian's lackluster performance on at least half of the songs. Take "Rainbow eyes" - what a beautiful song, completely destroyed by the vocals and production. "Make a wish" could've been a nice rocking tune, but here as well, Brian's wall-of-Brian-vocals are unimaginative and boring. Not all songs are masterpieces, "You've touched me", "A friend like you", "The waltz" are album filler material, but still have a certain amount of quality. But from the point songwriting this could be the most versatile album of his solo career and a very strong one. Performance and production make it unfortunately a "could-have-been". The strong cuts on here show some of the potential.

The issue isn’t that Mike is putting out music that isn’t up to Brian Wilson standards: it’s that Mike Love is putting out music that isn’t even up to HIS own supposed standards.

Mike Love had the nerve to childishly take jabs at Brian Wilson’s modern songwriting, while going on to record stuff like this. While Brian was publicly lambasted by Mike for the POSSIBILITY of using autotune, Mike went on to seemingly buy every autotune plug-in in existence, string them together like Christmas lights at the Griswold residence, and proceed to release songs that sound like they were mixed inside of a speak-and-spell.

If Mike really wants to raise some $$$ for charity, how about calling Brian up, record a song virtually with the rest of the group, and release it exclusively on iTunes?

All of that said, I’m happy that Mike is recording. While I don’t listen to his music, I give him credit for trying. I wish that Brian would get back into the studio with this much zeal.

I totally agree with you. Add to that my lamenting that Mike was once a good lyric writer but for the last few decades or more, his lyrics have been truly heinous.


I was largely disappointed with GIOMH though I suspect part of that was it being released so close to the feverishly awaited and massively adored BWPS. There are things on it that I do like, but overall I found it undercooked. Add to that, a bit too many guest appearances, though not as bad as on NPP, which made it feel less like a solo Brian Wilson album.
I don’t know. It’s been a long time since I’ve sat down and listened to GIOMH. I ought to go back. I should stop expecting a TLOS (my favorite Brian solo album, and yes, even over BWPS. I feel more of the spirit of Brian today. It’s just beautiful) from him every time.

I agree. Part of me always wondered if it wasn't the emotional baggage of revisiting songs that were written during a really difficult period of time for Brian, that caused him to not really care to do his very best job on this album.  Almost like he was screwing a corpse, so to speak.

Getting back in the headspace of performing songs that he directly associated with the Landy period may have just been really tough for him to do, and my guess is that he wanted to get it over with as soon as possible.

When Brian did BWPS, it seems that a similar attitude was brewing, as evidenced by the "beautiful dreamer" documentary where he was mentally checking out at a certain point. However, due to the unbelievably important historical nature of the album, and what an important emotional hurdle it was for him to tackle, he was supported by his band to an unbelievable degree, and they went above and beyond to coax a good performance out of him, to make him feel supported.

This is just a guess, but I just assume that since the material on GROMH didn't carry that same weight, the same amount of effort  just wasn't put into the material by those in Brian's support system in order to coax the very best performances out of him. You can't make the guy sound like he gives a f*** when he doesn't. I think that's really what happened there. There are some good songs there without a doubt, but the apathy in the vocal performances just shows. I can't imagine that the ghost of the Landy era isn't at least *part* of that equation.

Getting back to the Mike song, "a viral Super Bowl" is just perhaps the worst released lyric of his career. It's certainly as bad as anything the amateur wannabe musician Landy wrote. I can't understand if the lyric is meant to be lighthearted, funny, cringey, or what. Obviously the coronavirus is not something to joke about where the song is meant to be a charity single. If Mike wants to take up joke writing, he can always start creating memes. I think humor and comedy is important, and I'm ok with sometimes making jokes about difficult topics, but it's all about context, and this doesn't seem like the right song for that. Unless, again, this song is intended as a parody.

So yeah, so many aspects of that song are wretched, and ultimately, perplexing.

