How would BB history be different if Mike had received proper cowriting credits?

[bgas]

I'll go along with guitarfool to an extent, in that royalties are one thing and not my concern, but I'd like the writing credits on songs to reflect actual contributions -- and for the same reason I'm interested in sessionagraphy.

To my mind, WIBN is a Wilson/Asher composition. If Mike  ad-libbed "good night baby, sleep tight baby" on the outro of 'Summertime Blues, say, the credit should still read (Corchran/Capehart).

Again, I'm not talking legalities here -- the jury ruled that Mike was entitled to claim credit and royalties. But for me, (B. Wilson/T. Asher/M. Love) doesn't reflect reality. Legal reality, yes, but not musical reality.

Thank you for adding this, I never thought of it that way related to cover songs! Again, where does the line get drawn when someone adds or changes lyrics in a similar, minor way to a song they're covering but didn't write? That is a terrific example you gave, and consider every other successful cover version of a song where a lyric or phrase was added to a cover version similar to WIBN's "good night baby" coda...if everyone improvising or adjusting a lyric or adding a melody to create a "new" version of the song, in their own image went looking for writer's credit for that part, it would be chaos.

And it just simply is not handled that way, for very specific (and legally sound) reasons. Musically speaking, The Beach Boys and The Fat Boys added lyrics to the song "Wipe Out" which had never existed, and had a chart hit with it. The lyrics were crucial to the record becoming a "modern" hit in the 80's versus an instrumental.

Do the Beach Boys and Fat Boys get credited as co-writers of Wipe Out?

Something similar to that ^ happened on the Summer In Paradise album, specifically with "Under The Boardwalk". Mike Love wrote some new words - I guess you could consider it a verse - and the credit reads Artie Resnick/Kenny Young/Mike Love.

OK, back to the debate....

So Mike get's 33% of the publishing for 49 records sold.  Living the life!

[filledeplage]

I'll go along with guitarfool to an extent, in that royalties are one thing and not my concern, but I'd like the writing credits on songs to reflect actual contributions -- and for the same reason I'm interested in sessionagraphy.

To my mind, WIBN is a Wilson/Asher composition. If Mike  ad-libbed "good night baby, sleep tight baby" on the outro of 'Summertime Blues, say, the credit should still read (Corchran/Capehart).

Again, I'm not talking legalities here -- the jury ruled that Mike was entitled to claim credit and royalties. But for me, (B. Wilson/T. Asher/M. Love) doesn't reflect reality. Legal reality, yes, but not musical reality.

Thank you for adding this, I never thought of it that way related to cover songs! Again, where does the line get drawn when someone adds or changes lyrics in a similar, minor way to a song they're covering but didn't write? That is a terrific example you gave, and consider every other successful cover version of a song where a lyric or phrase was added to a cover version similar to WIBN's "good night baby" coda...if everyone improvising or adjusting a lyric or adding a melody to create a "new" version of the song, in their own image went looking for writer's credit for that part, it would be chaos.

And it just simply is not handled that way, for very specific (and legally sound) reasons. Musically speaking, The Beach Boys and The Fat Boys added lyrics to the song "Wipe Out" which had never existed, and had a chart hit with it. The lyrics were crucial to the record becoming a "modern" hit in the 80's versus an instrumental.

Do the Beach Boys and Fat Boys get credited as co-writers of Wipe Out?

Something similar to that ^ happened on the Summer In Paradise album, specifically with "Under The Boardwalk". Mike Love wrote some new words - I guess you could consider it a verse - and the credit reads Artie Resnick/Kenny Young/Mike Love.

OK, back to the debate....

So Mike get's 33% of the publishing for 49 records sold.  Living the life!

SIP is a little guilty one...hope he gets a third! Love Carl's vocals...one of 49, bgas (one of my favorite posters!) I'm honored to be among the 49! 

Without SIP, we might not have had those vocals from the Great Carl Wilson! 

[guitarfool2002]

In the big picture though I don't think the big problem was Mike getting too much credit. He should only what is due and overall he asked for much less than he was due.

Got proof?

He won in court and offered to settle for less than he was eventually awarded.

