Getting ahead of the game: Australia's next mini-series

A lunch room at a cricket ground in Cape Town. Two discouraged looking men are discussing the day’s play

SMITH: I don't understand it, we just can't get on top of these South Africans.

WARNER: I know. 

SMITH: Where could we be going wrong? We don’t need to consider our skills or tactics at all. Are you still talking yourself up?

WARNER: Endlessly. Actually the wife's a little sick of it if I'm honest. And the kids.

SMITH: And the sledging?

WARNER: We had an emergency meeting of the sledging subcommittee last night, and we reckon we are on point. We are in THEIR HEADS

SMITH: But didn't one of them get into yours? 

WARNER: Yeah and that was really mean. That was over the line.

SMITH: Yeah the line is so important isn't it? And that's why we're so good at it, because we know where the line is, and can define it for the other teams.

WARNER: If they ask.

SMITH: And they never do.

BOTH: Until it's too late.

WARNER: And then it’s all, ooh the Aussies are so mean. Sometimes I just want to… sniffles

SMITH: putting his arm around Warner’s shoulder. It’s all right mate. You didn’t do anything wrong. You never do.

Pause

Enter BANCROFT

BANCROFT: G’day Skipper, g’day Mr Warner. How’s it going?  We got a plan to get these blokes out? Have we? Huh? Huh? Cause you guys are ace and if anyone can come up with a plan it’ll be you guys. Yeah. Can’t wait to hear it. I bet it’s a really good one.

SMITH: Go away.

BANCROFT: Yeah, sure skip, anything you say skip. I’m over here if you need me skip.

Exit BANCROFT

Pause

SMITH: What if we, you know, cheated?

WARNER: Cheated?

SMITH: I mean, take professionalism to new levels.

WARNER: Ohhhh. Wouldn’t that be, maybe, over the line?

SMITH: Not if we do it.

WARNER: Good point.

SMITH: If we interfered with the ball.

WARNER: With the ball?

SMITH:  A bit.

WARNER: Don't other teams do that sometimes?

SMITH: Oh yeah. All the time. It’s practically part of the game.

WARNER: And how did we react to it?

Pause

SMITH: I think we were cool with it.

WARNER: Yeah cool, that's right. I'm pretty sure we stayed on the right side of the line.

SMITH: I'm not sure the line applies in that situation.

WARNER: But if did, we were.

SMITH: Because we always are.

WARNER: Exactly. 

SMITH: But how would we do it?

WARNER: It would need to be subtle. What if we used this bright yellow tape?

SMITH: Yeah, that won’t show up on cameras at all.

WARNER: There’s cameras?

SMITH: I think so.

WARNER: But I can't do it. For some reason those South African bas…

SMITH: Language! You’ve got a small fortune in the swear jar already.

WARNER: Those South African bounders …

SMITH: Much better.

WARNER: … have taken a real set against me. They’ll be watching me like a hawk.

SMITH: I know. I don’t understand it. No-one talks themselves up as much as you, nor sledges as well.

WARNER: It’s a mystery.

SMITH: And I can’t do it, because I’m the captain.

WARNER: But isn’t it your responsib -

SMITH: I said, I can’t. 

WARNER: What if we asked someone whose place in the team is heavily dependent on our good will?

SMITH: That would be good. But who would be silly enough...?

Pause. They both smile, look at each other, and call:

BOTH: Bancroft!

Enter BANCROFT

BANCROFT: Yeah fellahs? 

                                                  END OF SCENE

Old movies, forgotten awards

I don’t think I particularly like the Oscars anymore. I was never mad for them, didn’t sit up watching till midnight avoiding the news so I wouldn’t know who won what, or of later years trying to find a venue to watch them live. Awards themselves are of dubious value, award shows even more so. When Nicole Kidman pretentiously said “Art is important” to defend her going to the Oscars in the wake of 9/11, the obvious riposte, “Yes but award shows aren’t”, wasn’t mentioned. Ultimately, good work doesn’t always get awards, and awards don’t always go to good work. And as Johnny Carson (I think) said, the Oscars are two hours of entertainment jam-packed into a five-hour show.