Mike on KTLA news

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNuoGKYzwTw

Mike Love Interview on WQMF, Tony & Dwight Morning Show (2020-05-06)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt-71yeQjCk

While I don't think the compositions are generally *that* great, there is at least a slightly better album buried there somewhere under GIOMH. It's a truly bizarre album in many ways. Rejects from "Sweet Insanity", re-recorded, then Joe Thomas outtakes (this time using the backing tracks, apparently), some Paley stuff, then Brian veering from surprisingly strong vocal stacks (the intro to "How Could We Still Be Dancin'?") to first-take-five-minutes-after-I-woke-up with the vocal intro to "You've Touched Me."

The best compositional stuff is marred by awful production and arrangement. "Gettin' In Over My Head" is turned from a stark, sort of Righteous Brothers-backing track sound to Joe Thomas's late 90s easy listening deal. "How Could We...." has a great vocal intro, and everything else is pretty pedestrian.

"You've Touched Me" and "A Friend Like You" have decent songs buried under awful production ("A Friend Like You" might be the most over-produced song in his solo catalog) and, while I love Steve Kalinich, excessively drippy, mawkish lyrics.

I probably like the 2004 "Make A Wish" more than the "SI" version, but neither is great. And as blasphemous as it sounds, I've never been as enamored with *any* version of "Don't Let Her Know She's An Angel" as many fans. Yes, a nice song is buried under there. But when a Wondermints version is the best version you can find, that doesn't bode well for Brian's multiple iterations. I think "Rainbow Eyes" is kinda goofy. Some nice bits I guess, but it's kinda like some of McCartney's stuff where it might make a nice children's record or something. "Saturday Morning in the City" is easily in the Top Five of most annoying songs Brian has ever written.

The best song on the album, "Soul Searchin" is nearly ruined by stripping the BB backing vocals away (which probably *had* to happen given contractual issues and the political climate among band members at the time in 2004) and Brian erasing Carl's great bridge vocal and replacing it with his shouty version. It took many years, but by 2015 Brian figured out a good way to do guest spots. Just let Al sing pretty much the whole song sometimes.

"City Blues" could have been *great*. I was calling for Brian to re-record that *years* before he did, just based off the scratchy "Cocaine/Hamburger" demo. In 2004, it was once again exceedingly overproduced in every way (instrumentation, reverb, etc.) and Clapton's guitar work is sleepwalk status.

The vocal guest spots (minus Carl) aren't even very good. Elton sounds constipated, McCartney sounds like he has one foot out the door at the studio.

"The Waltz" sounds like the Rutles trying to spoof the "Orange Crate Art" album.

That all being said, go figure, I still feel like I liked and like it slightly more than many other fans. I take it for what it is; a seeming contractual requirement album.  Not sure if it was ever confirmed that Brian's camp reportedly essentially tacked the album on as a "rider" to the "Presents Smile" album deal.

FLASH!! BREAKING NEWS!! Are you ready?? NEW MIKE LOVE SINGLE HAS RAISED (at last count available) ... HOLD ON!!! 


                                                                50.00

 :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol

This is extremely unnecessary and not a joking matter.  The COVID-19 pandemic is a serious issue, and the single released has good intentions for charity.

Agreed.

Way past time for both of you to get off your high horse.  ::) ::)

I’ll repeat what I said in my previous post:  This is extremely unnecessary and not a joking matter.  The COVID-19 pandemic is a serious issue, and the single released has good intentions for charity.

A serious enough issue that Mike is telling us to “get back to having fun fun fun in the sun”. It’s not a joking matter but yet we’re discussing a song that states that this pandemic is a “viral super bowl”. You are chastising someone for not taking this issue seriously enough in a thread about a song that literally equates this pandemic (that has killed 350,000+) to an American championship football game.

