"Sweet and Bitter" and "Out In The Country"

[Mikie]

So the part Al (and Carl) must have added was this:

It's about time we get together
To be out front and love one another
Brothers sisters everybody
We better start to help each other now
We need it now
 
When we're sharin' our love brother
That's when we know we can shape another world!

 
They didn't seem to have a problem with Jakobson and Dragon getting credit on Dennis' songs.

Maybe they just wanted to add more lyrics and/or wanted more Beach Boys participation/credit/royalties on the songs.

[Sheriff John Stone]

A few days later I was invited over to Brian's house. I was made to wait twenty minutes or so in a front room where Al Jardine, who completely ignored me, practiced "Sloop John B" on the guitar, six feet away from me. Then after that awkward wait, Dennis came and got me and brought me into the parlor where Brian had this beautiful barber chair. I had never seen anybody use a barber chair as a piece of furniture before. Anyway, all guys were there; Brian, Carl, Al, Mike, Dennis, and Bruce. Now all of a sudden I was the center of their attention. Brian said that he loved my lyric and that he wanted to put the song on their up coming album, as he and others congratulated me and patted me on the back. But he said that first I had to sign some papers so that they would have permission from me to release the song. I was led over to a table upon which sat a legal contract which I was to sign. I remembered someone once told me never to sign a contract without first having a lawyer read it. So looking at this multi-page contract with all these guys breathing down my neck, I said "Shouldn't I have a lawyer look this thing over before signing it?". "NO, NO!" was the united reply. "It's just a standard agreement to let us record your song", Dennis said.

Well, under some intimidating pressure, I signed it. And everyone was happy. It turns out that I signed all my publishing rights away, as well as agreeing to just 25% of the writer's share of royalties. What started out to be a song by just Dennis and me, 50/50, turned into a three way collaboration with Al, 33/33/33, to unwittingly become 25/25/25/25, with Carl Wilson in name only claiming 25%. You must have heard of the school of hard knocks. Well this was my first big lesson."

That's a sad story. Not surprising, but sad nevertheless...

[doc smiley]

personally, I think that those added words were substantial enough to rate a lyric credit in the song for (Al/Carl)


the other part of the deal, the business part of it is unfortunately common music junk.. I've heard Elvis stories in this regard that makes this deal seem almost honest.

[DonnyL]

It's also very illegal, and would open the band up to a lot of trouble if the original writer later decided to present evidence (like sealed, dated working tapes) that they'd written the song.

As for your acquaintance having written Getcha Back... Occam's razor applies here. That song is a patchwork, made up entirely of musical references to other songs (I count, off the top of my head, musical ideas from Uptown Girl, Sail On Sailor, Don't Worry Baby, Do It Again and Hungry Heart. There may be others) -- all either nostalgic-sounding then-recent hits or old Beach Boys songs. That's very much Mike Love's style of thinking. Given that it's a song that pretty much *any* quarter-competent songwriter could have written, it seems far more likely that Mike and Terry Melcher wrote it than that they would buy a song like that -- *especially* since Terry Melcher is given credit (why give credit to a non-band-member if he didn't write the song?)

It's not really illegal if both parties are in agreement, and the group has most certainly done this at least once ('Never Learn Not to Love').

As for the guy at the drug store ... yes, I most certainly did not (and do not) believe him, just exploring the possibilities.

It is illegal no matter who agrees. Under US copyright law, you can't, as a creator, sell the copyright in a work unless it counts as 'work for hire', which has all sorts of conditions attached to it that the hypothetical situation doesn't match.

Obviously they did do it once, but that was supposedly at Manson's personal request -- and I imagine that could easily have made it very unlikely for them to do it again.

Of course, it's entirely possible, given the less-than-scrupulous way they dealt with songwriting credits, that some acquaintance of the band on occasion might have collaborated with Brian and then found his or her name mysteriously absent from the record label, but I think if they'd actually bought songs from other people on multiple occasions, we would have heard about it.

If both parties are in agreement, I'm sure some kind of 'work made for hire' paperwork could materialize fairly easily.

With this logic, most of the 'Lennon/McCartney' credits and publishing rights/royalties are 'illegal'.

