“Disney Girls”
Disney Girls is a fantastic song, easily one of my top five on this album, and it works on a number of levels. When I first heard it, I interpreted it as taking itself completely serious without a tinge of irony, and it is an entirely nice song in that way if a little bit cheesy. I put it on my personal playlist interpreting it in this way. The lyrical imagery is beautiful and paints an idealistic picture of suburban life. Lyrics like,
“Patti Page and summer days
On old Cape Cod
Happy times making wine
In my garage
Country shade and lemonade”
and
“Love…Hi Rick and Dave
Hi Pop…Well good morning mom
Love…get up guess what
I’m in love with a girl I found
She’s really swell
Cause she likes
Church, bingo chances and old time dances”
are so impossibly perfect that they make me nostalgic for experiences that I’ve never had. After interpreting the song in this way and enjoying it, I filed it away, not to be reinterpreted.
It was not until I read Brian Wilson’s memoirs, I Am Brian Wilson that I was forced to recognize that my initial understanding of the song was not necessarily the intended one. In the book, Brian discusses each of the Beach Boys’ albums, including Surf’s Up. When he brings up “Disney Girls,” he describes it as a sad song. I was intrigued because I personally couldn’t imagine a happier song, but what Brian was saying made sense. He described the song as being about a man who loses touch with reality, and giving the lyrics a second look, I couldn’t argue. Lyrics like,
“Oh reality, it’s not for me
And it makes me laugh
Oh, fantasy world and Disney girls
I’m coming back”
made Brian’s point obvious. Suddenly, a song that I had interpreted one way for the entire time I had known it, took on a whole new meaning and a far richer complexity. This made me appreciate the song even more than I did before and made me far more interested in the music of Bruce Johnston. This realization also came at a particular time in my life that made me appreciate it even more than I likely otherwise would have. This song helped me to reevalutate how I look at the world and myself, and what more can be asked of any piece of art than that?
9/10
“Student Demonstration Time”
The Beach Boys were never protest artists like Bob Dylan or John Lennon. This should have stayed the case, but Mike Love thought otherwise for some reason. To tell the truth, this song is not just a bad protest song; it’s an attempt at a protest song that turns out to be an anti-protest song. How does someone mess up this badly? Let’s take a look.
“Starting out with Berkeley Free Speech
And later on at People’s Park
The winds of change fanned into flames
Student demonstrations spark
Down to Isla Vista where police felt so harassed
They called the special riot squad of the L. A. County Sheriff”
The first few verses such as the one above, play like a highlight reel of absolute tragedies. Who was asking for this? What was the point of this? That will become clear as the song progresses, but you may not be happy with the answers. When Mike finishes his pointless fan service for absolutely nobody, in come the lines,
“I know we’re all fed up with useless wars and racial strife
But next time there’s a riot, well, you best stay out of sight”
and
“Well there’s a riot going on
There’s a riot going on
Well there’s a riot going on
Student demonstration time.”
I bring up the former verse because of just how disgusting I find it. There is a lot to dispute about the Vietnam war that I honestly couldn’t begin to contest, but I have no problem having a big problem with what seems to be an attempt to trivialize the civil rights movement of the 1960’s. Following this with the advice to stay out of sight next time there’s a riot is nothing but gross. By the time this song was released, a number of the effects of the civil rights movement had been felt across the country, and Mike decided that he’d tell the protesters who had been responsible for those long-needed changes to go home.
I include the second verse/closest thing this revolting song has to a chorus, to show how pointless this song is. Honestly, this is the most poetic thing to be found in these lyrics, and that is for all the wrong reasons. “Well there’s a riot going on,” apathetically whines Love over and over… and over. There’s no meaning hidden in these lyrics and no meaning behind them. Mike Love isn’t sure why anybody is protesting, and he doesn’t care about why anybody is protesting. He sees them and feels the need to say something, anything, and he sure does say something. Unfortunately, it would have been a lot better if he had said nothing. Only Mike Love could make an homage to a group that can only be read as an insult. Don’t listen to this song.
1/10