Who here thought that this song would reap in a windfall of cash? $50 is $50 more than I’ve given to Coronavirus relief efforts...so Mike gets credit from me. However, I can’t not ignore that Mike has an incredible wealth of resources (not money, but connections to other Beach Boys) and if done right they could really bring in some money with a virtual reunion song or pre-recorded virtual concert. Which is likely why OSD is laughing at the fact that a man worth $90 million (and who has ceaselessly bragged about his songwriting abilities) raised a likely total of $50 for global pandemic relief.

Who knows, maybe Mike did call up Brian and Brian wasn’t interested in a virtual reunion, and this is the best idea Mike could come up with. Props to him. At this point I’m sure all of us know someone who has had COVID-19, or know of someone who has died from it. So I’m not disputing the seriousness of the issue, but you can’t really go after someone for not being serious about this issue when defending a song that bellows the line “we’re turning lemons into lemonade” in regards to COVID-19.

Thanks, Rab, for totally "getting it". It appears that my post went far over their heads and hopefully yours will calm their jittery nerves somewhat. While it's alright to jump someone's bones around here, perhaps after reading a post, it's better to pause and at least try to understand the reasoning behind it. But, to haul off and accuse someone of "making a joke" of something like the virus is incredible facetious and ignorant.

Whatever happened to the fund for OSD to visit club Kokomo... >:D

There’s a whole thread just waiting. Failed Beach Boys Business Ventures.
I guess that idea Mike pushed a couple of years ago where the pictures used were of a hotel in Tahiti never took off.

Edit: Kokomo Brands....yep. Link doesn’t work.

Source?

As of today a visit to Mike's Facebook page and a post from May 24 shows that a total of $30 has been raised for Feeding America.

I'd seriously suggest the people running Mike's social media take a look at that part of the page and check if something is wrong. For all of the interviews and press Mike had given to promote this new single, if that tally of donations is accurate, it's pretty pathetic. Even if everyone "liking" his posts on his page gave a dollar, it would be better optics to have a few hundred in the kitty versus showing a total of 30 bucks.

I have to think there is an error or something, and if that is not the case, or this is something separate from his song downloads going to charity, maybe Mike could pitch in a few grand to that pot to inspire more donations, so it doesn't look like the campaign was a flop. Or at least have his online team look into that part of the page. As it looks now, it's both confusing and/or embarrassing to have a campaign launched almost a month ago through Mike's song showing a total of 30 bucks, and to have his home page suggesting that's the case. Fix it!

I will say kudos to both Mike and John Stamos for their work with veterans and veterans charities, much respect and thanks for those efforts.

It amazes me that an artist with the money that Mike Love have, chooses to have so bad production and amateurish mixes on his songs nowadays.

Are you kidding? Mike Love and the word "sh*t" are synonymous.

Lonely Summer, Mike Love haters around the world salute you!!  :grouphug :drunks :hug :ohyeah :wave :thumbsup :woot :woot :woot :pirate :h5 :rock :love :happydance :bow :kiss 8)

Let's remember that Mike is the guy who rhymed good vibrations with assassinations. That being said it's also  clear that OSD has never contributed anything to this group except asinine  comments about Love. I could forgive him if they were funny but....

OSD is a legend all over the internet!

No, he isn't. He didn't write that song.

^ True.

Thanks SB, but I don't want to see egg splattered all over Gerry's face. He can only dream of what's gone down over the last 50 years.  :lol

The guy who did write it has one entry on discogs. I'm suspicious.

That almost makes it worse - what’s the line “whose more foolish, the fool? Or the fool who follows him?”

Firstly, blows my mind that Mike didn’t write these lyrics. Secondly if he didn’t write them and he willfully chose to use these lyrics  that blows my mind even more.

I'm trying to understand what it would've been like, in 1981, to purchase Mike's solo album, an album by the guy who frequently  tried to make sure he gets enough credit in the band, who constantly plays up what he termed to be his essential role as a vital lyricist without whom even albums like Pet Sounds would have suffered - and then look at the liners to see Mike hardly wrote any lyrics for his own solo album?!