Additionally, the 'legality' of these kinds of situations have no bearing on whether or not they happened (it did, at least in one confirmed instance). I'm only speculating that it could have happened at other points in time.

Worth pointing out is the loose manner in which songwriting credits and publishing was handled in the Beach Boys world historically ('Surfin USA', 'CA Girls', etc). And other matters ... for instance, a good chunk of 'Sunflower' seems to have been recorded on Capitol's dime, yet the group assumed ownership and took the stuff to Warners.

Also, label credit is not necessarily accurate with regard to publishing ownership or royalties.

'Surfin USA' showed only 'Chuck Berry' for many years ... yet Berry didn't write the words (and it wasn't a 'work made for hire' either). Yet not really illegal since a written agreement was worked out.

Perhaps we are debating the meaning of the word 'illegal' ... in the strictest sense, you may be correct, but it is not a realistic assessment of copyright law.

[bgas]

Anyway, all guys were there; Brian, Carl, Al, Mike, Dennis, and Bruce. Now all of a sudden I was the center of their attention. Brian said that he loved my lyric and that he wanted to put the song on their up coming album, as he and others congratulated me and patted me on the back. But he said that first I had to sign some papers so that they would have permission from me to release the song. I was led over to a table upon which sat a legal contract which I was to sign. I remembered someone once told me never to sign a contract without first having a lawyer read it. So looking at this multi-page contract with all these guys breathing down my neck, I said "Shouldn't I have a lawyer look this thing over before signing it?". "NO, NO!" was the united reply. "It's just a standard agreement to let us record your song", Dennis said.

Well, under some intimidating pressure, I signed it. And everyone was happy. It turns out that I signed all my publishing rights away, as well as agreeing to just 25% of the writer's share of royalties. What started out to be a song by just Dennis and me, 50/50, turned into a three way collaboration with Al, 33/33/33, to unwittingly become 25/25/25/25, with Carl Wilson in name only claiming 25%. You must have heard of the school of hard knocks. Well this was my first big lesson."

What I get from this tale of woe:  The blame for Murry stealing Mike's songwriting credits goes right back to where it belonged all along, Son # 1.
Why alarm sirens weren't screaming in Mike's head , all the while he's joining the rest of the BBs to get this poor schlub to sign his rights away, is what gets me

[Stephen W. Desper]

Soulful
Old
Man
Shunshine

COMMENT:  What about Soulful Old Man Sunshine?

~swd

[bgas]

Soulful
Old
Man
Shunshine

COMMENT:  What about Soulful Old Man Sunshine?

~swd

Start with post #1 in this thread

[EgoHanger1966]

Soulful
Old
Man
Shunshine

COMMENT:  What about Soulful Old Man Sunshine?

~swd

Mr. Desper,

In reference to your query, a poster above me couldn't figure out what the abbreviation "SOMS" stood for.

[Mike's Beard]

The band did something similar to Gary Usher many years later when he began collaborating with Brian again.

[tansen]

(following post)

[Cabinessenceking]

Soulful
Old
Man
Shunshine

COMMENT:  What about Soulful Old Man Sunshine?

~swd

Mr. Desper,

In reference to your query, a poster above me couldn't figure out what the abbreviation "SOMS" stood for.

the Sean Connery cover version.

[lance]

personally, I think that those added words were substantial enough to rate a lyric credit in the song for (Al/Carl)

Totally agree, and I wouldn't be surprised if Carl added something significant musically too, enough to warrant a co-writing credit. As far as him signing away his publishing rights, well, that's kind of dirty, but on the other hand, the track might never have been released otherwise. So itgoes.

[Smilin Ed H]

So..... Anyone got any news on this? C-man?  Were they really from the early 70s?

[c-man]

So the part Al (and Carl) must have added was this:

It's about time we get together
To be out front and love one another
Brothers sisters everybody
We better start to help each other now
We need it now
 
When we're sharin' our love brother
That's when we know we can shape another world!

From what I can tell, Carl and Al also contributed to the song musically (the whole bridge sequence seems to come from Al melodically and harmonically, and other sources indicate that Carl may have helped Denny with the chord progression).

[Smilin Ed H]

And Sweet and Bitter does date from... 71/72-ish?