Over the last few years Hollywood’s night of artistic self-congratulation has turned into a  night of moral self-congratulation, when stars wear dresses of a certain colour or badges to show their disapproval of an appalling mode of human behaviour that has been in the headlines mainly because it is prevalent in Hollywood, whose disapproval is strongest in hindsight. They seem to confuse wearing a designer dress of one colour instead of another as some form of activism, like those people who wear “This is what a feminist looks like” t-shirt regardless of how they actually treat women in real life, or those people who wear Che Guevara t-shirts and have never once gone from war to war so they can shoot people (I assume that’s what they’re supporting; it was Che’s favourite activity.)  I’m not sure how many more open secrets Hollywood can all pretend to be appalled by.

I also dislike the articles that appear discussing the films etc that should never have won the Oscar. I think they’re mean-spirited (which admittedly is spiritus temporum) and again confuses awards with the worth of a film. I of course have my opinions on films I think weren’t worthy winners but good luck to those artists. It doesn’t change anything that matters. So overall, while I will never claim to be uninterested in the Oscars, I am tending towards the disinterested. 

But I still like films. One good thing this year is the Foxtel are showing all the best-film award winners in order. I say ‘all’, it’s actually ‘a lot’ but does include the first, 1927’s Wings, through to last year’s Moonlight. There’s a lot there I’ve only ever heard about but never seen: All about Eve, The Apartment, The Deer Hunter, and those that I haven’t seen for a long time: Shakespeare in love, which I will defend to the death so sod off. I would love to have the time and wherewithal to sit and watch for several days, which is a ludicrous idea but still. It’s sobering to consider how many of these films are forgotten. But such is art - and awards. 

One film I did watch was 1930’s big winner All Quiet on the Western Front, which won Best Picture and Best Director. It’s one year older than my Dad, and like him, sometimes shaky but stands the test of time well. The acting can be wooden and melodramatic but the film itself greatly affecting. A class of young German schoolboys are implored by their fiercely-patriotic teacher to enlist in the early days of the war, and we follow them through training, battle and their deaths. (Spoiler-alert I guess - but the film is 88 years old and the novel older and WWI isn’t a byword for happily-ever-after.) Some die on the battlefield, some in the hospital. One soldier spends a night in a shell crater, watching the enemy soldier he stabbed die over the course of the hours. He goes home but find no-one understands what he’s been through, least of all the teacher who started him there. It’s following them on this journey that makes it such a moving film. The ending is devastating and the final shot haunting.

The novel was written by Erich Maria Remarque, a WWI veteran, based on his experiences in the German army. Making the film in the late 1920s meant there were plenty of veterans around to act as advisors, in particular Germans, some of whom appear as trainers in the training sequences. The battle sounds are like nothing I’ve ever heard. An old corporal, Kat, describes the sounds of different shells to the newcomers, and I think this specificity is reflected in the soundscape. This closeness to the original event I suspect gives the film a verisimilitude later films can lack, despite advances in technique.

It’s also interesting to watch a film made before Hollywood imposed the Hayes Code on itself to prevent government censorship. A French soldier is blown up leaving nothing but his hands still clinging to the wire - a memory of one of the German veterans who worked on the film. Swimming in a river behind the lines, the young German men spot some French women and bribe them with food. Bare bottoms are seen when they boys show off in the river, and it’s clear the night does involve sex, without being explicit. This sequence is at once touching and pathetic. The women are desperate for food, but the subsequent liaison is one of genuine human connection, which both parties are clearly craving. It’s a

sequence that would not have appeared a decade later for example. For different reasons it may not appear if the film were made now. (There are stories of a new version coming.) And I don’t know if it’s a reflection of German society of the novel or American society when the film was shot, but the boys are also much freer displaying physical affection towards each other. It makes them seem much younger, and their descent into the horrors of war that much more terrible.

The film, like the book, was banned in Nazi Germany for the negative picture of the war. The film was banned in Poland and France for being pro-German. Controversial in its day, still affecting now. We should all be so lucky in the work we create.