You're talking $$. I'm  thinking too many  credits.  Figures

How about as much song credit as he was due but  asked for less money credit than he was due?

I'll talk credits too for a minute.

Cam, what about the handful of songs that were filed in the suit but got thrown out of court, for which Mike got nothing despite claiming and filing for credit on them?

And that pesky WIBN issue with Asher, the lawyer had to be going on a point of reference someone gave him...who else but his client would say the genesis of Mike's contributions beyond the coda (whose merits were legally not challenged but musically and in theory, yes) were international phone calls from Asia?

Seriously, Tony Asher knows what he wrote for the song and how it appeared on the record, just as Mike knows what he wrote for California Girls, wouldn't someone trying to claim something you know is your own unedited work seem like an attempt to steal your work?

Short question: Is there some possibility of Mike's case filing for more credit than he was actually due? Or was that a legal tactic to just bundle a few dozen more songs than they had solid cases for into the larger suit, the "cast a wide net" tactic, and take what they got?

Because my understanding is they originally filed claims for considerably more songs than he actually won in the decision. There is a reason for that which is waiting to be found somewhere.

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

In the big picture though I don't think the big problem was Mike getting too much credit. He should only what is due and overall he asked for much less than he was due.

Got proof?

He won in court and offered to settle for less than he was eventually awarded.

You're talking $$. I'm  thinking too many  credits.  Figures

How about as much song credit as he was due but  asked for less money credit than he was due?

I'll talk credits too for a minute.

Cam, what about the handful of songs that were filed in the suit but got thrown out of court, for which Mike got nothing despite claiming and filing for credit on them?

And that pesky WIBN issue with Asher, the lawyer had to be going on a point of reference someone gave him...who else but his client would say the genesis of Mike's contributions beyond the coda (whose merits were legally not challenged but musically and in theory, yes) were international phone calls from Asia?

Seriously, Tony Asher knows what he wrote for the song and how it appeared on the record, just as Mike knows what he wrote for California Girls, wouldn't someone trying to claim something you know is your own unedited work seem like an attempt to steal your work?

Short question: Is there some possibility of Mike's case filing for more credit than he was actually due? Or was that a legal tactic to just bundle a few dozen more songs than they had solid cases for into the larger suit, the "cast a wide net" tactic, and take what they got?

Because my understanding is they originally filed claims for considerably more songs than he actually won in the decision. There is a reason for that which is waiting to be found somewhere.

Question: was Tony Asher there in the studio when The Beach Boys were recording the vocals for Wouldn't It Be Nice?

[KittyKat]

Mike offered to settle for $750,000 out of court. Brian's lawyers turned him down, which is what brought the lawsuit. The out of court settlement was before the suit, not afterwards. From what I read, Brian dragged his feet about paying the settlement. I'm not when and if Mike ever got his money, other than royalties from the new song credits. Royalties have been dramatically lower since the early '00s due to online piracy.

[Nicko1234]

Another one of those threads that goes endlessly round in circles while going nowhere.

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

Another one of those threads that goes endlessly round in circles while going nowhere.

Can we create a permanent "I just plain out dislike Mike" thread where such conversations could eventually sink to the bottom of?

[guitarfool2002]

You know, I was going to continue asking questions and answering questions and challenges and all of that, then I remembered Mike Love himself - Yes, that Mike Love - actually agreed with most of the points I was making and seeing challenged regarding blame and responsibility and even the issue of Brian's conservatorship preventing him from acting on his own at the time of the lawsuits, so I think to myself...

...Self, why not let Mike answer these questions himself? But I don't have his number, or email, so...

Fellow board member HeyJude, I remembered coming home from work today, had posted Mike's words from an interview in 2004 where he cleared some things up, so here is Mike on the record on these very issues.

And that is really it.

