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Author Topic: Mike's contribution to Kokomo  (Read 15945 times)
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« Reply #75 on: June 06, 2016, 11:41:50 PM »

This is ripped from the original album version, not a video of some guy filming audio from his car radio - better quality and the album cover graphic too, which has Scott McKenzie's name and portrait: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAuqngA9CuM
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« Reply #76 on: June 07, 2016, 02:13:41 AM »

This is ripped from the original album version, not a video of some guy filming audio from his car radio - better quality and the album cover graphic too, which has Scott McKenzie's name and portrait: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAuqngA9CuM

For those like myself who can't access it for some reason, this one is still around:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8JqzFg1OGs
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« Reply #77 on: June 07, 2016, 03:13:23 AM »

Thanks John K.  I thought I was doomed to never find out what it sounded like.
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« Reply #78 on: June 07, 2016, 04:08:02 AM »

How much is known about Mike's part in the creation of this tune? How much was written by the time he got involved ?


I count 161 words in The Beach Boys' version of "Kokomo" (not counting repeats of the chorus hook line and "bridge" part sung by Carl).
Comparing the lyrics of the two versions, I count 51 words that appear in both (aside from isolated instances of common words like "a" - I only count such words when they appear in phrases such as "a steel drum band" that appear in both versions). Therefore, we can say that 51 of the 161 words were penned by John Phillips and/or Scott McKenzie. Mike has credited Terry Melcher with the "bridge" (sung by Carl), which is 27 words. That means Mike penned 83 words, or 52% of the lyrics if you round up. Melcher wrote 17% of the lyrics if you round up. Musically, it's a bit harder to define, but we could at least say that Melcher composed the 17% that accompany his lyrics, and Mike composed the notes that accompany the 13% of the lyrics from the chorus hook line, plus a few lines here and there that he changed melodically from Phillip's original.

  

I'm going to modify what I wrote above about the authorship of the music - It's not completely accurate to say Terry Melcher only composed 17% of the music, and Mike 13%, based on the percentage of lyrics that their musical contributions accompanied...because (and I'm surprised no one else has pointed this out!), the same music repeats for all the verses, so it's probably somewhat closer to accurate to say John Phillips (maybe with Scott McKenzie), Mike, and Terry each came up with about a third of the music in The Beach Boys' version. Phillips wrote the verse music, Mike wrote the chorus music, and Terry wrote the "bridge" music (which I would actually call the second half of the chorus, with Mike's "Aruba, Jamaica" hook being the first half). If you charted it all out bar-by-bar, it would probably be about equal for each section one time. As for Scott McKenzie, I wonder if maybe he just wrote the bridge in the original version, which of course wasn't used in the BB's version, but legally he had to be included in the credit and royalty split with the others. Just a theory.

Anyways, the material that survives from the JP original seems to be about 31.5% of the words and about 33% of the music. What Mike came up with accounts for about 51.5% of the words and 33% of the music. And what Terry added amounts to about 17% of the words and the final 33% of the music.
It sounds to me like the chorus music is already in there. It's a theme throughout the original, starting with the intro.

Hmmm...I'm not hearin' it. The beat may be the same (albeit slower), but that melodic hookline sung to the words of "Aruba, Jamaica, etc." isn't.
Different ears I guess. I hear the same 8 bars with the same structure and progression. Put the intros against each other. Then listen to the original intro against that section of the chorus. The cover is more elaborate, for sure; more filled out.

OK, chord progression, maybe, but not melody.
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« Reply #79 on: June 07, 2016, 04:12:53 AM »

How much is known about Mike's part in the creation of this tune? How much was written by the time he got involved ?


I count 161 words in The Beach Boys' version of "Kokomo" (not counting repeats of the chorus hook line and "bridge" part sung by Carl).
Comparing the lyrics of the two versions, I count 51 words that appear in both (aside from isolated instances of common words like "a" - I only count such words when they appear in phrases such as "a steel drum band" that appear in both versions). Therefore, we can say that 51 of the 161 words were penned by John Phillips and/or Scott McKenzie. Mike has credited Terry Melcher with the "bridge" (sung by Carl), which is 27 words. That means Mike penned 83 words, or 52% of the lyrics if you round up. Melcher wrote 17% of the lyrics if you round up. Musically, it's a bit harder to define, but we could at least say that Melcher composed the 17% that accompany his lyrics, and Mike composed the notes that accompany the 13% of the lyrics from the chorus hook line, plus a few lines here and there that he changed melodically from Phillip's original.