It is just so absolutely bananas to me I can't understand it. For the simple fact that Mike had a chip on his shoulder about wanting to get more praise for song writing lyrics. And understandably, because he was screwed out of credits for a long time and that isn't fair, regardless of what anybody thinks of the guy.  What logical explanation could there be? Isn't a solo album a chance for a person to let the craft that they are best known for shine? Most especially when that person feels underappreciated - and has made their frustrations probably known via complaints and self praise more than virtually any other songwriter in any famous band in the history of music?

I almost wonder if he wrote some of these lyrics, but used a pseudonym for some reason. It boggles the mind. The only explanation I could see would be if he actually wrote most of those lyrics but then felt embarrassed by them because maybe some people at the record label said that they stunk, but it was already too late to change anything because the album was too far along and contracts have to be met? That doesn't make much sense either, but I can't see anything else.

Because let's face it - rhyming good vibrations with assassinations is precisely the type of thing that Mike would do himself. The way that people can listen to a Brian Wilson series of chord changes and instantly recognize his distinctive style - and feel confident that it's a song that he wrote? That's how confident I feel about that being a Love lyric.

Maybe we should change the name of this board to The Mike Love Hate Club.

11 posts about Mike's single in the last month, a few of which are critical of Mike or his songs, and we're back to "why do people hate Mike Love so much?"

Considering how generally under-productive these guys have been in the studio for years, a new single from a member would typically be relatively big news and be scrutinized.

Mike's "This Too Shall Pass", which every fan I've spoken to agrees is hugely sub-par (to put it politely) while agreeing a charity cause is never a bad thing, has been *very lucky* to have largely flown under the radar. Very lucky considering the paucity of solo studio releases from these guys, to say nothing of large swaths of people having *more* free time at home in recent months to shoot the s**t about stuff like this.

The fact that Mike blows his own horn endlessly about his writing talents yet wrote nearly nothing on his first solo album in 1981 is a pretty interesting piece of information worth discussing I think. In his (sort of) defense, he doesn't seem to be a fan of the album. He seems embarrassed when Brian brings the album up during their "fireside" session in 1989 for the Endless Summer TV show. He has never made any attempt to re-release the album (though I can't be 100% sure he owns it; I believe he owns the "Celebration" material, I'm not sure if owns the LBWL masters outright).

Eleven posts? More like eleven or so years. I get it, the guy's done some pretty lousy things over the years. But it's gotten to the point where people think so little of him that they go out of their way to badmouth him. The last few posts are a good example. It's not enough to hate him for what he has done, so everybody has to draw their own conclusions to fit their narrative.

Everyone knows, you reap what you sow, all the way from california to kokomo- Bruce Johnston "SIP Video" 1992.... >:D

Ya know what's funny, Jay? I've never seen you once give anyone crap on the Endless Harmony forum (that place where people refuse to acknowledge the name of this forum for whatever petty reason) and yet OSD is the guy who NEVER went through the PM system to spread lies about anyone in Mike's family on this forum.

At least OSD has the balls to be open about spreading his opinion about Mike Love instead of the "historian" who just spreads his bullshit about Melinda behind the curtain (granted, saying he's behind the curtain is giving him way WAY too much credit, but you know what I mean). It's just ridiculous that half the time you post it's almost to discredit this forum. Meanwhile the people who stayed here weren't the ones who were spreading fake Melinda gossip, on a Rambo rampage to make Brian's NPP look bad, or in Cam Mott's case just troll until he gets kicked off (though Lonely Summer is doing a great job filling those pathetic shoes).

Regardless, I've heard OSD's story in person (the guy is awesome and I can't wait to meet up with him again), and it's a completely legitimate and wonderful story - rather than that story about getting cheap lunches from Mike Love and attempting to get addresses of posters on this forum (or in SMiLE Brian's case, getting called out for being Melinda Freaking Wilson (oh great research AGD!) by this person LOL). But go ahead, insult OSD all you want and lick the "Historian's" boots.