The Uses of Churchills

Just recently we’ve had a lot of Churchills. Gary Oldman won an Oscar for his, John Lithgow won high praise for his, and Brian Cox … well, Brian Cox got stuck with an incredibly dud script. We’ve also discovered that if you make a show with Churchill, you get to add a great part for a  female actor of a certain age: in these three examples, Kristin Scott Thomas, Harriet Walter and Miranda Richardson, all play his wife Clementine who was his great supporter, sounding board, conscience and moderator.

But there’s been great and lesser Churchills before 2017. In 2010 Churchill inexplicably turned up as George VI’s supporter in The King’s Speech, played by Timothy Spall. Albert Finney played the part with Vanessa Redgrave as Clementine in 2002’s The Gathering Storm, Brendan Gleeson and Janet McTeer in the 2009 sequel, Into the Storm. Last century saw Robert Hardy in The Wilderness Years with Siân Phillips, an eight-part television series (playing Churchill was a theme of Hardy’s career) and Simon Lord as Young Winston with Pippa Steel as young Clementine. And that’s just the highlights.

There’s little mystery as to why Churchill attracts writers and actors. He was born in the age of Victoria and died in the Second Elizabethan Age, a name he coined, living through almost a century. He was a lonely neglected child. He took part in the Boer War and both World Wars, as reporter, soldier and politician - in WWI, soldier and politician. He went from outsider, to insider, from party to party, from voice in the wilderness to the roar of the British Lion. He was given the job of Prime Minister at perhaps the most vulnerable point of Britain’s long history and lead it to triumph. He was a prolific historian winning the Nobel Prize for Literature, and also Time Magazine’s Man of the Half Century. Often wrong-headed, he was responsible for military disasters such as Gallipoli and Norway, and yet without him, who knows how long the Nazi control of western Europe could have lasted, and with what consequences. He fought for the Empire and lost it. And at the height of his triumph in the Second World War, he was dumped by the British public who never quite forgave the Tories for the 30s. It’s a hell of a story. Combine with that his character and physical characteristics - the voice, the oratory, the cigars, the drinking, V for Victory, the wit - it’s almost as he decided to gift future actors with too much to work with.

Which makes one wonder, why make stuff up? History doesn’t happen in neat dramatic lines of course and so a certain amount of trimming and editing is part of any historical script. Both The Crown and Darkest Hour have also altered history but not I think fatally. Darkest Hour has Churchill hopping on to the underground. As history it’s wrong and out of character, but dramatically it works. It also talks to Churchill’s ability to draw inspiration from the people, and his actual habit, later, of getting the results of some of the first political polling in Britain. It dramatises the strong connection between Churchill and the people during the war.

The Crown goes a little further. When Churchill had his stroke in 1953, the Queen was one of the first people informed, even if it was kept secret on a wider scale. Churchill was a lot of things but never deceitful to the Crown. Not so in the show. But the show is about Elizabeth II and it gives Claire Foy a wonderfully-written scene where she scolds Churchill for his deception, putting him in his place, while demonstrating her respect for him. It’s beautifully played too by Foy and Lithgow. My favourite episode of The Crown was later when Churchill was having his portrait painted by Graham Sutherland. Again it’s beautifully written and played, this time between Lithgow and Stephen Dillane as the artist. I can forgive a lot for that.

But Churchill. Oh my dear, Churchill.

Winston Churchill as a panicky fool so overwhelmed by his doubts about D-Day that he prays in cod-Shakespeare for a storm to wreck the invasion. Churchill despised by his generals. The screenwriter, Alex von Tunzelmann has taken some facts, such as Churchill’s suggestions for diversionary attacks on other fronts, and the sidelining of the UK as a world power, and spun pure tosh. Ironically Tunzelmann is an historian who wrote a series of columns about historical films, rating them both as films and as history. Her own work fails as both - it’s a dull silly film and execrable history. I have not read any of her other work but this seems to be her first crack at World War Two, and at film writing. I hope she  improves in both. Her thesis is bad and her exposition clumsy. “This is our last briefing on Operation Overlord, the assault on the German occupying forces in the north of France,” announces John Slattery as Eisenhower. One almost expects one of the other generals to pipe up “We’re going to do what to who now?”