  

I'm going to modify what I wrote above about the authorship of the music - It's not completely accurate to say Terry Melcher only composed 17% of the music, and Mike 13%, based on the percentage of lyrics that their musical contributions accompanied...because (and I'm surprised no one else has pointed this out!), the same music repeats for all the verses, so it's probably somewhat closer to accurate to say John Phillips (maybe with Scott McKenzie), Mike, and Terry each came up with about a third of the music in The Beach Boys' version. Phillips wrote the verse music, Mike wrote the chorus music, and Terry wrote the "bridge" music (which I would actually call the second half of the chorus, with Mike's "Aruba, Jamaica" hook being the first half). If you charted it all out bar-by-bar, it would probably be about equal for each section one time. As for Scott McKenzie, I wonder if maybe he just wrote the bridge in the original version, which of course wasn't used in the BB's version, but legally he had to be included in the credit and royalty split with the others. Just a theory.

Anyways, the material that survives from the JP original seems to be about 31.5% of the words and about 33% of the music. What Mike came up with accounts for about 51.5% of the words and 33% of the music. And what Terry added amounts to about 17% of the words and the final 33% of the music.

I just have a question or two that stuck out to me as I read this, keeping in mind I posted earlier what Andrew Doe reported about Mike's writing credit on Kokomo, which at that time was "Mike wrote very little of the lyric":

Phillips and Melcher passed away over a decade ago, and McKenzie in 2012.

Where is the information coming from when it involves researching and calculating specific percentages of credit, is this info coming from Mike directly, is this part of a project, etc?

And the follow up question is - Why is there a call for such detailed breakdowns of Kokomo's writing process in the first place? It was a John Phillips song that got doctored up and rearranged, with Mike adding the "Aruba Jamaica..." part, unless he's saying he wrote the chord changes and melody too.



Umm...it came from me...I typed out the lyrics to both versions, highlighted in blue the lyrics from the BBs version that appeared in the JP original version, counted up the words, and calculated the percentages myself. Because I was curious. No other reason. FYI, I did the same thing with "Sail On Sailor" awhile back - comparing the KGB version, which does not bear Jack Rieley's name in the credits, with the BBs version, to try and determine how much of the lyrics in the latter were contributed by Jack. I like to keep busy. Smiley
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« Reply #80 on: June 07, 2016, 05:01:01 AM »

And we're grateful that you do, C-man! Is there a thread here that contains that SOS lyrical analysis? Would love to read it!
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« Reply #81 on: June 07, 2016, 05:32:17 AM »

And we're grateful that you do, C-man! Is there a thread here that contains that SOS lyrical analysis? Would love to read it!

I don't believe I ever posted those results, but using the same methodology to compare the KGB version to the BBs - and assuming that Ray Kennedy wrote all of the lyrics to the KGB version aside from the hook line "Sail on, sail on sailor", which VDP claims for himself - it would seem that a total of only 8 of Ray's words were used in the BB's version, out of 135 total. So, just under 6%.

The specific words were: "Often frightened, unenlightened", "stumble", "hearbreak", "wail", and "the thunder". It would seem that the rest (aside from the aforementioned hook line) are from the pen of Jack Rieley. It breaks down like this: Jack Rieley: 91%, Ray Kennedy: about 6%, Van Dyke Parks: about 3%.
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« Reply #82 on: June 07, 2016, 06:45:01 AM »

This is ripped from the original album version, not a video of some guy filming audio from his car radio - better quality and the album cover graphic too, which has Scott McKenzie's name and portrait: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAuqngA9CuM

For those like myself who can't access it for some reason, this one is still around:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8JqzFg1OGs


Thanks John K.  I thought I was doomed to never find out what it sounded like.


It must be unavailable outside the US or something, copyright issues or whatever the case.
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« Reply #83 on: June 07, 2016, 06:53:44 AM »

How much is known about Mike's part in the creation of this tune? How much was written by the time he got involved ?