Personally, I was just brainstorming potential ideas because I find the whole idea of Mike hardly writing anything on his solo album to be a very, very weird thing indeed. I hate some of the things Mike love has done, I can't claim to hate the man because I don't know him. Even though he has done things that repulse me to a extreme degree, I also know that people are complex.

But the juxtaposition of a guy endlessly *publicly* bemoaning being ripped off for songwriting (his right to do, and despite my issues with him, I have empathy for him about the credit snafu subject), and repeatedly many, many times in interviews pointing out his contributions to songwriting as a lyricist - which would seem to be the actions of somebody who wants the world to know that they have lyric writing chops which have been unfairly overlooked - makes for an unbelievably weird situation where the guy wrote hardly any lyrics on his own solo album... yet on top of that already weird situation, there are numerous lyrics that sound like they couldn't have come from nobody but him.

There are many very weird things about this band, this juxtaposition is most certainly one of them.

Bonus weirdness: I also find it incredibly weird that there's a casual, happily-sung lyric referencing Charles Manson's killings in the aforementioned song, despite the well-known anguish that his cousin experienced and continued to be tormented by pertaining to Manson in a very personal way. I find it hard to believe that there wasn't a passive aggressive swipe when that lyric was included. But what do I know. Just a guess. I could be wrong of course. I'm happy to admit that.

And also, the idea that people have to "draw their own conclusions to fit their own narrative"… Isn't that what everybody does any time they listen to a song by this band? They are emotionally connecting to the narrative of what they have learned of the life history of Brian Wilson, and perhaps putting themselves in his shoes when they listen to the sadness or longing that he sings about. Learning more about the story and the weird twists and turns is naturally going to affect how somebody views the band and the members, I don't know how one can divorce themselves from that. If you think the mere idea of thinking about who Performs or writes the songs that you listen to is such a weird thing, you might as well just listen to all music without ever seeing a single image of a band or reading a single interview, so that you can just listen to music in a completely "neutral" way. But that wouldn't be fun. For better or worse, the story is part of the experience, and it affects how we ingest the music. I can't pretend that I don't think about Phil Spector being a sick twisted guy when I listen to his music, although I still appreciate the music a ton.

Anytime you are gaining some sort of emotional impact from a song by this band, whether positive, negative, or somewhere in between, you are most certainly projecting some thoughts of what you know of that person's story into how you are viewing the song. Isn't that what people do when they go to the Vincent van Gogh Museum? They are seeing his madness, or what they know of his madness, increasingly coming out in his paintings over the years. We can't simply look at art minus the backstory in a bubble; naturally the story is going to influence how we perceive the art. And yes of course, it's unique to everybody, and nobody knows the exact "real" story which is why I'm only speculating. We have to draw our own conclusions. Even members of this band can't agree on a great many things, and certain elements of songs, tours, artistic decisions, have been said to have occurred one way by one member, and another way by another member. All we can do is make educated guesses.

I mean, the dude made a complete mockery of the COVID virus in his "this too shall pass" song...comparing the damn virus to an American championship football game...nuff said. Calling out Mike for his rather poor decisions doesn't make this a Mike Love hate forum - it just means we're completely honest about the people in the band. All these members weren't the best people at times (none of us are perfect), but no one else had the pathetic mindset to sue their own family over a freebie CD - no, that trophy goes to Michael Edward Love.

