“Disney Girls”<\/p>\n
Disney Girls is a fantastic song, easily one of my top five on this album, and it works on a number of levels.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I put it on my personal playlist interpreting it in this way.\u00a0 The lyrical imagery is beautiful and paints an idealistic picture of suburban life.\u00a0 Lyrics like,<\/p>\n
“Patti Page and summer days
\nOn old Cape Cod
\nHappy times making wine
\nIn my garage
\nCountry shade and lemonade”<\/p>\n
and<\/p>\n
“Love…Hi Rick and Dave
\nHi Pop…Well good morning mom
\nLove…get up guess what
\nI’m in love with a girl I found
\nShe’s really swell
\nCause she likes
\nChurch, bingo chances and old time dances”<\/p>\n
are so impossibly perfect that they make me nostalgic for experiences that I’ve never had.\u00a0 After interpreting the song in this way and enjoying it, I filed it away, not to be reinterpreted.<\/p>\n
It was not until I read Brian Wilson’s memoirs,\u00a0I Am Brian Wilson<\/em> that I was forced to recognize that my initial understanding of the song was not necessarily the intended one.\u00a0 In the book, Brian discusses each of the Beach Boys’ albums, including Surf’s Up<\/em>.\u00a0 When he brings up “Disney Girls,” he describes it as a sad song.\u00a0 I was intrigued because I personally couldn’t imagine a happier song, but what Brian was saying made sense.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Lyrics like,<\/em><\/p>\n “Oh reality, it’s not for me made Brian’s point obvious.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 This made me appreciate the song even more than I did before and made me far more interested in the music of Bruce Johnston.\u00a0 This realization also came at a particular time in my life that made me appreciate it even more than I likely otherwise would have.\u00a0 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?<\/p>\n 9\/10<\/p>\n “Student Demonstration Time”<\/p>\n The Beach Boys were never protest artists like Bob Dylan or John Lennon.\u00a0 This should have stayed the case, but Mike Love thought otherwise for some reason.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 How does someone mess up this badly?\u00a0 Let’s take a look.<\/p>\n “Starting out with\u00a0Berkeley Free Speech The first few verses such as the one above, play like a highlight reel of absolute tragedies.\u00a0 Who was asking for this?\u00a0 What was the point of this?\u00a0 That will become clear as the song progresses, but you may not be happy with the answers.\u00a0 When Mike finishes his pointless fan service for absolutely nobody, in come the lines,<\/p>\n “I know we’re all fed up with useless wars and racial strife and<\/p>\n “Well there’s a riot going on I bring up the former verse because of just how disgusting I find it.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Following this with the advice to stay out of sight next time there’s a riot is nothing but gross.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n I include the second verse\/closest thing this revolting song has to a chorus, to show how pointless this song is.\u00a0 Honestly, this is the most poetic thing to be found in these lyrics, and that is for all the wrong reasons.\u00a0 “Well there’s a riot going on,” apathetically whines Love over and over…\u00a0and over.<\/em>\u00a0 There’s no meaning hidden in these lyrics and no meaning behind them.\u00a0 Mike Love isn’t sure why anybody is protesting, and he doesn’t care about why anybody is protesting.\u00a0 He sees them and feels the need to say something, anything, and he sure does say something.\u00a0 Unfortunately, it would have been a lot better if he had said nothing.\u00a0 Only Mike Love could make an homage to a group that can only be read as an insult.\u00a0 Don’t listen to this song.<\/p>\n 1\/10<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “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.\u00a0 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 … Continue reading “Surf’s Up Lyrical Review Part III”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5711"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5711"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5712,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5711\/revisions\/5712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nAnd it makes me laugh
\nOh, fantasy world and Disney girls
\nI’m coming back”<\/p>\n
\nAnd\u00a0later on at People’s Park
\nThe winds of change fanned into flames
\nStudent demonstrations spark
\nDown to Isla Vista where police felt so harassed
\nThey called the special riot squad of the L. A. County Sheriff”<\/p>\n
\nBut next time there’s a riot, well, you best stay out of sight”<\/p>\n
\nThere’s a riot going on
\nWell there’s a riot going on
\nStudent demonstration time.”<\/p>\n