I don't think anyones ever nailed a really satisfying version of this song, including Brian!
I've got a work-in-progress on the go but pressed for time to finish it - it cheats a 'bit' by using part of Cabinessence in place of H&V intro, I use the backing track of the chorus with the vox then fading up
trust me it flows perfectly and sounds fab and isn't really that much of a cheat as it and 'intro' are pretty similar + there is train stuff in early versions of H&V
You know, if I were pressed I'd have to say the "alternate" version is the best one.
1st Verse -> a Capella -> Cantina -> Children Were Raised/Three Score and Five -> Dumb Whistle -> False Barnyard
I think it's the most energetic version, it has the most momentum of any of the mixes I've heard. To be frank, the chorus is a misguided addition in my opinion. Heroes and Villains thrives on this sort of restless, amphetamine fueled energy. It shifts wildly through a dizzying array of ideas, never settling on one but always moving on to the next, propelled by Brian's obsessive compulsive neurosis. The chorus slows everything down and stymies the whole song, giving it the turgid air of stagnated convention.
The track is all about movement, it's just blasts off over the horizon without ever looking back. Look at the second "verse":
My children were raised
you know they suddenly rise.
They started slow long ago
healthy, wealthy, and often wise
At three score and five
I'm very much alive.
I've still got the jive
to survive with the Heroes and Villains.The first two lines seamlessly blur past and present. The first is in the past tense, the second in the present, as if decades had passed in a single instant. On "often wise" there's also that really distinctive sour piano "joke", and it's essential musically I think. Brian made a real mistake taking it out, it's a matter of that "density" I was talking about. The "often wise" means just that, his children made mistakes along the way. They were often, not always wise, and the music on that line really conveys that brilliantly.
In the next verse, the singer is already "three score and five", or 65 years old. A turn of phrase which immediately conjures up the authority of Lincoln, and brings the song back to the traditional American iconography that Smile so frequently employs. And of course at the time the song was being written, the 20th century was, like the singer, 65 years old. A coincidence perhaps, but an interesting one none-the-less. And if you connect that with the very first lines of the song, "I've been in this town so long...", it paints a pretty interesting picture. As if the singer represents some vital element that has been "taken for lost and gone and unknown for a long long time" by the people of "the city" (is there any symbol of modernity that's more well worn, and persistent than 'the city'?).
Really the lyrics of Heroes and Villains are just good poetry, plain and simple. Their incredibly memorable, intelligent, and just brimming with ideas and images. And Brian does a wonderful job teasing them out with his music. It's a fantastic collaboration, plain and simple.
I mean look at this line,
In the cantina margaritas keep the spirit high.Not only does it preserve the song's sense of time and place, but it also alludes to the "Two-Step to lamp lights cellar tune..." section of Surf's Up.
'The laughs come hard in Auld Lang Syne.' The poor people in the cellar taverns, trying to make themselves happy by singing.
Then there's the parties, the 'drinking, trying to forget the wars, the battles at sea. "While at port a do or die.' Ships in the harbor, battling it out. A kind of Roman empire thing.
Spirit has a double meaning, evoking both the human spirit but also the alcohol the patrons are drinking, and the margaritas are eventually personified in the form of "Margarita". The use of the word "high" is interesting too, as is the "you're under arrest" which ends the section. It's a really compact few lines. The image of cowboys drinking in a saloon and growing intoxicated becomes this subtle metaphor for the kids in the 60's doing drugs, and their persecution by the establishment. And the element of personification, where the drink morphs into a woman that the singer professes his love for introduces a troubling aspect, of being blinded by the drugs, or relying on them too heavily.
The only thing missing is a sound effect track. This part absolutely begs for one, and I don't think the Cantina section is complete otherwise. I'd love to hear the sound of the bustling saloon in one stereo channel and lonely sound of Brian playing the piano in the other (had the song ever been actually released). It would have really made it, giving the listener a sense of the singers isolation from the tumult and excitement of the counterculture. Where he's off in a corner, isolated, ignored by the crowd as they party themselves away.
As you add more and more of the various bridges Brian recorded, you sort of loose sight of the song's real magic, as they don't really contribute any substantial lyrical or thematic ideas to the final song. To be certain, I love all of those fragments, but stuffing them all into a 10 minute song unfortunately dilutes the poetic content pretty substantially.
and blah blah blah, you get the idea. I have a habit of droning on, so I'll spare you guys the rest of my analysis.
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