Whoring the Trademark: "The Beach Boys"

Original 1961 Line-Up: Brian Wilson, Carl Wilson, Dennis Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine.



Status of Original Members:


Brian Wilson - Touring with the Wondermints, playing his compositions.

Carl Wilson - Dead.

Dennis Wilson - Dead.

Al Jardine - Touring with 2/3 of Wilson-Phillips as "The All-Star Beach Band."



Mike Love - Touring as "The Beach Boys" with Bruce Johnston, John Cowsill, Scott Totten, Adrian Baker, Mike Kowalski, Tim Bonhomme, Chris Farmer.



Imagine if Roger Daltrey rounded up Kenny Jones (Keith Moon's replacement) and went out on the road as "The Who." Imagine Pete Townshend touring with a group of talented back-ups and haltingly singing lead vocals on his compositions. Imagine John Entwistle simultaneously touring with Pete Townshend's daughters as "The All-Star Mod Band." That's effectively what has happened to the Beach Boys.


I'll acknowledge up front that I have never understood the appeal of the Beach Boys. To my ears, early Beach Boys are to Chuck Berry as Pat Boone is to Little Richard. And yet you can't dodge these tunes on classic radio. The back catalog of this simple, basic rock and roll is so valuable that Brian Wilson lost a huge chunk of it and still is fabulously wealthy on residuals from the last fifteen years. He's so rich, Mike Love pursued a an ugly lawsuit against Brian Wilson, earning a settlement that "established" Love as co-writer of the band's early hits. I'll reserve comment on Love's suit, preferring instead to let Love's own words establish the merit of his claims, in this excerpt from a 1992 interview in Goldmine:

GOLDMINE: Back to the lawsuit. What are some of the songs you co-wrote but didn't receive credit for?

LOVE: Okay, "Little Saint Nick." Brian Wilson is credited with writing 100 percent of that. Well, guess who wrote the words? Mike Love, that's who wrote the words. "Don't Back Down." It's very well known that Brian Wilson did not surf. I wrote "Catch A Wave" and "Don't Back Down." He's credited 100 percent. He didn't give me any credit.

GOLDMINE: How did that happen?

LOVE: Because he didn't put my name down. Murry Wilson was the publisher of Sea of Tunes and and put in for this stuff. The same thing with "The Man With All The Toys," "Santa's Beard," "Merry Christmas Baby." There's "Good To My Baby." Brian Wilson is listed as writing it completely, guess who wrote the words? Doctor Love, that's who. "When I Grow Up (To Be A Man)." I participated in that and didn't get a stitch of recognition. "Help Me Rhonda," I wrote, "Since you put me down I've been out doing in my head." That's my fucking line, thank you very much. Things like "Dance Dance Dance," I asked Carl if he wrote any lyrics for the song and he said no. He just came up with the guitar line.

GOLDMINE: It's a good guitar line.

It is a cool line. Brian Wilson and Carl Wilson split 50-50 on that. I was the one who wrote the Chuck Berry-styled alliteration lyrics. That's my scene.

GOLDMINE:Was this more Murry Wilson or Brian?

LOVE: Either that or Brian didn't tell him because of his ego. It's a bloodbath. It's millions and millions of dollars' worth of damage. Other songs, he arbitrarily assigned me a percentage which was fairly nominal. Basically, when I wrote 100 percent of the words he'd give me like 30 percent of the tune, as opposed to a split.

GOLDMINE:Would you ever work again with Brian as a writer and producer?

LOVE: Sure I would, But I want him to... "Be True To Your School," I wrote a lot of words to that and wasn't credited. Like I said, "Help Me Rhonda." It would have been nice if I was credited with "Catch A Wave." "South Bay Surfer." I wrote the words to "Hawaii." "Be True To Your School." The line [recites lyrics], "When some loud braggart tries to put you down and says his school is great, I tell him right away what's the matter buddy ain't you heard of my school it's number one in the state."

"I Get Around," he put in for 100 percent of it. I came up, Dr. Love, got witnesses, Al Jardine will testify in a court of law. I came up with "roud round get around," and if that's not a hook I don't know what the fuck is. That was a chickenshit move to credit himself with a hundred percent. Virtually all the songs that were chart records I had a hand in writing some if not all of the lyrics.

GOLDMINE:How about "All Summer Long"?

LOVE: Yeah, I wrote, "Remember when you spilled Coke all over your blouse." I wrote that with him. To the best of my recollections I wrote 50 percent of of the words on that. In "I Get Around," Brian had "I get around from town to town, I'm a real cool head, I'm making real good bread." I wrote the verses through, and the "round round get around" part.

There's interesting things like "409" where I came up with "She's real fine my 409" and "giddy up, giddy up, 409," and was not credited, but Brian Wilson did give credit to Gary Usher for his contribution. So it was weird. It was like directly against me. He wouldn't fuck with anybody else but he screwed me over royally. I didn't know how badly I had been abused until I was deposed in Brian's pursuit of his claims against Irving Almo and Mitchell Silverburg and Nutt, which was the attorney representing the Beach Boys and Irving Almo. An inherent conflict of interest there.

At any rate, I didn't know to what degree I'd been taken advantage of until I got the deposition. I saw that and went, "Oh my goodness!" And I wasn't really even advised of my rights until recently. In the last few months I've consulted a good litigation attorney. He's done incredible research on the rights of a songwriter that I've never even heard of from anybody until he started advising me of these things. On the basis of these rights and the potential remedy that I have, I have a very, very good case against Brian Wilson. I hope we don't have to go to trial because it's going to destroy Brian. He's going to be destroyed in depositions, first of all, let alone getting him in court.

GOLDMINE:So what will you be doing with this?

LOVE: Suing his ass to pieces because he's hiding behind his lawyers and all that kind of stuff.

GOLDMINE:Have you started the suit?

LOVE: It's being prepared. It'll probably be pretty soon. You'll hear about it.

So, "Doctor Love" is willing to work with Brian Wilson again, but only AFTER he "sues his ass to pieces?" Even if we accept Love's claims wholesale, his contributions to the Beach Boys were marginal. ("OK, that 'Round Round" part in "I Get Around' . . . that's ME!") He fails to recognize that there could, and perhaps should have been a Beach Boys without him. Wikipedia has it exactly right when, in summation, it writes of the Beach Boys, "The original group effectively no longer exists as a recording or touring unit. " Nevertheless, look for Mike Love and company at a County Fair near you.