SMiLE vs Song Cycle

[ghost]

I bet I'd have more fun hanging out with Van Dyke for a day than I would with Brian Wilson.

You kidding? A day with VDP means sitting in a chair on his porch listening to his verbose stories of the good old days. Give me quality time with Brian any day over that crap. And by quality time I of course mean calling up Danny Hutton and asking him to bring the coke over so we can jam.

[monicker]

Song Cycle is too good for all you fools! Pearls to swine.

[Myk Luhv]

I bet I'd have more fun hanging out with Van Dyke for a day than I would with Brian Wilson.

You kidding? A day with VDP means sitting in a chair on his porch listening to his verbose stories of the good old days. Give me quality time with Brian any day over that crap. And by quality time I of course mean calling up Danny Hutton and asking him to bring the coke over so we can jam.

Yeah dude I would do that in a heartbeat too but you know it'll never happen. Maybe we could pull a Denny and dose Jeff's drink with some acid then start the burgers flowin'!

[GoinBald]

Don't forget that SC was released in 1968 and most of you first heard this album in an entire different era. When I saw this album in the shop it was just released. Of course I knew Van Dyke Parks of Heroes And Villains and his collaboration with Brian Wilson and the aborted Smile.

I bought the album, not knowing what to expect, but I was curious. I instantly loved this album and I really believed that Smile could have been something complex like this. I don't think it's that far from what went around in those days. The music was so intense and there was a lot to listen to. Although I was just 17 years at the time, and not English born and bred, I quite loved the lyrics with its double meanings. I never heard an album that had so many sounds to offer. It's still one of my all-time favourite albums and once in a while I play the record and it sounds as exiting as it did then.

Most of you know Van Dyke Parks as a man who did some great things in music. But back then, I read reviews of SC and the critics didn't know what to think of VDP. Either he would become a great failure in music and would be forgotten in no time, or he was really a genius…….We know what history did with Parks and I'm glad he left his footprints in music. I think he's one of the great modern composers the USA has. I once met him and I think he's one of the nicest persons/musicians I ever met. 

I know everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but it hurts when someone says that Song Cycle is crap. It's far from that. It's a little masterpiece from the sixties and yes, brilliant. It has all the ingredients of American popular music and I think the Americans should be proud of this album.

[roll plymouth rock]

I'm definitely in the pro Song Cycle camp. Yes, its dense, but its kind of like Gravity's Rainbow......a lot of layers to get through, but once you penetrate them its completely enthralling! I actually found a signed copy of Song Cycle, with the inscription "May this remain in the shadow of your Smile" from Van. Pretty weird to say the least!

Anyways, I wanted to recommend the 33 1/3 book on Song Cycle to anyone here who hasn't read it. Very in depth explanations of how they achieved all the weird effects and stuff back then....

[B-Rex]

I'm not a huge fan of Song Cycle.  I've tried to get into it but it's a turn off, much because of Parks' voice,  but I look forward to Van Dyke opening for the Fleet Foxes on October 4th.

[FatherOfTheMan Sr101]

Honestly, His voice is really easy to get over if you listen to it like someone's reading to you, which is kind of what he intends with his lyrics...

[FatherOfTheMan Sr101]

The Transition at 3:00 in "The All Golden" Is honestly the most beautiful transition in all of music.

[rab2591]

Honestly, I do think VDPs is a genius...just think about how young he was and listen to a song like 'By The People' - there is so much going on there (transitions, tempo changes, the effects), yet it flows tremendously well...
______

I'm really glad to see that there are other people out there that really enjoy this album!

I would also love to see VDPs re-record Orange Crate Art (the album) with Brian's much improved voice.

[ghost]

no way, brian sounds great on orange crate art
he could never get his harmonies to sound as dynamic again
they sound good on the Rhapsody in Blue intro but still...
i like brian's tone a lot on orange crate art

[willy]

Van Dyke's solo versions of 'Orange Crate Art' and 'Sail Away' are sublime...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_uaeGlh_cw&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAT98ABzkKY&feature=player_embedded

This 'The All Golden' ain't too shabby neither...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-J0JrExgh8&feature=player_embedded

[PS]

I'm definitely in the pro Song Cycle camp. Yes, its dense, but its kind of like Gravity's Rainbow......a lot of layers to get through, but once you penetrate them its completely enthralling! I actually found a signed copy of Song Cycle, with the inscription "May this remain in the shadow of your Smile" from Van. Pretty weird to say the least!

Anyways, I wanted to recommend the 33 1/3 book on Song Cycle to anyone here who hasn't read it. Very in depth explanations of how they achieved all the weird effects and stuff back then....

Amen to all of the above - Pynchon and Ives are my reference points too - gorgeous color and timbre, intricate lyrics, unlike anything before or since in pop music - and TUNEFUL! - these songs (actually closer to tone poems) and riffs stay in my head (hayseeds go BACK - to the country...). One of my favorite cuts (though this album is truly modular, hard to know where songs stop and start) is the peculiar quiet and background to Pot Pourri, the album's closer. Haunting, beautiful.

Song Cycle was our favorite record to get high to, back in the day. I found it - right next to Mahler's 3rd - in my local library, circa 1972. Bless libraries.

When we asked Van to autograph a copy at the SMiLE dvd concert backstage, he did so with his profile signature drawing, and shook his head, referring to the album as "a waste of time, waste of time."

Nearly made me cry.

[FatherOfTheMan Sr101]

That's Really Sad, it really was great... I think the backing tracks may be some of the worlds finest, and the lyrics are like a novel.

Let's just say his vocals are "Geddy Lee" style- acquired taste. haha

[monicker]

Anyone know for sure why older Van Dyke looks down so much on his debut album? Anything besides typical feelings of embarrassment by one's youthful forays into art? 

[PS]

Anyone know for sure why older Van Dyke looks down so much on his debut album? Anything besides typical feelings of embarrassment by one's youthful forays into art? 

More or less what you cite, i would surmise - I think he would have liked to make something that connected more to people, that was less hermetic or potentially solipsistic. He was clearly moved by SMiLe's new found reception and had his head down in hands, weeping, at one point during the concert.

from the web:

Van Dyke Parks: My feeling about Song Cycle? I'm sorry I was such a James Joyce fanatic. I thought there was a future in free-relating prose. Perhaps that was compounded by my love of beat poetry, I dunno. But I have no doubt that the inaccessibility of the lyrics made the record impossible to popularize. In the main, I'd say that Song Cycle is a fine piece of (4 months') work in a debut effort by a 23-year old. It was innovative. And it's still being discussed 30 years later.

E.C.: Speaking of the overall ‘theme’ of Song Cycle, did you consider it a continuation of Smile’s concept of an “American Gothic Trip”? Was that intentional, or was that just your mindset at the time just having come off the Smile project?

Van Dyke Parks: There was no conscious attempt to relate Song Cycle's "concept" to Smile. If anything, I'd say it was an effort to detach myself from the aborted Smile project.

[ghost]

But I have no doubt that the inaccessibility of the lyrics made the record impossible to popularize.

Bitchin' - that's exactly what I said. What VDP needed was to call up Mike Love - who someone here called the most successful rock lyricist of his time - for help with the lyrics.