Well, I think the issue of trying to place personal, moral, non-legal blame as far as the songwriting credits is kind of silly. It’s just funny how some fans have used nothing but pure legal technicalities to “defend” Mike when it comes to things like band name/trademark lawsuits, while we now have all of this personal, very subjective moral judgment when it comes to the songwriting credits. In any event, I apologize if this was already mentioned in the thread earlier (I honestly can’t read it all), but in a 2004 Mojo interview, Mike himself seemed to place FAR more blame on Murry than Brian when it came to the songwriting credits issue:

There was a lot of disharmony in the band following those years, but Love points out that there was always something “not entirely harmonious” about The Beach Boys. “Certainly never as harmonious as the sounds made around the microphone,” he says, “because from very early on, my Uncle Murry was involved. He basically took over publishing of the songs Brian and I wrote. He was always pretty tough to deal with. I think he was a thief. He could be very obnoxious; I mean he was terrible to his sons – emotionally, physically and financially. Definitely an abusive person. Brian and I ended up firing him at one point, so I think his way of getting back at me was not include me on the co-authorship of many, many songs, including California Girls and I Get Around. So from the very beginning of our song writing together, there was always that negative vibe underneath it all.”

He complained about it at the time? “Yes, but my cousin Brian would usually say, 'Well my dad f***ed up.' He said that at least a half-dozen times when I'd bring it up. I blame my uncle a lot more in the cheating of Mike Love because my cousin Brian was so shaky for so many years. He has auditory delusions and mental illness [which] made him very afraid to speak up for himself. He was very hard-pressed to protect my interests in our collaborative efforts, let alone his own.”

History has demonstrated that song writing cases are very hard to win, so one has to wonder how Love was able to convince a court. “Well, ironically, my cousin Brian wanted to settle the issue but he was unable to because he was in a consevatorship due to his mental state. The conservator was a lawyer who said that the statute of limitations had expired. That's what Brian was told, so that's the course he had to follow. But because of everything that went on with Murry and the selling of the catalogue, it could be considered fraud. So I was able to plead my case. In court my attorney would say something like, '“She's real fine, my 409”. Did Mike Love make that up?' And Brian would say, on the witness stand, 'That sounds like something Mike would do.' They'd bring him out of the courtroom and tell him, 'You're going to go bankrupt if you keep saying things like that!' In his own way, he was trying to rectify things, even though his attorney didn't want him to pay. He even told me he wanted to, on the phone and in person, before all this happened. But it was his attorney who forced me to go to court to resolve the issue. I certainly don't have any animosity or hard feelings towards Brian, especially understanding his state of mind at the time. But he knows what I wrote and so do I.”

Questions?  

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

Questions about what?

I put on WIBN in order to do "research" on this topic but it's so good I'm now just letting Pet Sounds roll and cracking open a beer!

Ain't that what it should be about?

[Mujan, 8@$+@Rc| of a Blue Wizard]

Questions about what?

I put on WIBN in order to do "research" on this topic but it's so good I'm now just letting Pet Sounds roll and cracking open a beer!

Ain't that what it should be about?

Yes. /thread

[Robbie Mac]

Another one of those threads that goes endlessly round in circles while going nowhere.

Can we create a permanent "I just plain out dislike Mike" thread where such conversations could eventually sink to the bottom of?

This is not about liking or disliking Mike and you know it.

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

Another one of those threads that goes endlessly round in circles while going nowhere.

Can we create a permanent "I just plain out dislike Mike" thread where such conversations could eventually sink to the bottom of?

This is not about liking or disliking Mike and you know it.

No, I don't know it. And the only motivation I can fathom for keeping such a debate going is because that's what it boils down to.

[Robbie Mac]

Another one of those threads that goes endlessly round in circles while going nowhere.

Can we create a permanent "I just plain out dislike Mike" thread where such conversations could eventually sink to the bottom of?

This is not about liking or disliking Mike and you know it.

No, I don't know it. And the only motivation I can fathom for keeping such a debate going is because that's what it boils down to.

If you think Craig is pointing out all of this stuff simply because of some deep-seated hated of  Mr. love, then I don't know I what to tell you. I personally think he is being incredibly even-handed (and going way out of the way to do so) in this matter, but  I guess anything that is not enough for the Mike crowd.

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

Another one of those threads that goes endlessly round in circles while going nowhere.