I count 161 words in The Beach Boys' version of "Kokomo" (not counting repeats of the chorus hook line and "bridge" part sung by Carl).
Comparing the lyrics of the two versions, I count 51 words that appear in both (aside from isolated instances of common words like "a" - I only count such words when they appear in phrases such as "a steel drum band" that appear in both versions). Therefore, we can say that 51 of the 161 words were penned by John Phillips and/or Scott McKenzie. Mike has credited Terry Melcher with the "bridge" (sung by Carl), which is 27 words. That means Mike penned 83 words, or 52% of the lyrics if you round up. Melcher wrote 17% of the lyrics if you round up. Musically, it's a bit harder to define, but we could at least say that Melcher composed the 17% that accompany his lyrics, and Mike composed the notes that accompany the 13% of the lyrics from the chorus hook line, plus a few lines here and there that he changed melodically from Phillip's original.

  

I'm going to modify what I wrote above about the authorship of the music - It's not completely accurate to say Terry Melcher only composed 17% of the music, and Mike 13%, based on the percentage of lyrics that their musical contributions accompanied...because (and I'm surprised no one else has pointed this out!), the same music repeats for all the verses, so it's probably somewhat closer to accurate to say John Phillips (maybe with Scott McKenzie), Mike, and Terry each came up with about a third of the music in The Beach Boys' version. Phillips wrote the verse music, Mike wrote the chorus music, and Terry wrote the "bridge" music (which I would actually call the second half of the chorus, with Mike's "Aruba, Jamaica" hook being the first half). If you charted it all out bar-by-bar, it would probably be about equal for each section one time. As for Scott McKenzie, I wonder if maybe he just wrote the bridge in the original version, which of course wasn't used in the BB's version, but legally he had to be included in the credit and royalty split with the others. Just a theory.

Anyways, the material that survives from the JP original seems to be about 31.5% of the words and about 33% of the music. What Mike came up with accounts for about 51.5% of the words and 33% of the music. And what Terry added amounts to about 17% of the words and the final 33% of the music.

I just have a question or two that stuck out to me as I read this, keeping in mind I posted earlier what Andrew Doe reported about Mike's writing credit on Kokomo, which at that time was "Mike wrote very little of the lyric":

Phillips and Melcher passed away over a decade ago, and McKenzie in 2012.

Where is the information coming from when it involves researching and calculating specific percentages of credit, is this info coming from Mike directly, is this part of a project, etc?

And the follow up question is - Why is there a call for such detailed breakdowns of Kokomo's writing process in the first place? It was a John Phillips song that got doctored up and rearranged, with Mike adding the "Aruba Jamaica..." part, unless he's saying he wrote the chord changes and melody too.



Umm...it came from me...I typed out the lyrics to both versions, highlighted in blue the lyrics from the BBs version that appeared in the JP original version, counted up the words, and calculated the percentages myself. Because I was curious. No other reason. FYI, I did the same thing with "Sail On Sailor" awhile back - comparing the KGB version, which does not bear Jack Rieley's name in the credits, with the BBs version, to try and determine how much of the lyrics in the latter were contributed by Jack. I like to keep busy. Smiley

I can understand that for sure, but when there are more than two writers involved, in this case I'm mostly zeroing in on Love/Melcher and what they did after the original Phillips track, it stuck out that the percentages were so specific down to the 1% variances. How is there any way to define to that degree what Love wrote versus what Melcher wrote on the track when 3 of the 4 writers are no longer alive? Unless there are interviews where they were specific about who wrote what.

Another aspect would be regarding words versus music, on anything "new" that was added post-Phillips. Wouldn't the odds be that Melcher was more of the "music" that was added to Phillips' song, or wouldn't it be more logical that a guy who writes and produces music would have done more with the chords and melody, etc, versus Mike whose stock and trade is more in writing lyrics?
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« Reply #84 on: June 07, 2016, 07:03:43 AM »

Not that the topic at hand has anything specifically to do with the actual royalty split on the song, but it's worth noting that it's totally possible that the actual royalty split on the song is not 25/25/25/25. Even assuming all four names are credited as contributing to both words and music, the copyright/publishing agreement may have outlined more or less royalties for some of the writers.
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« Reply #85 on: June 07, 2016, 07:08:51 AM »

Not that the topic at hand has anything specifically to do with the actual royalty split on the song, but it's worth noting that it's totally possible that the actual royalty split on the song is not 25/25/25/25. Even assuming all four names are credited as contributing to both words and music, the copyright/publishing agreement may have outlined more or less royalties for some of the writers.

