Acid Alliteration: A Historical Perspective

[nakostopoulos]

"I coined the term 'acid alliteration.' That's what I called it. It's absolutely true that I have an issue with doing lyrics that are so obscure and oblique that they can't be relatable to by most people. I mean they can be appreciated, and I do appreciate the art form itself. But I like art that relates to people to the point where a song has a chance to go to number one. So I am guilty of liking songs that are artistic as well as popular."
- Mike Love, 10/2009

I know I could be opening up a whole new can of worms, but something about Mike's populist "Will the people get it?" defense has always felt weak to me.

By December of 1966 (the infamous "What do the words mean, Van?" blowup), not only had Lennon given us the first glimpse of the Beatles' foray into psychedelia with "Tomorrow Never Knows" off "Revolver" (what's more "acid alliterative" than ripping off Timothy Leary?); Bob Dylan had vanished in a puff of smoke after giving us an Electric Trilogy that spanned eighteen months from March of '65 to July of 66-- beginning with the speaker "mixing up the medicine", and ended with a twelve minute ode to a woman's "geranium kiss". Rightly, "Bringing it All Back Home", "Highway 61 Revisited" and "Blonde on Blonde" are now considered classics, but it should be noted, they made Dylan a phenomenally rich superstar.

So, I find Mike's rationalization a little curious, and pretty absurd. For a man interested in commercialism, was he just totally ignoring what was going on in other people's music, or was he really that panicked over not losing the existing fanbase at the time?

And has any interview ever tried to challenge him on his objections, vis-a-vis what was clearly working at the time?

[the professor]

your're right. but Mike was not thinking of creating something arcane that scholars would later canonize as visionary.   He wanted to reach kids simply and directly, and thought, rightly as it turns out, that Smile was not top 10 material.  No one goes to the beach with the top down , cruisin to "who ran the i-ron horse." (well, we do). The BB have 2 related legacies--the beach fun (eternal and brilliant) and the stuff Bernstein liked (eternal and brilliant). Mike was hung up on the former at that moment.

[Shane]

Thumbs up to the Professor's post above!  I think I'm gonna try some Iron Horse next time i'm Goin' To The Beach.