Many writers proclaim their discovery Churchill’s feet of clay as if they’re the first ones. And we live in an age that loves to drag down great people to our level - or lower if possible. I can’t think of any other reason you would write and produce a film so poor as this. Which is a pity; there’s a strong cast of British and American actors wasted here. There is, as a friend of mine much more knowledgable about these things said, a good film to be made about British doubts about Operation Overlord. There is also plenty of material to play with about the relationship between the British and American generals before and after D-Day. This film is not that film.

Ah well, you say, it’s just a film. But history is taught less and less at schools and most people’s understanding of history is drawn from films and television. I think it’s becoming more important for screenwriters to get history right. With any luck, Churchill will gain the fate it deserves - forgotten and unlamented.

Women in the background? Ellen Kelly

For some years now historians have been trying to recover the stories of the forgotten groups of history, groups that have been marginalised by law or society and so have had their stories untold. These groups include women, blacks, native groups, gays and other minorities that for one reason or another have gone under the collective societal radar. These new histories have been invaluable in giving a fuller, richer and truer picture of societies.

One of the problems with this however is the question of material. If people are ignored by society, or taken for granted, or treated as hostile or threatening elements, then the evidence for their lives can be much slimmer, better hidden and can take some ferreting out, or in some cases, assumptions must be made. Which is all part of the process.

But it was with some surprise I saw Grantlee Keiza’s book Mrs Kelly: The Astonishing story of Ned Kelly’s mother” was such a thick book, over five hundred pages in hardback. I’ve long thought the women in Ned Kelly’s life needed more attention as both the inspiration for, and great supporters of what is known as the Kelly Outbreak. This was a period of two years from 1878 when a policeman named Fitzpatrick tried to arrest Ned and his brother on his own which went terribly pear-shaped for him, to the Stringybark Creek murders, where Kelly and his gang killed three of the policemen who were now searching for them, to Glenrowan, where three of the gang were killed in a day long clash with police, and through to Kelly’s hanging in November 1880.  The recent Australian musical Ned! gave the women more of their due, and here I thought was a book that would do the same. The thickness of the book was encouraging. Mrs Kelly outlived her most famous child by forty years. What had she done in that time?, I had wondered. Here I thought was the book to tell me.

Nope. Mrs Kelly does give a much fuller  story of the early life of Ellen Quinn, whose family were free immigrants from Ireland. We have her relationship with her father and his family, which has ramifications even after her marriage to Red Kelly, an alcoholic ex-convict.  Despite their hard work, they end up at the bottom of the colonial society, and in Gretta, a small town that is a den of thieves; horse thieves mainly. That she and her children ended up criminals to lesser and greater degrees is hardly surprising. After her husband’s death, she takes up with two men in turn, both of whom get her pregnant, and both of whom abandon her. George King at least married her and  lived with her for some years, something Bill Frost didn’t bother with. In all, she had twelve children and the misfortune to outlive all but four of them. 

But once she goes to prison in 1788, in the aftermath of the ‘Fitzpatrick Incident’,  the bulk of the book tells us the story - again - of the Kelly Outbreak. We hear bits of life inside for a woman with six-month old child, but not much. Seems it would be useful and interesting to hear more of life in a women’s prison in the late 19th Century but no. Kieza goes though the Ned Kelly story again without new useful information or insight. Michael Kennedy, one of the policemen murdered by Kelly, by all accounts a decent man, gets a bigger role here, which is refreshing I admit. Keiza seems to take delight in recounting everyone who made a disparaging remark about the Kelly women, especially Kate, famed in her time both as a beauty and a wonderful horserider, and one of the Kelly Gang’s most loyal supporters in word and action. But Keiza finds someone who found her unattractive and quotes him. That’s putting the women to the forefront.

But the worst is that after Ned’s death, the next four decades are disposed of in a little over fifty pages. And it’s not just Ellen Kelly. Ned’s hangman’s story gets wrapped up. Phew! That was keeping me awake. His sisters, his cousins, policemen and members of the judiciary, all within fifty pages. Like  any other book about Ned Kelly, the writer loses a lot of interest once Ned is dead. Which is fine if you’ve called your book Ned Kelly. If you’ve called it Mrs Kelly, it’s unforgivable.