I agree. Let's face it, he's one of the worst human beings on the face of the planet. He should have been banned from performing the way Pete Rose was banned from baseball. "Mr. Love has committed a variety of acts which have stained the music industry, including, but not limited to, falsely claiming co-writing credit on many of genius Brian Wilson's songs; uttering the phrase "don't f*** with the formula"; questioning the lyrics "over and over the crow cries uncover the cornfield"; appearing onstage in swami-like robes and gowns; wearing a steady supply of baseball caps onstage despite the fact that Mr. Love has never played a game of baseball in his entire life; claiming credit for the success of the BB's only post-BW #1, Kokomo, a song written by Papa John Phillips and San Francisco Scott McKenzie; insisting that the Beach Boys appear on Full House, and dragging John Stamos along on every high profile gig since; the stinkfest that is Summer in Paradise; the pathetic tribute album Stars and Stripes Volume 1; for continuing to call his band the Beach Boys, despite the fact that he is the only original Beach Boy in the group; for doing shows for trophy hunters and supporting Donald Trump's presidency; for his continued leering at teenage girls, despite the fact that he is a 70 something father and husband with multiple marriages; and lastly, for releasing the worst music ever under his own name, but always with the Beach Boys brand name close by. "
Rock and roll needs a Bart Giamatti to put this despicable human being in his place. Lock the SOB up, and throw away the key.

He might well be my favorite BB lyricist, from the earliest stuff up until Wild Honey at least, which features some of his most consistent work. Very dedicated to keeping the music of the band alive, even though the way he does it is not the way that some of us hardcore fans think it should be done. He made some substantial contributions to the world of music but without Brian he'd be nothing and I'm sure he knows it.

I think it was Nate R who once started a “positive things about Mike Love” thread - plenty of people had awesome things to say about the guy (including me). Without him The Beach Boys wouldn’t be the same band we know now...I don’t even know if they would exist at all without the guy. He has co-written some of my favorite songs ever so I give credit where it is due. Also, he has one heck of a work ethic (his whole band does playing all the shows they do - at least before Covid). Also I give him credit for going to the studio as often as he does - I don’t like most of the music he creates (at least from a production standpoint), but I sure do wish Brian had that same drive to hit the studio as much as Mike does these days.

If OSD has his opinion about Mike than so be it - he is absolutely entitled to his opinion after being a fan since the 60s. If it’s an opinion he wants to share every day he is free to do so...and granted, people are free to have an opinion about his opinion too. I just find it funny that some people seem to be more offended about OSD’s legitimate gripes about Mike than they are about certain posters who straight up spread false stories about Melinda (not to mention other posters who admitted to spending years mocking Brian’s music just to troll, admitted to defending Mike no matter what just to troll, etc - these people seem to get a pass but OSD (who watched this band devolve to mockery from their heyday) is the one who gets lambasted).

I honestly often wish I could go back to being the ignorant fanboy I was 10 years ago - I didn’t know about the politics, I didn’t know who-knew-who and thus knew why people post or share the things they do. I strictly cared about the music and it’s a time I will always be fond of. But I’m also glad that I don’t willfully ignore the awful things I have learned that people have done in this fandom (including lie about me and others on this forum)...which is why I will never again be a part of a forum that coddles such people.

OSD's stories about friday night school dances and 1960s concerts are worth the price of admission. Hell, he saw the 1971 Carnegie Hall shows rock after suffering through Mike's stage banter in the 1960s...


I saw Pete Rose in Vegas in an empty memorabilia shop with over priced crap, he got what he deserved betting on baseball and lying about it for 30 years.

Just to set the record straight, I referred to SmileySmile as the "other" board over at EH, when I was trying to find out why this board was down for a while one day (at least it was an outage on my end). My thinking, perhaps flawed, was that leaving this board unnamed would be less likely to stir controversy over at there, when all I wished to find out was why I couldn't get this board to load. No other motive, seriously.

Hey Emdeeh, thanks for the response. I definitely see your point if you weren't trying to cause a stir, however I've seen it done so often there and when the PS forum was still around. It's usually done by petty people with petty motives.

As for the board being down - someone guessed that Charle's didn't pay the bill to which AGD responded "Exactly that: happens every year, as the forum is barely on Chuckie's radar." Whether or not that is true, this board goes in and out all the time for me and I highly doubt the 5 times a week this happens to me (and I see the same message you saw nearly every time) has anything to do with Charles not paying a bill. Actually I wouldn't mind hearing from the Mods about their theories as to why the website goes down ever so often.

