Fall Breaks And Back To Winter

[ESQ Editor]

"Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" and "Fall Breaks And Back To Winter" are more like step-siblings than cousins.

Listen to the baseline.

[The Shift]

"Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" and "Fall Breaks And Back To Winter" are more like step-siblings than cousins.

Listen to the baseline.

Who Ran The Iron Horse just has to be related too, if slightly more distantly

[Boiled Egg]

"Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" and "Fall Breaks And Back To Winter" are more like step-siblings than cousins.

Listen to the baseline.

this may be a shade of subtlety too far for the Boiled Egg, who has no stepsiblings, but several wildly differing cousins...

(hair-splitting for clarity: the bassline of which?)

[lance]

"Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" and "Fall Breaks And Back To Winter" are more like step-siblings than cousins.

Listen to the baseline.

Who Ran The Iron Horse just has to be related too, if slightly more distantly

I hear a sort of relationship between  all those SMILE songs. Even songs as seemingly different as "wonderful" and "fire" have a clear relation to my ears.  But yeah, with Mrs. O'Leary's Cow, FBABTW and Cabin Essence it's unmissible.

[Boiled Egg]

As far as sessions, none are booted, although there are some alternate mixes booted with some studio chatter at the beginning and a melodica line that leads into the main section we know. The chatter is over it, though. Note - both of the circulating alternate mixes are STEREO.

can anyone clue me up as to which boot this is?  indeed, the names of any boots with any scrap of FBABTW would be gratefully received.

by the way, The Guardian (national british newspaper) has a blog about great british tv themes (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/organgrinder/2009/feb/17/top-tv-theme-tunes) which says, of the two-piccolos-playing-morse-code theme to 'some mothers do 'ave em' (an inexplicably popular, clodhoppingly awful lump of slapstick) that "no melody has ever captured the concept of deep-rooted mental confusion quite like it (with the possible exception of She's Goin' Bald by The Beach Boys)".

[Christian]

can anyone clue me up as to which boot this is?  indeed, the names of any boots with any scrap of FBABTW would be gratefully received.

a "complete version in stereo" is on CD 1 of "Harmony Friends"

[Bicyclerider]

And on Archaeology, except the intro is cut off (but is found elsewhere on another track).

[Disney Boy (1985)]

I've a FBABTW boot with studio chatter rather clumsily pasted onto the beginning (i suspect it's not even from the FBABTW session), however at the end of the track, instead of fading out, whoever is playing the organ (Brian) holds the same note for an age and then it suddenly stops. It makes for a very strange ending, but one which i almost think suits it better, it being a very strange song and all.
Always loved this track! Smiley was the first BB album i ever bought (almost entirely due to its excellent cover art) and i remember the melody of this song absolutely knocked me out, especially the 'de-dee-de-dee-de-dee-de-dee' descending melody at the end of each 'chorus'. Great song!

[Gertie J.]

Am I alone on thinking this is the lesser track of Smiley? It just bores me to death...

[LostArt]

Am I alone on thinking this is the lesser track of Smiley? It just bores me to death...

No, I'm sure you're not alone.  People like what they like.  Beach Boys fans, especially, can not agree on what the best songs/worst songs are, because the BB catalog is so diverse.  As for me, Smile Smile got me into the Beach Boys in 1988, and this song is one of the reasons why.  I absolutely love it. 

I coulda swore I read somewhere that Brian said that "Fall Breaks..." was supposed to represent fall transitioning to winter (makes sense when you look at the title), but that it didn't come out that way - it only sounded like winter.

Really? Because to me it sounds entirely like fall. Anyway, thanks for bringing that little information!

Sounds more like fall (autumn) to me, too.  Of course, winter in Wisconsin is nothing like winter in southern California, so there you go.

"Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" and "Fall Breaks And Back To Winter" are more like step-siblings than cousins.

Listen to the baseline.

Well, I've said this before, and I'll say it again.  The bass lines in these two songs are not similar at all.  The vocal line in Fall Breaks is similar to the bass line in Mrs. O'Leary's Cow.  But that bass line on FBABTW is incredible...the big Baldwin organ at it's best.

[SunBurn]

• for me, the harmony is the biggest tangle.  it's easily the most avant-garde (for want of a less pejorative term) stuff brian ever attempted.  it's bizarre, illogical, dizzyingly complex, yet it sort of makes sense.  it presages the sort of thing that miles davis ended up doing on bitches brew - combining several tonal centres at the same time - and is the sort of thing charles ives would have been proud of.  (as for the bass line - C F E Eb D Eb Ab Db - god knows where that came from.)  but here's the thing: brian never did anything as far-out harmonically as this before or after.  apart from MOLC, which FBABTW resembles (and with which BW combined it for BWPS).  so what exactly is the relationship between the two pieces?

Coincidentally, I had this recording on last night and was working out the vocal harmony on the piano. Wow! I was reminded of a whole-tone approach a la Debussy, but it is definitely something else! The three-part harmony on "Transcendental  Meditation" is, I believe, similarly adventurous.

[rn57]

As I wrote in the Friends vs Sunflower thread, I've sometimes wondered if the Residents used Fall Breaks (and Transcendental Meditation) as the foundation of their whole career.