Staring into the abyss: Looking back on some recent history

I once read a article criticising George Lucas. I know, I’m as shocked at you are. The author took exception to Yoda’s lines, “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to hate. Hate leads to anger. Anger leads to suffering.” He summed up his objection to this by saying no-one ever hated Hitler so much they became a Nazi. (Never mind that Yoda never makes the link from fear to the Dark Side complete. Suffering leads to the Dark Side? Or what? Damn you Yoda, I need closure.)

Whoever the writer is, he may now have to concede Yoda was on to something. I did study 20th century German history, including the rise of Hitler to power, as part of my Arts degree. That was some time ago, but when people kept insisting Trump was exactly the same as Hitler, I kept wondering if they knew something I didn’t. To be frank, I was fairly sure they were wrong and engaging in hyperbole (once again, shocked as you are) but I thought I’d better check again, just to be sure.

So I listened to Richard J Evan’s The Coming of the Third Reich: How the Nazis Destroyed Democracy and Seized Power in Germany via Audible.  This is the first volume of his Third Reich Trilogy which has been acclaimed as the best general history of the Third Reich extant. To sum up, I was right. The differences between Hitler’s climb to power via multiple election campaigns  and Trump becoming President almost on a whim, and the vastly different histories of Germany and the United States, are too many to go into here. Read the book. One major difference is that Hitler was able to destroy the Weimar Republic in large part because many of the other parties, Right and Left wing, were committed to doing the same thing, and previous administrations had already greatly reduced the role and power of the parliament long before Hitler put it out of its misery. But I digress.

What did strike me as having similarities to today’s politics were some of the Nazi tactics. The SA brownshirts were well-known for beating up opponents in the streets or at their meetings. (As were the Communists.) And if the Nazis weren’t able to prevent speeches other public events  being run by political opponents on the grounds of public safety (mainly fear of the fights that would break out orchestrated by the Nazis) they would attend the event and with shouting and other methods make it impossible for the event to continue.

Let’s see: beating up opponents, preventing speeches on grounds of public safety, and shouting down speakers. Who does this these days?

Mainly it seems to be people who don’t like Trump. The so-called Antifa (Anti-Fascist) movement actually appear in masks and beat up Trump supporters. At least the Brownshirts showed their faces. Students who consider themselves liberals ie those who respect other people’s opinions and beliefs even if they differ to their own, shout and disrupt and in some cases physically threaten speakers they don't like to stop them speaking on their campus. They have built barriers and lit fires to stop people from going in to listen. And that’s if the university administration haven’t already withdrawn the invitation to speak on grounds of public safety. 

So Yoda has been in some way vindicated, and George Lucas revealed as a writer of surprising prescience. There are people who hate Trump so much they have become fascist in order to stop him. To quote Christopher Booker, "Evil men don't get up in the morning saying, 'I'm going to do evil.' They say 'I'm going to make the world a better place.'" Or to quote Terrence Rattigan, "The trouble with being on the side of right, as one sees it, is that one often finds oneself with such questionable allies."

The old sow that eats her young: surviving Ireland

The history of twentieth century Ireland is a complex one, with wars, terrorism, partition, combined with strong social conservatism, religious oppression and economic depression, yet coupled with a strong and vibrant culture and economic revivals, all culminating in a peace process that is still playing out.

Sebastian Barry is fascinated with this history, particularly the turnaround from 1916-1921, when via wars, terrorism and negotiation, a British Colony became a divided country and loyalties were overturned and vilified. Barry’s McNulty brothers of Sligo, Eneas, Jack and Tom, all live through these times and later decades. How they do so, the effects on their lives and the lives of those around them, form the core of three of Barry’s novels, The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty (1998), The Secret Scripture (2008), and The Temporary Gentleman (2014).

The three novels do not operate as a trilogy in the traditional sense of telling one story in chronological order. Rather we get stories that by their nature overlap, sometimes illuminating each other. It’s more a mesh than a thread. I read them in reverse order of publishing. In reading The Temporary Gentleman, there was a reference to his sister-in-law being confined to an isolated hut and I thought, what’s that story? I was delighted to discover there was a novel that told it: The Secret Scripture. Having read that, I wanted to learn more about the oldest brother Eneas who could only visit his family furtively. So they can be read in any order. And they encourage rereading of each other. We know people remember the same events differently and Barry has captured that very well. 

