gfxgfx
 
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
logo
 
gfx gfx
gfx
680598 Posts in 27600 Topics by 4068 Members - Latest Member: Dae Lims March 28, 2024, 04:59:11 PM
*
gfx*HomeHelpSearchCalendarLoginRegistergfx
gfxgfx
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.       « previous next »
Pages: [1] 2 3 Go Down Print
Author Topic: An interesting view on Brian's "lecherous" lyrics  (Read 19435 times)
♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇
Pissing off drunks since 1978
Global Moderator
*****
Offline Offline

Posts: 11844


🍦🍦 Pet Demon for Sale - $5 or best offer ☮☮


View Profile WWW
« on: August 14, 2006, 05:54:32 PM »

In the Peter Carlin thread, there was a discussion on some of Brian's more infamous lyrics. Some feel that on certain songs ("Hey Little Tomboy", "Lazy Lizzie", ect.) Brian comes across a bit dirty, almost lecherous. I can see why one would think that, but I think people are looking at them in the wrong way.


1). Unlike R Kelly and Michael Jackson (or Chuck Berry, who never sang about it but certainly DID it), Brian's no pedo.

2). Brian actually does have a child-like quality to him, a genuine one at that. Unlike, again, Jacko, who puts on that persona to lure his victims in. Brian possesses less guile than a cheap ripoff of Street Fighter 2 (hope somebody gets that one).

3) Brian has an odd, and at times, sick sense of humor. Take the line: "Pat...pat...pat pat pat her on her butt...but...she's gone to sleep..." Considering the way Brian actually writes lyrics, the "butt" part of it is only there as a joke, because of the line "but she's gone to sleep, be quiet". It's wordplay that actually is very much like Van Dyke Parks ("music hall a costly bow" -> "Holocaust") for example.

4). Brian's lyrics are often free-form, but in an extremely interesting way, sort of like "genius by accident". "The First Time" is a prime example. I think "Lazy Lizzie" fits that category too, esp. considering how the same verse keeps repeating. I think the "Fairy Tale" interpolation is genius. Why? Because here is the dark side of the eternal childhood that the tune conveys. Here, the writer/singer of the song is still in touch with his inner child, only the mood here is sinister, which is a bizarre contrast to the recycled melody. Which melody is recycled? Why, the "Pied Piper" part!  Why is that interesting?  From Wikipedia's entry on the  Pied Piper of Hamelin.

Quote
In 1284, the town of Hamelin was suffering from a dreaded rat infestation. One day, a man claiming to be a rat-catcher approached the villagers with a solution. They promised him a schilling for the head of each rat. The man accepted and thus took a pipe and lured the rats with a song into the Weser river, where all 999,999 drowned. Despite his success, the people reneged on their promise and refused to pay the rat-catcher, reasoning that he had failed to produce the heads. He left the town, but returned several weeks later. While the inhabitants were in the church, he played his pipe again, this time attracting the children of Hamelin. One hundred and thirty boys and girls followed him out of the town, where they were lured into a cave and sealed inside. Depending on the version, at most two children remained behind. Other versions claim that the Piper returned the children after the villagers paid several times the original amount of gold.

So, once again, Brian is in the Pied Piper role, albeit in this case a little more directly than would at first appear.
Logged

Need your song mixed/mastered? Contact me at fear2stop@yahoo.com. Serious inquiries only, please!
Jason
Guest
« Reply #1 on: August 14, 2006, 07:40:11 PM »

What proof do we have that Jacko did what he was accused of?
Logged
♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇
Pissing off drunks since 1978
Global Moderator
*****
Offline Offline

Posts: 11844


🍦🍦 Pet Demon for Sale - $5 or best offer ☮☮


View Profile WWW
« Reply #2 on: August 14, 2006, 08:34:56 PM »

More like, what proof is there that he *didn't* do any of the accused?
Anyway...about Brian...
Logged

Need your song mixed/mastered? Contact me at fear2stop@yahoo.com. Serious inquiries only, please!
MBE
Guest
« Reply #3 on: August 14, 2006, 11:48:31 PM »

People have very strong opinions on Michael Jackson and it really doesn't seem worth debating because I have found people won''t budge from how they percieve him. I have one point to make though

Please understrand I respect Dennis in many ways and if you don't want to read an unpleasent fact about him I suggest you skip this post. This is a very stickey and I am sorry if I offend anyone. Billy I think you are great and I am sorry almost for posting this but I feel this needs to be put into perspective.

I don't want to tarnish his memory as he has meant so much to me but Dennis was arrested after being accused of sleeping with an underage girl in 1978. Anything further then that is speculation, but Gaines (as I have said before not always the most trusted source) wrote that Dennis' didn't let age stand in the way of who he went to bed with.  Now if (and I am not saying this happened) Dennis gave teens drugs or booze and then had his way with them do you see him as a preditor or a stud? If they were boys or girls is there anything but a lifestyle difference?