That is an interesting point. It would had to have been negotiated and agreed by all parties I'd think, and in this case there was a pre-existing song and concept that had two sections, more or less, added after the fact without input from the original writers. I wonder how that was decided. Howard Stern brought it up to John Phillips on his WOR TV show, about crediting since it was technically Phillips' song, but this issue of splitting up the percentages legally is an interesting one.
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« Reply #86 on: June 07, 2016, 07:26:58 AM »

I recall, for instance, that someone mentioned that even on the songs Mike won the lawsuit on in the 90s, he didn't necessarily have 50% of the royalties assigned to him. The theory being, I think, that even though the songs read "Words and Music by Wilson and Love", that Brian typically wrote most or all of the music, while Brian wrote *some* of the words on some of those songs, and thus Brian might get most or all of the 50% music share, and then they would maybe split the lyric share.

I don't know if there's any firm info, but I recall someone digging up info suggesting Mike collects less than 50% of the royalties on some of the "Wilson/Love" songs. Don't know how accurate that might be, of course.
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« Reply #87 on: June 07, 2016, 07:41:37 AM »

I recall, for instance, that someone mentioned that even on the songs Mike won the lawsuit on in the 90s, he didn't necessarily have 50% of the royalties assigned to him. The theory being, I think, that even though the songs read "Words and Music by Wilson and Love", that Brian typically wrote most or all of the music, while Brian wrote *some* of the words on some of those songs, and thus Brian might get most or all of the 50% music share, and then they would maybe split the lyric share.

I don't know if there's any firm info, but I recall someone digging up info suggesting Mike collects less than 50% of the royalties on some of the "Wilson/Love" songs. Don't know how accurate that might be, of course.

With a song like Kokomo, it would be an even more interesting question because the new parts were added after the fact, or after the original song and idea was already registered and published. Unless he signed off on the whole deal for a cash-out payment or something, consider Scott McKenzie may have agreed to a 50/50 split with Phillips for the original version, or even something less, and now his split on the revised version would obviously decrease after two additional writers come in and revise the song.

If all parties agreed after the fact, and let's say the split was 25% across the board for each writer both original and on the revised version, then it's a done deal, it's an equal split. And obviously McKenzie would make a boatload more money even if his percentage was far less because the revision was a smash hit. But if McKenzie wanted to, he could have raised an issue about his percentage when his credit was reduced to allow the other two writers to come into the share, two writers who were not involved in writing the original but whose revision went to #1 on the charts while the original basically sank into obscurity.
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« Reply #88 on: June 07, 2016, 07:58:29 AM »

Its pretty standard practice here in Nashville to equally split the publishing as a result of ANY contribution. We have a saying "add a word split a third"  It kind of keeps things sane. Thats why second engineers like myself NEVER blurt out even the most obvious suggestions unless asked, which we never are. I've been in many a session where i've thought of the lyric in my head before the band or lyricist. If i were to mention it, I would probably never work again with that artist. Sometimes i think i've even come up with better solutions. In any event, i think that Mike deserves to be credited equally with the other writers. If John Lennon came up with the guitar lick to Day Tripper and Paul wrote the entire balance of the song,  who could argue that Lennon didn't deserve 50%. Thats  why those two split EVERYTHING 50 50. In the case of Kokomo, who is to say that the Aruba, Jamaica line isn't the hook that made the song a hit?
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« Reply #89 on: June 07, 2016, 08:04:19 AM »

Its pretty standard practice here in Nashville to equally split the publishing as a result of ANY contribution. We have a saying "add a word split a third"  It kind of keeps things sane. Thats why second engineers like myself NEVER blurt out even the most obvious suggestions unless asked, which we never are. I've been in many a session where i've thought of the lyric in my head before the band or lyricist. If i were to mention it, I would probably never work again with that artist. Sometimes i think i've even come up with better solutions. In any event, i think that Mike deserves to be credited equally with the other writers. If John Lennon came up with the guitar lick to Day Tripper and Paul wrote the entire balance of the song,  who could argue that Lennon didn't deserve 50%. Thats  why those two split EVERYTHING 50 50. In the case of Kokomo, who is to say that the Aruba, Jamaica line isn't the hook that made the song a hit?