I remember it starting to consistently go down often after the PS Forum became a thing. I highly doubt anyone would be petulant enough to program an ongoing/sporadic DDOS attack on this place, but nearly stupider things have happened with certain people in this fandom so who knows.

Doe's always treated the owner of the board as his manservant.... ::)

Rab2591, I often get a "busy signal" when trying to access this forum. I suspect the issues we see off and on are on the server side of things. It's probably the hosting service updating the software.

Anyway, enough of sidetracking this thread. Let's get back to discussing Mike's single.

I was obviously referring to the recent activity that elicited your response. There has been VERY LITTLE discussion of this Mike track in the last month on this thread. It was dormant for a month or so (and was not a huge thread to begin with), and then a few people picked it back up and then something at that point seemed to elicit your "Mike Love Hate Club" comment.

The commentary about Mike as of late has been pretty light. The last big ruckus was the *100% SELF-INFLICTED* wound back in February when Mike did that trophy hunting gig. The COVID situation coming up in March actually ended up probably prematurely burying that PR debacle that Mike caused.

After over a decade on this board, to pick *this moment* to re-litigate how "anti-Mike" this board is just seems odd to me. There have certainly been moments where things sway more or less critical of Mike (and the justified nature of that varies as well), but aside from the trophy hunting gig, things haven't been excessively negative about Mike on the board as far as I can tell. *And*, if one has felt for "eleven or so years" that the board feels this way to them, then why continue to post thousands of times? Why would someone be a member for over a decade and post thousands of times to a place they feel should be called "The Mike Love Hate Club?"

On top of what HeyJude wrote, I would also like to point out that the resident troll "Lonely Summer" posted some of the anti-Mike rhetoric in this very thread just to troll (even though he is a Mike apologist). So using dummy/fake Mike-hate posts as evidence that this place is a den of anti-Mike lunatics doesn't really back up Jay's case. Also I think it's kinda lousy to badmouth a forum that your own bandmember moderates, but that's just me.

The "The Mike Love Hate Club" label is just an attempt to delegitimize this place. In reality, the forum is constantly full of great conversation that usually doesn't devolve into a Mike Love hatefest. Usually when Mike does something stupid he will get called out for it (trophy hunting gig, continuing to release records drowning in autotune after his comments about Brian's music not being great if they used autotune, etc). But normally this place is full of varied conversation that has nothing to do with the asinine things that Mike Love does at times.

The board software is way out of date. Also have you ever tried look at this site on mobile? Presumably a web developer needs to be hired at this stage to upgrade everything safely.

Yeah, I'd say I use it half the time on mobile and posting that way is annoying. That being said I've gotten so used to it that it's not the biggest deal to me. However, for new and younger members I can see why this place would need a big upgrade...not that it's not annoying for those of us who have been here longer, but I do wonder how many newcomers don't even bother to sign up because this place isn't mobile friendly (I'd guess most casual web browsing is done on mobile devices these days).

Fun Fun Fun in the Sun Sun Sun
https://youtu.be/AVrydhy-YZ4?t=55

Rab2591, I find this site works just fine in mobile if you turn your phone horizontally. I can even use this site with my decidedly-not-smart phone (read only, but that's OK), as well as with an iPad.

Thanks Emdeeh, I’ll try that horizontal trick out. Also I agree, viewing this site on the iPad is pretty good.

Site looks fine in Safari on my iPhone 7

I just wanted to make a quick comment. The other day I got rather pissy with a few people here. I'm sorry for that. It just annoyed me when I pointed out the fact that somebody other than Mike wrote a song, and everybody was like, "Well the lyrics are horrible, so it MUST be Mike!". I get it, Mike has done a lot of "questionable" things during his career. Personally, I don't like the guy very much. But it just bugs me sometimes when people seem to go out of their way to badmouth him. He deserves *some* of it, but let's not trash his entire career and life.

Lets look into this guy Daniel Charles Parker

Here is his discogs page - https://www.discogs.com/artist/6746654-Daniel-Charles-Parker

Any connection with that name as to why it might be a pseudonym?

