Wind Chimes is not a song about Wind or Air at all. It has nothing to do with the elements. That connection is just the result of the title. Wind Chimes is about death, it's about how we as a culture are hung up on death, and how we need to let go of our hang ups and flow with life, and recognize the beauty and necessity of death.
I really appreciate your breakdown of WC and say some other posters weren't giving you nearly enough credit. It's interesting to me how people acknowledge the depth of VDP's words (though admittedly WC isn't one of his more complex lyrics, at least at first glance) but then poo-poo in depth analysis. I think you raised a lot of good points and besides the sound texture of WC being so similar to the BWPS second movement, your "song about death" argument was a big factor in making me reconsider it as a Cycle of Life track.
Again personally I'd lean away from the three movements concept. In my opinion the album in that format was enjoyable to listen to a few times (and was especially enjoyable to hear in concert presented in that context) but soon became a challenge for me to listen to. It just seemed to elongate the entire album.
Its amazing what editing can do, isn't it? A simple rearrangement of tracks can make the same music sound exhilarating or exhausting. Before I took matters into my own hands and only had an iTunes playlist of SMiLE (in the BWPS playing order) I looked at the play counts one day and realized CE through SU were heard like 5+ times more often than anything else and I thought "why don't I ever listen to MOLC or WC, those are great songs!" and realized "yeah but not back to back and not coming after that awful hump that is BWPS IIGS & VT!"
Now, in a two-movement structure, I still single out CE and CIFOTM for individual listens very often but I also listen to the entire album front to back way more frequently than I used to. That, to me, is the ultimate proof a 2-movement sequence is superior and that BWPS' template doesn't do the material justice. I resent that it's how most newcomers will experience the music because I think they're getting a poor impression. I'll beat this dead horse until the bones break, but the material's reputation is being actively diminished every day that casuals discover SMiLE for the first time, find the TSS Disc 1 assembly on youtube or spotify, and listen to that awful, broken mess of a "reconstruction." If you want to know why SMiLE didn't make more of a splash and start a critical reevaluation for the group, I say look no further than that disastrous decision. (I know it was Brian's call but even geniuses can be wrong sometimes.) It's both sad and validating looking through this thread and seeing how almost nobody wanted things to come out the way they did, but alas...
Thank you, my point exactly. The idea that Brian was tragically lost is a romantic fan-tasy imo. Mainly because Brian documented in some way exactly what each section he recorded was for, in what song, in what place in that song. He did change his mind and would record something new or a replacement and each time it is noted what it was for in what song. He wasn't just casting around recording crap hoping he found a place for it. Anyways, it was exactly the way he did GV, noting what each recording was for and where it fit in the song.
Calm down Cam. Well, you know.....it just...... Go lay down, pard.
I both agree and disagree. I think the "there was no plan! / Brian was crazy / he never knew what he wanted to do!" talking points are overstated but not totally made up either. He definitely changed his mind a lot as we can see by the number of tracks remade several times HOWEVER they weren't pointless revisions as some claim either:
1) WC version 1 I think was abandoned when it didn't satisfy Brian's bisociative/pictorial arrangement MO during the SMiLE sessions. Version 2's marimbas (and piano fade) sound more like actual wind chimes.
2) Heroes...well, Heroes was Heroes. Obviously it cannibalized other songs' best moments to try to make it better as a single.
3) I suspect Version 2 Wonderful was meant to sound more like a cantina song than Version 1's music box sound texture. I think it was meant to be like the song Margarita would dance to, and be the B-side of Heroes, so the two tracks were meant to be thematically linked in that way. I'm guessing Version 3's piano sound paired with Veggies was a similar idea.
4) CIFOTM is also, I think, a case where the first Version wasn't bisociative/pictorial enough, while the second with the bass and horn parts sound more like a baby crying and heartbeat.
5) Veggies too, went from basically an extended verse to a full-blown song as it was selected for a single.
^With this in mind, suddenly Brian's revisiting previously recorded songs makes a bit more sense. Still arguably wasteful, but purposeful. As far as the album sequence as a whole, same thing. We have accounts of him demoing some sequences to people, they tell him it's perfect, he changes it the next time and they say that's perfect too, and he couldn't settle on one for good. Without knowing what specific medleys anyone heard I can't comment directly. But some seemingly contradictory clues I think are easy to explain if people aren't being obstinate about it. The best example I can think of is...
We know at the time it was recorded, Prayer was "intro to the album" and that's September. But then people point out the contradiction of Vosse describing something like Prayer coming after SU at the very end. And some argue "Prayer is in the right key for Worms/GV but not Heroes" which is most commonly placed as the first proper track. Well, in December, when Brian would've been informed there needed to be another single besides Vibes (when previously he'd intended no additional singles,) we get You're Welcome. YW, in the key of Heroes and the timeline matches up for when that song would almost certainly now lead off a side. So, Vosse was describing Prayer as it existed later in the sessions, and the cut that fades in...fades into the album (doesn't that make so much more sense than using it as an outro??). It all fits, it's just people take disparate pieces of half-understood info and you get a seeming contradiction and/or a musically awkward sequence. (I never liked Prayer into Heroes, or YW as an outro, these decisions always sounded forced as hell to me. I maintain that if people weren't bowing to convention, no one would organically sequence things the way they're done on most fanmixes and boots.)
^So that's another case where a little research and common sense can connect all the dots in a very plausible way if people would just take the time and step outside the established traditions. But for some, it's easier to default to "there was no plan! / the plan changed every day!" as an excuse not to think, or to dismiss any attempt at reconstruction that isn't BWPS. There was at least a general idea of what the album was, especially by Nov I say, even if Brian didn't dot all the i's, cross all the t's and was want to change his mind every so often. Things shifted over time but not so frequently nor so haphazardly that we can't piece together some of his conceptions with a little educated guesswork and well-reasoned conjecture. I've always thought that during the Oct-Dec period, there was absolutely ~35 minutes worth of interconnected brilliant music floating around in Brian's head (probably everything sans the other elements) he just couldn't get it down in time before shifting focus and once the search for the single was done he'd lost interest and lost heart.
Im also increasingly convinced that a lot of the confusion and "contradictions" that keep us from locking down a more accurate understanding of what happened and SMiLE's true form, is mostly due to selfish lying "authorities" like Priore poisoning the well with their unproven (Id argue all but
disproven) fan theories and libel passed off as fact. That man, and some others I wont name, have done a ton of damage to SMiLE discourse over the decades and may've cost us our chance at getting definitive answers before it was too late. I'll sing that man's follies till the cows come home.
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