The narrative style of each book is different.  Eneas’s story is told in third-person. The Temporary Gentlemen is told as a journal, middle brother Jack trying to work out the steps whereby he ends up a remnant of the British Empire living in Africa’s Gold Coast. The Secret Scripture is two journals, one from Tom’s wife, Rosemary, now around a century old and living in an asylum, and that of her doctor, William Grene. 

Both Eneas and Tom suffer from having taken ‘the king’s shilling’. A stint in the British Merchant Marine during the WWI sees Eneas ostracised on his return home. With little other option, he takes a job in the Royal Irish Constabulary and that puts him on an IRA death list. It is his best friend from childhood who is designated to warn him off. For the rest of his life, Eneas is on the run, a wanderer like his namesake. 

Glamorous Jack ends up in the British Navy in WWII, but his main problem is his drinking, which affects not only him and his career but has a devastating affect on his wife Mai and their children. Only in exile, writing his journal, does he start to realise that he may be the bad guy, the person responsible for all that has gone wrong in his life - and his beloved wife's.

Tom also marries a beautiful woman (Barry thinks being beautiful in Ireland is a forerunner of tragedy). Haunted by memories of her childhood, her father, rebels and soldiers of the civil war, Rosemary breaks the social mores of Sligo and ends up rejected by her husband and condemned by the local priest. She is imprisoned first in a lonely shack then the asylum. As she tries to remember events from nearly a century ago, her doctor is trying to do the same, finding old records and piecing together her story. With mental illness in her family, plus decades of confinement, Rosemary is not a reliable narrator, but then, neither is her doctor or priest.

Barry has taken fragments of his family’s history, and turned them into gripping narratives. I would be interested to know how much detail of the other stories Barry had worked out when he wrote the first in 1998, as they work together well. His writing is poetic and lyrical. The endings of all three tend towards the sudden, and I’m not convinced they entirely work, but these are still three excellent novels.

And the mesh is widening. In New Orleans, Eneas wonders if he should stay in the States, perhaps find his great uncle who emigrated there. That uncle's story has now been told in Days without End (2016), a novel set in the US Civil War. Like The Secret Scripture, it has been awarded the Costa Book of the Year. Another visit to the McNulty family beckons.

"Will I look back and say that I wish I hadn't done what I did?": Lives of the Beach Boys

Did you hear? Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature, for his lyrics, a decision I’m still not convinced by. I’m not sure how comfortable Bob is with it either, given his reluctance to go and collect the thing. I know a trip to Sweden with a dinner, gold medal and a lot of money sounds horrid but it can’t be that bad.

But I suspect part of his reluctance is part of my discomfort; lyrics aren’t poetry, and don’t operate on their own. They aren’t written to be read or recited but rather sung or listened to. Which isn’t to say a good lyricist isn’t as skilful or artistic wordsmith as any other writer. But for a lyricist words and music, as the old Jo Jo Zep song said, go together. There have been a number of books about music or lyricists that have the words printed but the only way you can really read them is to have the tune in your head as you do so. Otherwise they lose a lot of their life. And while there is no Nobel Prize for music, there’s none for mathematics, art, architecture, engineering, and a whole lot of other human endeavours as well, and it doesn't make them less important.

The interplay between lyric and melody is crucial.  Tim Rice in his autobiography quotes the first verse of his lyric for the tune that became “I don’t know how to love him,” which he maintains would have killed that song dead had it ever been released, despite the melody.  All together now: 

I love the Kansas morning

Kansas dawn comes to greet me

Kansas winds

Shift and sigh

I can see you now, we’re flying high

Kansas love of mine

(It’s a prison song, a man in a jail cell in Maine lamenting his girl back home. Really.) On a more worrying note, George Gershwin’s songs are sung less and less, due largely to his brother Ira’s sometimes twee lyrics, despite the beauty of the melodies. Words and music go together.

Which brings me in a very roundabout way to two autobiographies I have read lately from two of the founding Beach Boys, Mike Love and Brian Wilson, both released in 2016 within weeks of each other. Mike Love is the front man of the band, one of their lyricists, and still goes about with a band called ‘The Beach Boys’, although he is only original one there.