Can we create a permanent "I just plain out dislike Mike" thread where such conversations could eventually sink to the bottom of?

This is not about liking or disliking Mike and you know it.

No, I don't know it. And the only motivation I can fathom for keeping such a debate going is because that's what it boils down to.

If you think Craig is pointing out all of this stuff simply because of some deep-seated hated of  Mr. love, then I don't know I what to tell you. I personally think he is being incredibly even-handed (and going way out of the way to do so) in this matter, but  I guess anything that is not enough for the Mike crowd.

What Mike crowd?

This is my view because no matter how it is debated it still persists with a distinct and transparent air of "just how DARE Mike think he contributed in any meaningful way to WIBN"? .... If there's not deep seated hatred or even dislike of Mike, sure, but none of it reads that way......

And in the end, all we're doing is shredding apart the last 30 seconds of one of the greatest songs ever composed/performed/released.

[guitarfool2002]

Let me post that again, I see it may have been hard to read due to the sizing of the font. This is from Mojo magazine, 2004, Mike Love interview:

There was a lot of disharmony in the band following those years, but Love points out that there was always something “not entirely harmonious” about The Beach Boys. “Certainly never as harmonious as the sounds made around the microphone,” he says, “because from very early on, my Uncle Murry was involved. He basically took over publishing of the songs Brian and I wrote. He was always pretty tough to deal with. I think he was a thief. He could be very obnoxious; I mean he was terrible to his sons – emotionally, physically and financially. Definitely an abusive person. Brian and I ended up firing him at one point, so I think his way of getting back at me was not include me on the co-authorship of many, many songs, including California Girls and I Get Around. So from the very beginning of our song writing together, there was always that negative vibe underneath it all.”

He complained about it at the time? “Yes, but my cousin Brian would usually say, 'Well my dad f***ed up.' He said that at least a half-dozen times when I'd bring it up. I blame my uncle a lot more in the cheating of Mike Love because my cousin Brian was so shaky for so many years. He has auditory delusions and mental illness [which] made him very afraid to speak up for himself. He was very hard-pressed to protect my interests in our collaborative efforts, let alone his own.”

History has demonstrated that song writing cases are very hard to win, so one has to wonder how Love was able to convince a court. “Well, ironically, my cousin Brian wanted to settle the issue but he was unable to because he was in a consevatorship due to his mental state. The conservator was a lawyer who said that the statute of limitations had expired. That's what Brian was told, so that's the course he had to follow. But because of everything that went on with Murry and the selling of the catalogue, it could be considered fraud. So I was able to plead my case. In court my attorney would say something like, '“She's real fine, my 409”. Did Mike Love make that up?' And Brian would say, on the witness stand, 'That sounds like something Mike would do.' They'd bring him out of the courtroom and tell him, 'You're going to go bankrupt if you keep saying things like that!' In his own way, he was trying to rectify things, even though his attorney didn't want him to pay. He even told me he wanted to, on the phone and in person, before all this happened. But it was his attorney who forced me to go to court to resolve the issue. I certainly don't have any animosity or hard feelings towards Brian, especially understanding his state of mind at the time. But he knows what I wrote and so do I.”

[Cam Mott]

I'll talk credits too for a minute.

Cam, what about the handful of songs that were filed in the suit but got thrown out of court, for which Mike got nothing despite claiming and filing for credit on them?

And that pesky WIBN issue with Asher, the lawyer had to be going on a point of reference someone gave him...who else but his client would say the genesis of Mike's contributions beyond the coda (whose merits were legally not challenged but musically and in theory, yes) were international phone calls from Asia?

Seriously, Tony Asher knows what he wrote for the song and how it appeared on the record, just as Mike knows what he wrote for California Girls, wouldn't someone trying to claim something you know is your own unedited work seem like an attempt to steal your work?

Short question: Is there some possibility of Mike's case filing for more credit than he was actually due? Or was that a legal tactic to just bundle a few dozen more songs than they had solid cases for into the larger suit, the "cast a wide net" tactic, and take what they got?

Because my understanding is they originally filed claims for considerably more songs than he actually won in the decision. There is a reason for that which is waiting to be found somewhere.

