Music / Adult/Child (1977)

Unofficial bootleg cover art (featuring Brian during SMiLE's recording).

Adult/Child is a cancelled album by American band The Beach Boys. Projected between The Beach Boys Love You and M.I.U. Album, it would have been the third album of the "Brian's Back" trilogy (the first album being 15 Big Ones.

Just like the two albums preceding it, Brian Wilson was the sole producer and wrote a majority of the tracks. deeply inspired by easy-listening pop music from the forties/fifties, most precisely Frank Sinatra (he even hoped that the legendary singer would cover his work, but to no avail), Brian envisioned another change in sound for the band. Some songs on this album are also taken from Sunflower outtakes ("H.E.L.P. Is On The Way" and "Games Two Can Play") while "Shortnin' Bread" was recorded during the Caribou sessions which took place in 1974. The title of the album is based on a notion psychiatrist Eugene Landy told to Brian about adults having an inner child.

The nursery rhyme cover "Shortnin' Bread" has a long history of being recorded and rerecorded through various versions (ranging from "Ding Dang" apppearing on Love You and "Clangin'" which remains a bootleg rarity) before finally being recorded for the L.A. (Light Album). Some bits of the song's arrangement can also be found in various Beach Boys related songs, especially in Brian Wilson's solo discography.

The album's cancellation was mostly due to the band's disinterest (with Mike Love straight-up asking his cousin Brian: "What the fuck are you doing?") and its rejection by Reprise Records. Following its shelving, Brian lost his leading position in the band for Mike and Al Jardine to get more creative control. They tried to record a christmas album which was also cancelled (in favor of M.I.U. Album) and six of the tracks on this album remain unreleased.

Tracklist

Side one

1. "Life Is For The Living" (1:52)
2. "Hey Little Tomboy" (2:20)
3. "Deep Purple" (2:24)
4. "H.E.L.P. Is On The Way" (2:30)
5. "It's Over Now" (2:50)
6. "Everybody Wants To Live" (3:10)

Side two

1. "Shortnin' Bread" (3:10)
2. "Lines" (1:44)
3. "On Broadway" (3:11)
4. "Games Two Can Play" (2:10)
5. "It's Trying To Say (Baseball's On)" (2:10)
6. "Still I Dream Of It" (3:26)

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Principal Members:

• Al Jardine
• Mike Love
• Brian Wilson
• Carl Wilson
• Dennis Wilson

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Mama's little baby loves tropin', tropin'... :

• Baseball Episode: "It's Trying To Say".
• Break Up Song: "It's Over Now".
  The flame of love we had has finally died
  Can't take this emptiness it left inside
  It's over now
• Call-Back: "H.E.L.P. Is On The Way" was previously referenced on Surf's Up's "Take A Load Off Your Feet" (H.E.L.P. being the name of a restaurant).
• Chickification: "Hey, Little Tomboy"'s narrator wishes to see a tomboy put away her skateboards and baseball mitts in order to become a conventional girl.
• Cover Version: "Deep Purple" (by Peter DeRose) and "On Broadway" (by The Drifters).
• Department of Redundancy Department: The chorus of "Shortnin' Bread".
  Mama's little baby loves
  Shortnin', shortnin'
  Mam's little baby loves
  Shortnin' Bread
• Despair Event Horizon: "It's Over Now".
  Heaven
  Heaven is far away
  Angels no longer play
• Double Entendre: The eponymous lines from the song "Lines" has been interpreted directly lines on a street or the lines of a clock, and indirectly to cocaine (since the song was written during a hectic period of drug consumption for Brian).
• Formerly Fit: The premise of "H.E.L.P. Is On The Way".
• Green Aesop: "Everybody Wants To Live"
  Now some people talk about ecology
  Why don't somebody do something about it right now
  We're all choking on the air that we breathe now
  How could we all just let it slide by?
• In the Style of: Broadway ("Life Is For The Living", "On Broadway" and "It's Trying To Say").
• Looped Lyrics: "It's Trying To Say" has the lyric "Baseball's on" repeated five times.
• Lyrical Cold Open: "Life Is For The Living", "Lines" and "It's Trying To Say".
• Lyrical Dissonance: "Hey Little Tomboy" undeniably has a catchy chorus. The lyrics of the song, however...
• Mundane Made Awesome: Very ordinary subjects on this album, such as games you can play with someone else, a nursery rhyme about stealing shortening bread, and a song about lines.
• New Sound Album: Considering how The Beach Boys Love You was already a big change in sound, Adult/Child would have been a Broadway/Big Band album easily standing out in the band's discography.
• The Not-Remix: "It's Over Now" was inadvertently slowed down (by around 3%) due to a mastering error on the Good Vibrations box set in 1993, noticeably deepening the voices of Carl Wilson (making him sound drunk and sleepy) and Marilyn Rovell. The 2013 Made in California box set presented an "alternate mix" that was simply the song at its proper speed.
• One-Word Title: "Lines".
• Self-Deprecation: "Games Two Can Play".
  The juke box daddies been blowin' my mind
  I ain't goin' nowhere I got lots of time
  I'm fat as a cow oh how'd I ever get this way
  • "H.E.L.P. Is On The Way".
  A big pot and tripley chin
  Oh what condition my condition was in
  Laughing at myself at what a crying shame
  What ever happened to my Greek godly frame
• Shout-Out:
  • "It's Over Now"
    I'll put a Frank Sinatra album on
    And cry my blues away
  • "Games Two Can Play" mentions Singer-Songwriter Joe South and his 1969 hit "Games People Play" (obviously demonstrating that its own title is a riff on South's song).
• Special Guest: Marilyn Rovell (Brian Wilson's then-wife) sings a verse on "It's Over Now".
• Tomboy: "Hey Little Tomboy" altough the song's theme is about turning a tomboy into a girl.
• Vocal Dissonance: Brian's voice is unreliable due to the fact that the album contains tracks recorded in 1969 compared to tracks recorded in 1977 and featuring a huskier Brian with a coarse voice affected by drugs, alcohol and smoking.
• A Weighty Aesop: "H.E.L.P. Is On The Way".
  Hamburgers and hot dogs throw 'em all out
  You'll feel so good you'll jump up and shout

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