Agreed. With every collaboration I have done, so far, the split was equal whether 50/50, 1/3 each, etc. Like Lennon/McCartney that is simply the best policy, however when the money starts raining in and one of the collaborators might get a bulldog of a lawyer who sees a quick payout on the horizon, watch the friendly split come into question and someone may go line by line or note by note to get a bigger piece along with back royalties.

Related to Lennon/McCartney, I know I've brought it up before, but how many of Ringo Starr's malaprops and bizarre phrases he'd say on a daily basis made their way into Lennon/McCartney songs? I'm thinking 100% "A Hard Days Night", and how if he wanted to Ringo could make a strong case decades after the fact that both a film and a smash hit single (and album) came as a direct result of a phrase he and he alone used and which Lennon built a song around and which the filmmakers built a film around.

Without the title "A Hard Days Night", it could be argued the results may not have been quite as catchy and maybe not as successful.
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« Reply #90 on: June 07, 2016, 08:13:28 AM »

I think a lot of people might disagree that adding a riff or one lyric line deserves 50% credit. If a song can stand on its own and be identifiable as *that* song *without* that riff, should the writer of the riff deserve 50%?

Ringo, George Harrison, and George Martin all should get their names on a good little hunk of Beatles songs in this scenario.

I'd also argue that Lennon and McCartney didn't split everything 50/50 because they might add riffs to each other's songs. It was a very specific business arrangement. If they felt anybody contributing a riff deserved credit, then the other two Beatles and George Martin would have had their names on some "Lennon/McCartney" songs.

The "A Whiter Shade of Pale" case was an interesting one, where they were able to demonstrate that the song could stand on its own (and had been written) without Matthew Fisher's organ motif, but his contribution was ruled as significant enough to get his name added (no back royalties, though, for waiting so long). That's a weird case, because if I record a cover version of the song without Fisher's *only* contribution to the song, Fisher's name remains and he gets royalties.

Also worth nothing is that, even in that case, I don't believe Fisher got a 50/50 cut, or even a 33/33/33 split (since there were two writers beyond himself). I think he got a 50/50 cut of just the music, or some other sort of "sub-percentage."

There was a poster here (perhaps adamsghost?) who described a scenario where another band member is tired of losing out on songwriting credits, and proposes co-writing a song. But this band member doesn't want to sit down and write a song from scratch. It's more of a "write a song and bring it in, and I'll change a few things and then I'll take some credit" scenario, and I can see how some writers wouldn't find that appealing or fair.

Some bands are so freaking rich (or made their deal before they were famous) that they are able to be very magnanimous and split credits among everybody equally, or if someone makes a small but key contribution, give that person credit. In the case of the Beatles, I don't think they cared in many cases. Even Ringo announces "It Don't Come Easy" as a song written with Harrison, but Harrison never asked to have his name on it. Similarly, Ringo supposedly added a line to Clapton/Cream's "Badge" and never cared for credit.
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« Reply #91 on: June 07, 2016, 08:24:43 AM »

This may seem like a silly question, but did the "pretty mama" lyric perhaps resonate with some female fans who were mothers? Could that have helped the song's appeal? While it's not super common as far as I know, I guess the word "mama" is sometimes used just as a nickname for a female (regardless if she's a mother or not); I'm assuming Mike's intention was just to rhyme a word for a woman with the word "Bahama", and that he wasn't necessarily intending for the "mother" reference to be taken that way, even if it possibly still might have been by some fans.
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« Reply #92 on: June 07, 2016, 08:50:58 AM »

I come back to the issue of songwriting in general, and how it truly is a case-by-case situation where there may be some accepted templates, there may be some accepted ways to determine credits, but ultimately there is no one-size-fits-all that applies across the board. It's up to however the writers, managers, publishers, labels, lawyers, etc manage to emerge and agree or disagree after coming out of the process. I don't think people who have not been involved in either writing or registering songs with collaborators have an idea of just how random the process can be.

I do think that both the financial fortunes of both the song and the songwriters play a large role in the cases when these things go to court. In some cases it is about ego too, and in others it's a sense of not getting credit, like all of the R&B and blues artists who suddenly saw the name Morris Levy credited on their songs when Levy had nothing to do with writing the song. But like Harrison, Starr, etc in some cases they had things they agreed to and that's that, or else they're in a position where if they contributed to a song, it all went into the same pot and they were successful as a collective no matter who gets on the label or who gets a cut of the checks.

"A Whiter Shade Of Pale" is even MORE interesting than most, because that organ line was an amalgam of Bach phrases and progressions, there are actually parts of several Bach pieces that could lay claim to that organ part. So the actual "writing" of that part went back to Bach, it could be argued, only he can't take the case to court obviously! And it gets into how much of a key hook in a song that sounds like it came from another piece can be borrowed and reworked into something new versus what needs to be credited to the original composer.

Some say both the recent Sam Smith and Robin Thicke/Pharrell court decisions have set precedents in the courts that could open the floodgates for copyright and credit claims for decades to come, where the burden of proof might be far less than it had been.
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« Reply #93 on: June 07, 2016, 08:58:12 AM »

I recall, for instance, that someone mentioned that even on the songs Mike won the lawsuit on in the 90s, he didn't necessarily have 50% of the royalties assigned to him. The theory being, I think, that even though the songs read "Words and Music by Wilson and Love", that Brian typically wrote most or all of the music, while Brian wrote *some* of the words on some of those songs, and thus Brian might get most or all of the 50% music share, and then they would maybe split the lyric share.

I don't know if there's any firm info, but I recall someone digging up info suggesting Mike collects less than 50% of the royalties on some of the "Wilson/Love" songs. Don't know how accurate that might be, of course.

It was documentation Brad Elliott turned, for instance Mike only got 25% credit for Good Vibrations.
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« Reply #94 on: June 07, 2016, 09:09:14 AM »

I recall, for instance, that someone mentioned that even on the songs Mike won the lawsuit on in the 90s, he didn't necessarily have 50% of the royalties assigned to him. The theory being, I think, that even though the songs read "Words and Music by Wilson and Love", that Brian typically wrote most or all of the music, while Brian wrote *some* of the words on some of those songs, and thus Brian might get most or all of the 50% music share, and then they would maybe split the lyric share.

I don't know if there's any firm info, but I recall someone digging up info suggesting Mike collects less than 50% of the royalties on some of the "Wilson/Love" songs. Don't know how accurate that might be, of course.

It was documentation Brad Elliott turned, for instance Mike only got 25% credit for Good Vibrations.

That was what Murry's terms were as the one who administered and oversaw the song catalog in the 60's, and other co-writers like Tony Asher signed and agreed to it as a condition of doing their work for hire. Tony specifically was told essentially "take it or leave it" by Murry when he went in to sign the papers. If the argument is whether that was fair or unfair at the time, you'd need to factor in how much of both the song and concept existed prior to each co-writer's contributions, and how the numbers were weighed against the work created. One of Mike's claims that was rejected in the courts around the 2005 case was that Mike was saying a legal partnership had been established between he and Brian like Lennon/McCartney, and the court found no such partnership had existed and no proof could be shown that it was any more than Tony Asher or Gary Usher were actually equal partners legally versus workers for hire who got paid for their work based on that status who agreed to the terms presented to them by Murry as a condition of working on the songs.
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Cam Mott
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« Reply #95 on: June 07, 2016, 09:37:40 AM »

I recall, for instance, that someone mentioned that even on the songs Mike won the lawsuit on in the 90s, he didn't necessarily have 50% of the royalties assigned to him. The theory being, I think, that even though the songs read "Words and Music by Wilson and Love", that Brian typically wrote most or all of the music, while Brian wrote *some* of the words on some of those songs, and thus Brian might get most or all of the 50% music share, and then they would maybe split the lyric share.

I don't know if there's any firm info, but I recall someone digging up info suggesting Mike collects less than 50% of the royalties on some of the "Wilson/Love" songs. Don't know how accurate that might be, of course.

It was documentation Brad Elliott turned, for instance Mike only got 25% credit for Good Vibrations.

That was what Murry's terms were as the one who administered and oversaw the song catalog in the 60's, and other co-writers like Tony Asher signed and agreed to it as a condition of doing their work for hire. Tony specifically was told essentially "take it or leave it" by Murry when he went in to sign the papers. If the argument is whether that was fair or unfair at the time, you'd need to factor in how much of both the song and concept existed prior to each co-writer's contributions, and how the numbers were weighed against the work created. One of Mike's claims that was rejected in the courts around the 2005 case was that Mike was saying a legal partnership had been established between he and Brian like Lennon/McCartney, and the court found no such partnership had existed and no proof could be shown that it was any more than Tony Asher or Gary Usher were actually equal partners legally versus workers for hire who got paid for their work based on that status who agreed to the terms presented to them by Murry as a condition of working on the songs.

But this was 1961 through 1966 and the point is Mike didn't even get the credit he deserved when he did get credit, just like Tony.

Murry was the mouthpiece in that one case for sure, I suppose we don't know who reported/set the terms, possibly a case of Murry not being able to stand up to Brian.  Wink  Then according to VDP "Brian" gave him 50% but I guess it must have been Murry because Brian couldn't stand up to Murry and report/set/reset terms? (<<<---- I'm being ironic)
« Last Edit: June 07, 2016, 11:26:46 AM by Cam Mott » Logged

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« Reply #96 on: June 07, 2016, 02:39:22 PM »

An interesting case is 'Every Breath You Take' by the Police. Though Sting wrote the melody and the lyrics, it was Andy Summers who came up with the guitar riff. And it is that guitar riff which made the record a huge hit.

Now, when Puff Daddy sampled EBYT for his song 'Missing You', he didn't use Sting's lyrics or melody -- only Andy's riff. And yet Sting, not Andy, received the royalties for 'Missing You'.
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« Reply #97 on: June 07, 2016, 03:03:49 PM »

An interesting case is 'Every Breath You Take' by the Police. Though Sting wrote the melody and the lyrics, it was Andy Summers who came up with the guitar riff. And it is that guitar riff which made the record a huge hit.

Now, when Puff Daddy sampled EBYT for his song 'Missing You', he didn't use Sting's lyrics or melody -- only Andy's riff. And yet Sting, not Andy, received the royalties for 'Missing You'.

I should imagine they latched onto the chorus that Faith sings, which is all Sting's work, and the guitar riff belonged with it, so to speak. No idea how that works in terms of copyright...
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« Reply #98 on: June 07, 2016, 08:43:41 PM »

How much is known about Mike's part in the creation of this tune? How much was written by the time he got involved ?


I count 161 words in The Beach Boys' version of "Kokomo" (not counting repeats of the chorus hook line and "bridge" part sung by Carl).
Comparing the lyrics of the two versions, I count 51 words that appear in both (aside from isolated instances of common words like "a" - I only count such words when they appear in phrases such as "a steel drum band" that appear in both versions). Therefore, we can say that 51 of the 161 words were penned by John Phillips and/or Scott McKenzie. Mike has credited Terry Melcher with the "bridge" (sung by Carl), which is 27 words. That means Mike penned 83 words, or 52% of the lyrics if you round up. Melcher wrote 17% of the lyrics if you round up. Musically, it's a bit harder to define, but we could at least say that Melcher composed the 17% that accompany his lyrics, and Mike composed the notes that accompany the 13% of the lyrics from the chorus hook line, plus a few lines here and there that he changed melodically from Phillip's original.

  

I'm going to modify what I wrote above about the authorship of the music - It's not completely accurate to say Terry Melcher only composed 17% of the music, and Mike 13%, based on the percentage of lyrics that their musical contributions accompanied...because (and I'm surprised no one else has pointed this out!), the same music repeats for all the verses, so it's probably somewhat closer to accurate to say John Phillips (maybe with Scott McKenzie), Mike, and Terry each came up with about a third of the music in The Beach Boys' version. Phillips wrote the verse music, Mike wrote the chorus music, and Terry wrote the "bridge" music (which I would actually call the second half of the chorus, with Mike's "Aruba, Jamaica" hook being the first half). If you charted it all out bar-by-bar, it would probably be about equal for each section one time. As for Scott McKenzie, I wonder if maybe he just wrote the bridge in the original version, which of course wasn't used in the BB's version, but legally he had to be included in the credit and royalty split with the others. Just a theory.

Anyways, the material that survives from the JP original seems to be about 31.5% of the words and about 33% of the music. What Mike came up with accounts for about 51.5% of the words and 33% of the music. And what Terry added amounts to about 17% of the words and the final 33% of the music.

I just have a question or two that stuck out to me as I read this, keeping in mind I posted earlier what Andrew Doe reported about Mike's writing credit on Kokomo, which at that time was "Mike wrote very little of the lyric":

Phillips and Melcher passed away over a decade ago, and McKenzie in 2012.

Where is the information coming from when it involves researching and calculating specific percentages of credit, is this info coming from Mike directly, is this part of a project, etc?

And the follow up question is - Why is there a call for such detailed breakdowns of Kokomo's writing process in the first place? It was a John Phillips song that got doctored up and rearranged, with Mike adding the "Aruba Jamaica..." part, unless he's saying he wrote the chord changes and melody too.



Umm...it came from me...I typed out the lyrics to both versions, highlighted in blue the lyrics from the BBs version that appeared in the JP original version, counted up the words, and calculated the percentages myself. Because I was curious. No other reason. FYI, I did the same thing with "Sail On Sailor" awhile back - comparing the KGB version, which does not bear Jack Rieley's name in the credits, with the BBs version, to try and determine how much of the lyrics in the latter were contributed by Jack. I like to keep busy. Smiley

I can understand that for sure, but when there are more than two writers involved, in this case I'm mostly zeroing in on Love/Melcher and what they did after the original Phillips track, it stuck out that the percentages were so specific down to the 1% variances. How is there any way to define to that degree what Love wrote versus what Melcher wrote on the track when 3 of the 4 writers are no longer alive? Unless there are interviews where they were specific about who wrote what.

Another aspect would be regarding words versus music, on anything "new" that was added post-Phillips. Wouldn't the odds be that Melcher was more of the "music" that was added to Phillips' song, or wouldn't it be more logical that a guy who writes and produces music would have done more with the chords and melody, etc, versus Mike whose stock and trade is more in writing lyrics?

I'm pretty sure there's interviews out there from back in the day (the late '80s or early '90s) where Melcher and Love both talk about what they specifically added. Mike says he added the "Aruba, Jamaica" part (words and music), as well as rewriting the lyrics in the verses, and Terry says he added the part Carl sings (words and music). Or Mike says what each of them did, as does Terry. Pretty sure I remember reading this stuff back when all the writers were alive. It's not hard to imagine Mike coming up with the melody to the "Aruba, Jamaica" part, along with the words.
« Last Edit: June 07, 2016, 08:45:46 PM by c-man » Logged
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« Reply #99 on: June 07, 2016, 10:12:13 PM »

I'm not sure who already mentioned this, but when Kokomo was still hot as a single and Capitol was looking for follow-ups both singles and a new album, there was an LA Times article (reprinted here often enough that it's easy to search and find for reference) that was written as the band was rehearsing for a new batch of stage shows, I think it mentioned the dancers too. In that article if not others from around the Kokomo era there were quotes and comments that were suggesting there was indeed an attitude of 'we did this without Brian', so we don't need him to make hits with the Beach Boys.

So whoever mentioned it in this thread, that was actually a sentiment which was coming from press reports and interviews surrounding the Beach Boys.


It would seem that the new article hell-bent on "destroying" the legend of Brian Wilson might come from this same sentiment -a sentiment which I don't necessarily think has exited the minds of all of the living band members. I happen to dearly love a lot of the material the band did without Brian, and some of it is my favorite stuff in the entire catalog... but the fact of the matter is that past the era when Denny was an active contributor to the band, and Carl was motivated to be pushing boundaries and to be progressive, the quality of Brian Wilson-less BB was just simply not there (with some isolated exceptions here and there). It took Wilsons (at least one, minimum) to make the band awesome on an emotional level.

I agree, especially on the last line about emotions. There are some x-factor type elements in music that sometimes can't be defined, but you know it when it's not there. I feel the same about many, many classic bands whose members went solo or who went forward after losing key members. It's just missing that 'something' too often for me at least to connect on that deeper level.

In this case, the facts and the numbers don't lie. When the band was in a position to follow up with new material a #1 single that was all over the pop culture in 1988-89, they had four songwriters and three producers in the core band and they couldn't deliver a full album. Capitol was all but begging them for something to release, and they failed to deliver despite the talent still in the core band, minus Brian Wilson. What they did deliver was both a day late and a dollar short, and despite promoting the heck out of it and offering a remixed version for the UK market, the album sank like a stone as did all related promo tie-ins and the like. It just did not deliver.

I agree with all of this. I do think that Mike has a right to be proud of Kokomo, regardless of the interesting question as to how much he and Terry contributed, but other than this one single, it seems clear that the band was utterly unable to follow up. Perhaps things wouldn't have been much better even if Brian were contributing, but things certainly didn't go very well without him. 
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