Brian did marry Marilyn when she was aged 16. Not that he was THAT much older then her but if I at age 21 (in 1997) had been dating a 15 year old I think my family would have put me away.

I am not passing judgement here. Times have changed in how America looks at age and sexual attraction. I do not let how I view somones private life get in the way of how I feel about their music. Many of may favorite artists did things that only fame or the moral code of yesteryear let them get away with. This does not stop me from liking Brian, Dennis, Michael, Jerry Lee, James Brown, Ike Turner, etc. in any fashion.

As an aside, as far as Brian's feelings on Michael go, a 1998 interview with Index has him speaking fondly of him.  He basically says that he has a lot in common with Jackson family wise as far as their fathers and brothers went.
« Last Edit: August 14, 2006, 11:59:19 PM by MBE » Logged
Andrew G. Doe
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Offline Offline

Gender: Male
Posts: 17767


The triumph of The Hickey Script !


View Profile WWW
« Reply #4 on: August 15, 2006, 12:06:05 AM »

I don't think there's much room for doubt in the "Lazy Lizzie" lyric:

Three-fifteen
And the bell starts ringing
The girls start walking home from school

Three fifteen
And the bells keeps on ringing
And everything is getting cool

It's so hard to walk home
When you're walking alone
I slow down in my car
And I pull to the curb.

Here in the UK, that's called "curb crawling", and you can be arrested for it. Brings to mind the Errol Flynn story: he was parked outside a Hollywood girls school at home time and when asked what he was doing by a cop replied "just looking, officer". The reply was an invitation to get his ass out of there, and quickly.
Logged

The four sweetest words in my vocabulary: "This poster is ignored".
Smilin Ed H
Guest
« Reply #5 on: August 15, 2006, 01:08:08 AM »

Yeah he was with David Niven, wasn't he?

Did BW do this or is he writing about a character in a song?

In real-life it's pretty indefensible, but young girls and rock stars have often "mixed".  Just listened to Jackson Browne on VH1 talking about the song Rosie and how it was inspired by his drummer getting off with a sixteen year-old.

I'd like to think BW was writing from the POV of another character and have long thought the Love You/New Album type stuff was in part due to therapy to take him back to a more (ironically) innocent time, as was the concentration on, and musical referencing to, old rock and roll numbers.  (So, merda, it's all Landy's fault). Of course, Lazy Lizzie was written earlier and I do recall the NME article where he seemed to be hanging out with some young (17?) girl - and I do remember the Gaines section on DW and how he preferred to do something other than have full sex with the younger girls...

Again, not to defend their behaviour, but I'd bet that a lot of stars from the late 60s-70s have similarly young skeletons in their closets (or in Chuck Berry's case, older women in the toilets) - and, while this is not meant as a defence, you could go further back and look at Flynn and Chaplin...  Hell, Oliver Reed married a 16 year-old when he was in his 40s - not that we should be looking to him as any kind of model citizen.
« Last Edit: August 15, 2006, 01:40:56 AM by Smilin Ed H » Logged
MBE
Guest
« Reply #6 on: August 15, 2006, 03:08:48 AM »

The way society views age and sex and the mixing of the two has changed a lot. Even now some young girls get matched up with old men in third world countries. I don't defend it or think it's right but that's because my upbringing went strongly against it. There are levels of course Brian really loved Marilyn. Perhaps it wasn't in an entireley healthy way but the groupie thing is quite different. Jerry Lee and Myra loved each other too, but again their behavior is not accepted in the western culture of 2006

The NME 1980 article was talking about Debbie Keil and she was already in her late 20s I think. She has told me that Nick Kent was full of baloney and that Brian wasen't eating cigarette ash etc.
Logged
Smilin Ed H
Guest
« Reply #7 on: August 15, 2006, 04:39:45 AM »

Ah, sorry about that.  He says she looked about 16 - but I know what you mean about Kent.
Logged
♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇
Pissing off drunks since 1978
Global Moderator
*****
Offline Offline

Posts: 11844


🍦🍦 Pet Demon for Sale - $5 or best offer ☮☮


View Profile WWW
« Reply #8 on: August 15, 2006, 03:46:03 PM »

Kent is a liar, plain and simple. Either that, or the research he supposedly does for his writings is performed by mentally challenged chimps. More likely, a combination of both.
Logged

Need your song mixed/mastered? Contact me at fear2stop@yahoo.com. Serious inquiries only, please!
MBE
Guest
« Reply #9 on: August 15, 2006, 09:04:32 PM »

Kent apperently had some emotional and drug problems. He is one of the people who really made the Beach Boys myth overrtake their reality. Truly regreatable that he made access that he enjoyed so hard to come by for legit writers.
Logged
Bicyclerider
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 2132