I found this - http://members.calbar.ca.gov/fal/Licensee/Detail/118281

I guess that could be him. Started practicing in 1985 in LA. I sent him an email  ;D

Jay, I and one other person vaguely hinted that Mike Love possibly wrote those lyrics instead of Dan Parker. A third poster made their case that they thought Love did write those lyrics - in four paragraphs - thus its obvious to me that he was trying to actually discuss the possibility that Mike penned those lyrics.

And not one of the three people who were suspicious about the writing credits even insinuated that the lyrics were horrible. YOU are the one who projected that. It does blow my mind that Mike didn’t write those lyrics. Why?

The song itself is a pun of Mike Love’s name, the song itself has references to The Beach Boys. Mike wrote the lyrics to ‘Spring Vacation’ which rhymes “Good Vibrations” with “Vacation”. And lyrics for many songs he has penned in the last 30+ years have many words that rhyme with popular Beach Boy song titles. And, as has already been mentioned, Dan Parker has just one other writing credit on Discogs which makes it suspicious to me (and others) that Mr. Parker was able to write just one song in his career that ended up being the title song for a Beach Boys solo album.

I don’t see how three people suggesting the possibility that Mike Love rhymed “Good Vibrations” with “assassinations” makes this forum a “Mike Love Hate Club”. And again, you’re the one who projected that “everyone” said these lyrics were “horrible”...when in reality three people merely casted doubt on the authorship of the lyrics - nothing more and nothing less.

I was the one who mentioned the "good vibrations, assassinations" regarding Mike. I have the album LBWL but it's in storage, as it should be. Now, I could've sworn that Mike wrote that but he didn't. However we all know it's in his wheelhouse and I'm sure he wishes he wrote it. Regarding OSD: I've been around the Boys about 55 years, seen them over 100 times and have a lot of good stories to and I love Brian, but I don't make continually asinine comment which are backed up by his sycophant Smile Brian. Like I said, it would be tolerable if it was funny but it's just childish.

Whomever wrote those lyrics, whether it’s Mike Love , Dan Parker, Peter Parker, whomever...they’re hot garbage regardless. And this is coming from someone who actually likes most of LBWL.

Nice words Gerry.... ::)

I’m just going to say this and leave it at that....with everything going on in the world right now, isn’t the perfect time to start to be more civil to each other? We’re all Beach Boys fans here...but we’re also humans first.

We should all keep that in mind before flinging insults at each other.

Just my two cents

DLTBGYD, SB. We've weathered crap via someone 1000 times worse than this amateur.

I agree. Let's save all our anger and hatred for Mike Love.
He's the reason the world is such a mess now.
But if Mike would get me a candy bar, then we could have world peace.

Better yet...how about not spewing hatred for anybody? I like that idea better.

Also not trolling would be very much appreciated. Just saying...

He has a point though. You need to carve out your own niche in the world of Beach Boys fandom. One OSD covers the Mike Love thing. Perhaps you could concentrate on Bruce  ;D ;D ;D

I'm curious, who other than OSD or SB spews hatred here? All I spouted was a little mild ribbing

Agree, Billy. LS is trollfest.

Sorry to revive an old thread, but went down a rabbit hole of googling and found out that Dan Parker is one of Mike’s former managers. Here’s his resume (http://journoportfolio.s3-website-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/users/16426/uploads/62b5058b-f735-4a9a-b9ff-7ec4f9e623c5.pdf)—among his achievements, he proudly states “Wrote title song and coordinated marketing and PR for Mr. Love’s solo album on Casablanca Records.” So, it sounds like Mr. Parker’s lyrical contribution to “LBWL” is legitimate.

Bonus: Here’s a random news article (https://www.kentucky.com/sports/college/kentucky-sports/uk-basketball-men/article118686958.html) that features a video interview with Mr. Parker. Mentions how he and Mike met…