alternate Cabin Essence lyrics in Priore book

[send me a picture and i'll tell you]

I just finished Smile -- The Story of Brian Wilson's Lost Masterpiece (2007 Bobcat Books edition).  There's a chapter in the back, featuring Frank Holmes' play-by-play regarding the Smile artwork.  He quotes a lyric, and tells how it figures into his artwork.  The following paragraph leaves me a bit stupefied, though:

"there's one line...I can barely remember it, something like 'Different coloured cords to your extension'--that's where the telephone cords come from.  And "Don't forget to mention this is a recording'...Back in the 60's, when something was recorded they'd have this voice saying, 'This is a recording.'  They don't have that anymore.  Then the electric plug going into that-- that's all to do with communications.  Same with 'Hello, hello'-- there were no telephone lines in those days, although in cowboy movies you'd always see some kind of reference to the 20th century somewhere, hidden away.  So the "Hello, hello' is another lost-and-found idea, someone trying to get a connection on the telephone.'

Interesting.  I wonder if these were early lyrics, which were abandoned to keep references to 20th-century technology out of the narrative.

[guitarfool2002]

Here are the lyrics:

Reconnected telephone direct dialing;
Different color cords to your extension,
Don’t forget to mention, This is a recording.’

Even though the echoes through my mind, Have filtered through the pines,
I came and found my peace, And this is not a recording.’

Doobie doo, Doobie doo, Or not doobie!



Sort of cryptic, sort of awkward, yet you get the intent. Classic VDP I guess. The part that I've wondered since seeing those lyrics was how and when would they have fit into the song structure of Cabinessence as we know it? What kind of melody would have supported those phrases? Because what exists of Cabinessence doesn't seem to have the same phrasing or flow/meter of those unused lines. This may have been for a section that was considered yet never developed, and even all the recording session we know of...they all fit what we know as "Cabinessence" and no room seems to be left for a phrase like this.

I'd say the phrase "truck drivin man" is a clear 20th century reference, since there were no motorized "trucks" or men who drove them for a living as a general rule prior to the 20th century and the advent of paved roads, i.e. the "ribbon of concrete" from another discarded Smile lyric.

And there was no direct dialing (where you dial a number instead of picking up the earpiece and saying "hello operator?") of phone calls going into the 20th century, and even up to what we may consider modern times some rural areas of the US still had an operator with a switchboard who would manually "patch" the call you were trying to make into the right extension. Some of these switchboards were manned by citizens, usually women, who would even have the actual switchboard wired up in their own house to get calls at all times. Mind blowing stuff in the context of 2011 communication technology.

[Bicyclerider]

There's an instrumental session for Cabinessence which does not match up to any of the known sections we have in terms of the musicians and instruments present - this could have been the tracking for these "lost lyrics."  Or just a retracking of a section we have.

Another theory is that these lyrics are meant for the Who Ran the Iron Horse section - an alternate or additional "Truck Drivin' Man" deal.  Truck Drivin' Man is sung beneath the second chorus, maybe these were for the first or Truck Drivin' was originally for the first chorus and these for the second.

Another lost lyric, the Sandwhich Isles lines for Worms, is also a mystery as they don't  fit as verse lyrics.  Another section, or planned to go over the Hawaiian bit at the end?

[The Demon]

There's an instrumental session for Cabinessence which does not match up to any of the known sections we have in terms of the musicians and instruments present - this could have been the tracking for these "lost lyrics."  Or just a retracking of a section we have.

What bootleg is that on?

Another theory is that these lyrics are meant for the Who Ran the Iron Horse section - an alternate or additional "Truck Drivin' Man" deal.  Truck Drivin' Man is sung beneath the second chorus, maybe these were for the first or Truck Drivin' was originally for the first chorus and these for the second.

I definitely see that as a possibility.

[Roger Ryan]

Another lost lyric, the Sandwhich Isles lines for Worms, is also a mystery as they don't  fit as verse lyrics.  Another section, or planned to go over the Hawaiian bit at the end?

Uh, those are in the second verse, right?

"Once upon the Sandwich Isles, the social structure steamed upon Hawaii"

Are you talking about a different lyric? EDIT: Oh, wait a minute - you mean the lyric that goes "The East and West Indies...we always used to get them confused". I have a feeling there were quite a few additional lyrical ideas that Brian simply edited out as he determined what he wanted for each song.

I like the idea that the "reconnected telephone" lyric may have been a lost chant to go under the first chorus of "Cabin Essence"; that way, the two examples of distinctly modern imagery creep into the song subliminally under the choruses.

[Bicyclerider]

There's an instrumental session for Cabinessence which does not match up to any of the known sections we have in terms of the musicians and instruments present - this could have been the tracking for these "lost lyrics."  Or just a retracking of a section we have.

What bootleg is that on?

None, but we have the session documentation.  I was hoping it might come up on TSS!

"Are you talking about a different lyric? EDIT: Oh, wait a minute - you mean the lyric that goes "The East and West Indies...we always used to get them confused". I have a feeling there were quite a few additional lyrical ideas that Brian simply edited out as he determined what he wanted for each song."

Yeah, I was talking about the East and West Indies lyric.

[mammy blue]

I always felt that the East and West indies lyric might fit somehow over the Hawaiian chant section.

[Catbirdman]

There's an instrumental session for Cabinessence which does not match up to any of the known sections we have in terms of the musicians and instruments present - this could have been the tracking for these "lost lyrics."  Or just a retracking of a section we have.

I'm guessing you're referencing the October 11 session here. Well, I brought that up a week or so ago in one of these threads, and someone pointed out to me that it now appears that it wasn't actually a Cabin Essence session at all, and that the session sheet was mislabelled (according to someone, but for the life of me I can't remember who said that... but it was within the past few weeks). Check out the tracklisting of the box and you'll see that what was actually recorded on that day was Child Is Father Of The Man. That was a big piece of new info for me. Of course I'm waiting for November 1st to get final confirmation of all that stuff.

[Jay]

This is slightly off topic, but I just had a thought about the "truck driving man" lyric. Could it possibly refer to a tractor, or some type of farming tool?