My understanding is Mike did not receive credit for a few of the songs claimed. Like 3 out of 39? I assume he did not have the proof necessary, which does not necessarily mean he did not deserve credit. I've also heard Mike claim a much higher number of songs (60 or 70?) then I believe was filed. I assume these weren't submitted because they did not have the proof, which again doesn't mean he didn't deserve credit. So he may have very well asked for less credit then he deserved but we will probably never know.

So I'll stick with as much song credit as he was due but he asked for much less money credit than he was due?

[guitarfool2002]

No, I don't know it. And the only motivation I can fathom for keeping such a debate going is because that's what it boils down to.

You're wrong. This issue for me came from reading assumptions, conclusions, and accusations that folks on this board were making around the issue of Brian's and Mike's songwriting and crediting cases, specifically the notion that a group of people here still blame Brian the most for Mike not getting the proper credits on those songs.

And damn it all, if I had remembered the Mojo interview sooner, it may have ended sooner rather than spinning off in so many directions.

But reading through, some of those conclusions were coming from sources other than the facts, not just the case but about the nature of songwriting and crediting and publishing in general. So if someone has been misled, or led to believe something based on conjecture rather than actual proof, don't be surprised if someone attempts to correct it.

And it could either be played cool, or lead to more crap.

And, yes, some folks on this thread have what seems to be a regular pattern of shaping their perception of the way people think (i.e. 'opinion' )  into the truth about those people, with absolutely no justification and not enough knowledge or awareness to do that.

And there is no anti-Mike sentiment coming from posting what turned out Mike himself had actually said on the record about the same issues. If anything it upholds Mike's position, confirms that Brian's role was less than I think some people here would like to believe, and points most of the finger at Murry, and later at the legal team Brian had in place who broke the promises at a time Brian was under the authority of a conservator and could not make the decision on his own to "make things right", even though Mike himself says Brian wanted to do just that.

Again, let Mike's comments decide these squabbles, unless someone would try to challenge them too.  

But hey, remember, someone says I'm anti-Mike, so it must be true, right?  

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

No, I don't know it. And the only motivation I can fathom for keeping such a debate going is because that's what it boils down to.

You're wrong. This issue for me came from reading assumptions, conclusions, and accusations that folks on this board were making around the issue of Brian's and Mike's songwriting and crediting cases, specifically the notion that a group of people here still blame Brian the most for Mike not getting the proper credits on those songs.

And damn it all, if I had remembered the Mojo interview sooner, it may have ended sooner rather than spinning off in so many directions.

But reading through, some of those conclusions were coming from sources other than the facts, not just the case but about the nature of songwriting and crediting and publishing in general. So if someone has been misled, or led to believe something based on conjecture rather than actual proof, don't be surprised if someone attempts to correct it.

And it could either be played cool, or lead to more crap.

And, yes, some folks on this thread have what seems to be a regular pattern of shaping their perception of the way people think (i.e. 'opinion' )  into the truth about those people, with absolutely no justification and not enough knowledge or awareness to do that.

And there is no anti-Mike sentiment coming from posting what turned out Mike himself had actually said on the record about the same issues. If anything it upholds Mike's position, confirms that Brian's role was less than I think some people here would like to believe, and points most of the finger at Murry, and later at the legal team Brian had in place who broke the promises at a time Brian was under the authority of a conservator and could not make the decision on his own to "make things right", even though Mike himself says Brian wanted to do just that.

Again, let Mike's comments decide these squabbles, unless someone would try to challenge them too.  

But hey, remember, someone says I'm anti-Mike, so it must be true, right?  

I am an admitted Kokomaoist, Mike Love-er, Love-Child, so I get sensitive about this stuff. But hey, if there's any band worth getting sensitive about, it's these guys, right?

Dumb question of the evening: are the court transcripts of where WIBN got discussed?

[Cam Mott]

Yep, Mike thinks it was mostly his Uncle. Mike and Brian can stand up to Murry and fire him. Why didn't they stand up to Murry on this? Mike wasn't a publisher I suppose. Mike brought it up several times to Brian, apparently before 1969 when Murry and Brian still had the publishing, and Brian didn't fix it but profited from it. Sounds like Mike was happy with what he thought happened.