View Profile
« Reply #10 on: August 16, 2006, 01:10:13 AM »

In the case of Lazy Lizzie, we have to remember it's a song - Brian in the present tense of when he's singing it isn't doing it in reality (at least that we know about) or saying it's OK to curb trawl at his age.  I always took it as him remembering doing that in high school - when it IS OK to curb trawl high school girls.  The same goes for the lyrics of Love You (Roller skating child), or even the most famous example, Hey Little Tomboy - the singer is playing the part of a male high schooler watching a fellow high school tomboy "turn into a girl."  The problem comes in when the Beach Boys, with their mature voices as adults, sing those lyrics with the audience's recognition that they are adults.  That makes it creepy and they should have realized that would make it creepy.

In some ways this kind of song subject matter isn't that different from other songs written from the perspective of youth - how ridiculous is it when a nearly 40 year old Mike sings about how he digs surfin' in Hawaii the most in Kona Coast?  Part of their "descent into self parody" in the later years involved recycling the youth and high school themes of their early hits, no matter how absurd it seemed for them to be singing about such things as adults. 
Logged
El Goodo
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 38


coffee man


View Profile
« Reply #11 on: August 16, 2006, 02:22:46 AM »

Brians lyrics have a habit of being painfully truthful and personal, think Til I Die, think H.E.L.P, think Adult Child, think Love You. Is it so hard to believe that a drug-addled Wilson in the 70's may have been a tad lecherous at this time. Some may not want to believe that there is substance to something like Lazy Lizzie as some of us hold Brian up in to much of an untouchable pedestal. He may or may not have indulged in a bit of kerb-crawling but I think he certainly was digging the schoolies at the time.
Certainly in the Uk in the 70's the schoolgirl/gymslip thang was held up as an erotic risque image in media in a way that would be condemned as paedophilia now. It wasn't right then but it certainly was not the 'media hanging offence' it is now. Brian sang about something he did, or would have liked to do , end of.
Logged
Bicyclerider
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 2132


View Profile
« Reply #12 on: August 16, 2006, 04:53:03 AM »

The schoolgirl sexpot image is still very much with us - Brittney Spear's first video, anyone?

with all the scandal surrounding Brian's life, I doubt he was in addition hanging out at the high school in the 70's checking out the girls, but who knows.  It seems it was part of his fantasy life and remembrance of more innocent times to me, that's why I feel it's wrong to twist it into something perverted.
Logged
Lola Jane
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 56



View Profile
« Reply #13 on: August 16, 2006, 01:59:01 PM »

Without getting too far into this subject - it's very sensitive - IMO there are a lot of people in positions of power, celebrity, political, educational, religious etc etc who have unconsciously or otherwise, used that power to acquire things that would otherwise be unavailable.  Sexual attraction to young people is not as uncommon as you'd think, just that Western society tends not to condone it (rightly, in my opinion).
Certain people (I'm really trying hard not to name names) who are in these powerful positions suddenly find that they have access to this vulnerable group.  People in the music biz have even greater access because of it's youth perception.  Some take advantage.  The reason for it, is what differentiates these people.  Some are downright lecherous and egotistical and comprehend exactly what they are doing.  Others are emotionally immature and 'relate' better to this vulnerable group thereby blurring the line. 
It happens so often that it's frightening.  It can be the person next door, your dad, your best friend.  What Brian was talking about is relatable to millions of guys all over (I'm not saying everyone would do it).

Logged
SG7
Guest
« Reply #14 on: August 16, 2006, 02:20:25 PM »

I think he simply has a child like way of looking at women. Love You almost reminds me of the perspective of a 12 year old boy reading Playboy. When sex seems like a far away concept and wondering about it.

The thing is with songs like "I Wanna Pick You Up" is that it can have different meanings to different people. Heck that is what SMiLE is. I would like to think that Brian is playing with people's heads and songs like it are a joke to himself. I read somewhere a long time ago that Adult/Child had humor undertones as well.


Just my $0.50 anyway Undecided
Logged
Joel5001
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 27



View Profile
« Reply #15 on: August 16, 2006, 03:32:03 PM »

So why don't people think that Chilton and Bell were pervs because of "Thirteen"?
Logged

"First of all, let's get one thing straight: Crack is cheap. I make too much money to ever smoke crack." - Whitney Houston
♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇
Pissing off drunks since 1978
Global Moderator
*****
Offline Offline

Posts: 11844


🍦🍦 Pet Demon for Sale - $5 or best offer ☮☮


View Profile WWW
« Reply #16 on: August 16, 2006, 03:33:56 PM »

Quote
Brians lyrics have a habit of being painfully truthful and personal, think Til I Die, think H.E.L.P, think Adult Child, think Love You. Is it so hard to believe that a drug-addled Wilson in the 70's may have been a tad lecherous at this time. Some may not want to believe that there is substance to something like Lazy Lizzie as some of us hold Brian up in to much of an untouchable pedestal. He may or may not have indulged in a bit of kerb-crawling but I think he certainly was digging the schoolies at the time.
Certainly in the Uk in the 70's the schoolgirl/gymslip thang was held up as an erotic risque image in media in a way that would be condemned as paedophilia now. It wasn't right then but it certainly was not the 'media hanging offence' it is now. Brian sang about something he did, or would have liked to do , end of.