Brian Wilson who wrote, arranged and produced the Beach Boys music, also tours but with ‘The Brian Wilson Band’ as Love has the legal rights to the name. It’s a long story.

The two books couldn’t display a greater contrast. Love’s is chronological, detailed, sometimes to the point of tedium, and I have to say, aimed at scoring and settling points. He feels his part of the Beach Boys’ success has been undervalued both financially and artistically. And to be fair to the man, he’s right. His lyrics on surf and girls was one of the features of their early albums and a big part of their appeal to people who had never seen the beach, leading to their worldwide success. As lead vocalist and front man, he was a dynamic performer. His name was kept off many of the singles for which he was lyricist (by Murray Wilson) and he had to sue to get his rightful recognition and money. Despite his practice and championing of transcendental meditation, he clearly has trouble letting go of years of resentment and anger and it seeps throughout the book.

Wilson’s books is more amorphous, drifting from present to past, in no particular order.  He can go from a description of his current family life to a session of Pet Sounds almost in a sentence. The oldest son of an abusive father, he has famously struggled with mental health and substance abuse issues, and these things affect him still. He finds it difficult to talk about his father Murray, the man who gave him music, who was crucial to the band's early years, but who also beat him and belittled him. His therapist Gene Landy saved his life, but also drugged him, abused him and exploited him. Yet here Wilson is, still writing, still performing but also aware of what his survival has cost. The book can be generalised at times, but at others picks up details and stories that may otherwise have been overlooked. He’s not the most reliable narrator, which he is aware of, but the writing is never confusing, and throughout displays a generosity of spirit that is lacking in Love’s work. 

Love is defensive. Although he is open about his own shortcomings as husband and as a father, as a band member he did no wrong. All those stories you heard about his criticisms of Pet Sounds or SMiLE? “Don’t fuck with the formula”? Never happened. Not one of them. Ever. And so much of the Beach Boys music would never have happened without his magic touch. Just a word, a minor suggestion and near disaster turns into commercial magic. I think he is overplaying his hand. He is also trapped in that idea that good work is commercial work, otherwise it's not good. He's not alone there.

Love’s greatest problem is that he is a classic Alpha male in a situation where he must play second fiddle. While his lyrics work in the main part, that is all they do. They don’t get taken out of the song and quoted, they way Dylan’s do. Or The Beatles. He is a workaday lyricist, successful for sure but no more. Nor as he got older did he ever really attempt to move on from his milieu of beaches and girls. Sometimes it worked - “Do it again”, “Kokomo” - other times it was embarrassing, tending towards creepy - “Hey little tomboy”. Love’s attempt at being political , “Student Demonstration Time”, is likewise painful to listen to, and his song about transcendental mediation oddly jarring. I have read some of his solo work is quite good but I haven’t listened to it.

The greater talent in the band was of course Brian Wilson. His melodies, his harmonies, and his arrangements are some of the greatest in the pop era. What still draws people to the Beach Boys is this music, sometimes in spite of the lyrics. “Don’t Worry Baby” is a stunningly beautiful song - about drag racing. They lyrics here are by Roger Christian, who wrote all the car song lyrics. Other lyricists include Tony Asher (Pet Sounds), Van dyke Parks (SMiLE), himself and other band members. Another big hit "Sloop John B" was a cover of a folk song. As he got older, he pushed himself as a musician, which lead to seeking out new collaborators. Some of his most beautiful work was not commercial but was genuine artistic expression.

In short, Brian Wilson’s successes were not limited to his work with Mike Love. But Mike Love’s success is limited to his work with Brian Wilson, and he resents it.  (Another exception here: "Kokomo" was the Beach Boys’ only number one hit for which Brian Wilson neither wrote or produced.) But at their height of commercial success, Wilson and Love were the core of the Beach Boy's writing. The biggest hit for the band, "Good Vibrations", was a Love lyric to Wilson's music and arrangement. Mike Love has been undervalued for his contribution to the band, and unfairly characterised as the Villain to Wilson' Hero. That said, I think the main difference between these two autobiographies is instructive:  Love admits to Wilson’s talents, while Wilson champions Love’s.