[Autotune]

I understand this is a sort of grey area which can be sorted out one way or the other.

For me, the "goodnight baby" section sounds like something more than a mere ad-lib. It sounds like a thought-out coda idea. Perhaps if it were the main lead singer of the song singing something, it would sound like an improv. But it does not. And, I think, that musicians who covered the song realize that it is not, for I don't know of any version of the song that omits that part.

Try to imagine your favorite song without its lead singer's ad-libs. Now try to imagine WIBN without the "goodnight baby" coda idea. To me, it sounds empty and its radio single potential would suffer if such idea is taken away.

It is not a full lyric. It is more than mere ad-lib. It must suck being Asher and, overnight, almost 30 years after, having to make room for somebody else in the song credits. But if I were Jury, and someone convinced me they came up with that part, I would give credit to that someone as I think it is an integral part of the song.

[Sheriff John Stone]

Roger Christian, Tony Asher, Van Dyke Parks, and Jack Reiley are lucky men. Apparently Brian's "shakiness", mental illness, and auditory illusions that kept him from correcting songwriting credits were only present when it applied to Mike Love.

My question isn't who was responsible for leaving Mike off the songwriting credits, but why Brian didn't correct them. Brian Wilson from 1965 through 1982 wielded a lot of power, certainly enough to add Mike Love's name to some songwriting credits. Literally, all it would have taken was a phone call from Brian to his attorneys. I believe the Brian Wilson that Mike was describing in the Mojo article was the Brian Wilson at a much later stage in his life. That Brian Wilson was incompetent, nobody's debating that, not to mention Mike wasn't going to burn a bridge with a magazine interview, especially a bridge that leads him back to Brian Wilson.

After all of the debate, much of it informative, I still think it boils down to Brian Wilson (from 1965-1983) not caring enough to do anything about it. In my opinion, from a lot of things I've read, I think Brian had some issues with caring about things, you know, a character thing. But, Brian gave us Pet Sounds and Mike didn't, so, we will continue to have threads like this.

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

I understand this is a sort of grey area which can be sorted out one way or the other.

For me, the "goodnight baby" section sounds like something more than a mere ad-lib. It sounds like a thought-out coda idea. Perhaps if it were the main lead singer of the song singing something, it would sound like an improv. But it does not. And, I think, that musicians who covered the song realize that it is not, for I don't know of any version of the song that omits that part.

Try to imagine your favorite song without its lead singer's ad-libs. Now try to imagine WIBN without the "goodnight baby" coda idea. To me, it sounds empty and its radio single potential would suffer if such idea is taken away.

It is not a full lyric. It is more than mere ad-lib. It must suck being Asher and, overnight, almost 30 years after, having to make room for somebody else in the song credits. But if I were Jury, and someone convinced me they came up with that part, I would give credit to that someone as I think it is an integral part of the song.

Not really a grey area in that Mike's coda was always on the sheet music for the song, (which can be purchased online for as little as 99 cents ) which is pretty much THE word in the song publishing universe.... It doesn't stop after the bridge and "wouldn't it be nice" and say "Eh, the rest is just an ad-libbed coda"

[Mujan, 8@$+@Rc| of a Blue Wizard]

Mind sharing a link to that sheet music? Any chance you know of any sheet music for SMiLE online as well?

(I know asking for audio downloads is frowned upon but this is ok, right?)

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

Mind sharing a link to that sheet music? Any chance you know of any sheet music for SMiLE online as well?

(I know asking for audio downloads is frowned upon but this is ok, right?)

Just Google "Wouldn't It Be Nice: sheet music" under "images"

[Mujan, 8@$+@Rc| of a Blue Wizard]

Mind sharing a link to that sheet music? Any chance you know of any sheet music for SMiLE online as well?

(I know asking for audio downloads is frowned upon but this is ok, right?)

Just Google "Wouldn't It Be Nice: sheet music" under "images"

Didn't expect it to be that simple. Now I just feel silly.