I still wonder why he recycled the "pied piper" music from the fairy tale and used those lyrics. The combination of them gave the song a bit of an unsettling quality for  me, esp. considering what the Pied Piper of Hamelin did (take the all the children away). There's just something *odd* about that...
Logged

Need your song mixed/mastered? Contact me at fear2stop@yahoo.com. Serious inquiries only, please!
El Goodo
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 38


coffee man


View Profile
« Reply #17 on: August 16, 2006, 05:18:07 PM »

So why don't people think that Chilton and Bell were pervs because of "Thirteen"?


because it was from the perspective of a thirteen year old male. Sorry but Lazy Lizzie just screams of 300lb of a thirtysomething  Brian Wilson sitting in some polystyrence hamburger packaging littered Rolls-Royce. probably with bits of birthday cake as well Shocked 
Logged
Smilin Ed H
Guest
« Reply #18 on: August 17, 2006, 01:37:06 AM »

Interesting people seem all too willing to suppose it's about a young girl, as opposed to say, a 17 or 18 year old, and that it's a young BW (a 13 year-old)... People seem to be bringing a lot to this. Maybe too much.
Like I said, without condoning it, I imagine a lot of stars have young skeletons in their closet, but, as yet, BW hasn't been caught downloading child porn or doing a Wyman.
Logged
rb
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 91


View Profile
« Reply #19 on: August 17, 2006, 03:43:30 AM »

1) So this guy used to have hordes of teenaged girls throwing themselves at him. No mutual attraction? Can't see it. Nor can I see that attraction being shut off at the push of a button at a certain age.

Question: was Jesus Juice even invented back then?

2) Just how old was that little gal he married when he met her, anyways? (And no, I don't mean Melinda - not that there's any evidence she wasn't wearing a schoolgirl uniform when they met in that car dealership...)
Logged
Smilin Ed H
Guest
« Reply #20 on: August 17, 2006, 04:54:20 AM »

What age does the attarction button shut off for you? Just before they can drive? Vote? Have the right to bear arms? Have some ballpark knowledge of who Aretha Franklin is?

Suppose we'd have to look at how unusual it was for men of BW's age to marry a girl of Marylin's age at that time in the type of community he was brought up in.  I don't think that in itself makes him a pervert.
Logged
Andrew G. Doe
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Offline Offline

Gender: Male
Posts: 17767


The triumph of The Hickey Script !


View Profile WWW
« Reply #21 on: August 17, 2006, 05:39:37 AM »


2) Just how old was that little gal he married when he met her, anyways? (And no, I don't mean Melinda - not that there's any evidence she wasn't wearing a schoo girl uniform when they met in that car dealership...)

Brian & Marilyn were married 12/7/64 when he was 22 and she was 16. But when they first met, October 1962 at Pandora's Box, it was 20/14, and by the summer of the following year, they were in essence living together at the Rovell's house. Just pointing out that Brian has a long history of attraction to young teens.
Logged

The four sweetest words in my vocabulary: "This poster is ignored".
shelter
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 2201


View Profile
« Reply #22 on: August 17, 2006, 06:09:59 AM »

And then there's Brian's 'autobiography' which claims that Brian also had a crush on Marilyn's sister Barbara, who was even younger.
Logged
rb
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 91


View Profile
« Reply #23 on: August 17, 2006, 06:36:12 AM »

This, I suppose, is the time for me to trot out the old Ronnie Hawkins quote. When asked about Jerry Lee Lewis' marriage to the thirteen-year old Myra, his response was, "Thirteen? Hell, us good ole boys knew she wuz only twelve..."

Has it not been posited that a reason for Brian's artistic and commercial success was his understanding of and identification with the teenage psyche?

Note: I reserve the right to draw a distinction between the terms 'pervert' and 'creep'.
Logged
Bicyclerider
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 2132


View Profile
« Reply #24 on: August 17, 2006, 06:54:55 AM »

Another case in point:  Donovan's Mellow Yellow.  "I'm just mad about fourteen . . . and fourteen's mad about me."
Logged
gfx
Pages: [1] 2 3 Go Up Print 
gfx
Jump to:  
gfx
Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines Page created in 0.297 seconds with 22 queries.
Helios Multi design by Bloc
gfx
Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS!