VDP: "victimised by Brian Wilson's buffoonery"

[hypehat]

Personally I reckon if you're looking for evidence of Van Dykes arranging on Smile, The Prelude To Fade might be the most obvious one. That sounds so much like him, what with the way the individual elements of the orchestra go with and complement the basic H&V melody.

[Wirestone]

I, too, have been lucky enough to communicate with Van Dyke, and he's been an absolute gentleman and joy to know.

[Paul J B]

VDP bailed on Smile before Brian was done with it. The direction Brian was going in may have prevented him from ever finishing Smile, however, the fact still remains that VDP walked away. It was his choice and he made the choice to bail. Sorry, but a grown man playing the victim card rubs me the wrong way. And of course he has to bring up Mike again and again. If he is such an intelligent peace and love kind of guy why does he feel the need to help perpetuate the myth that Mike had a lot to do with killing Smile? It is a false narrative, and anyone who looks/listens objectively to TSS would know it. Mike spent months and months singing exactly what Brian told him to sing. Mike did not have a damn thing to do with Brian reworking Heroes and Villians over and over and over.

Oh, and I like VDP work on Smile. As time goes on though, I think the truth has come out about the two people most responsible for the collapse of Smile. VDP and Brian.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Well put.

[Shady]

VDP bailed on Smile before Brian was done with it. The direction Brian was going in may have prevented him from ever finishing Smile, however, the fact still remains that VDP walked away. It was his choice and he made the choice to bail. Sorry, but a grown man playing the victim card rubs me the wrong way. And of course he has to bring up Mike again and again. If he is such an intelligent peace and love kind of guy why does he feel the need to help perpetuate the myth that Mike had a lot to do with killing Smile? It is a false narrative, and anyone who looks/listens objectively to TSS would know it. Mike spent months and months singing exactly what Brian told him to sing. Mike did not have a damn thing to do with Brian reworking Heroes and Villians over and over and over.

Oh, and I like VDP work on Smile. As time goes on though, I think the truth has come out about the two people most responsible for the collapse of Smile. VDP and Brian.

Great, great post.

[SMiLE Brian]

A BBs album with Brian and Van Dyke in 2013 would be interesting. Lock Mike in a closet if needed.

[guitarfool2002]

So we're now willing to either whitewash or totally disregard all of the other factors surrounding Smile in late 66/early 67 which some folks have spent years trying to uncover or interpret/analyze? I hope not.

Unless we're talking semantics here, and it feels like some are, where the hypothetical scenario of a terminally ill patient with no hope for recovery being taken off life support can come down to saying the person who actually "pulled the plug" so to speak would bear the ultimate responsibility in the matter, rather than whatever family, legal, and medical issues went into that ultimate decision and act.

Yes, Brian as the creative force had the strongest word in pulling the plug on Smile, but let's not turn a blind eye toward what those who were working around him have reported and have said happened which contributed to that decision, which may or may not have even had a definite "end point" as in Brian himself one spring day in 1967 declaring to the band "it's over".

Do not ignore the issues surrounding the Capitol lawsuit, Murry, the family dynamic of the Wilsons and Loves, the "loyalty" card, etc because each of those may have contributed (however big or small) to Smile's demise according to people who witnessed it, and it paints a more complex picture than trying to compartmentalize it into saying "Brian and Van Dyke" were most responsible.

Again, doing so would be like saying the medical professional who actually turned off the life support was most responsible for that terminally ill patient's passing in the scenario above. Technically correct, but not at all a valid point in context.

[leggo of my ego]

Im not vindicating anybody. 

Brian quits SMILE = Everybodys against ME... IM OUTTA HERE, F... IT!!!!! 

[Paul J B]

VDP bailed on Smile before Brian was done with it. The direction Brian was going in may have prevented him from ever finishing Smile, however, the fact still remains that VDP walked away. It was his choice and he made the choice to bail. Sorry, but a grown man playing the victim card rubs me the wrong way. And of course he has to bring up Mike again and again. If he is such an intelligent peace and love kind of guy why does he feel the need to help perpetuate the myth that Mike had a lot to do with killing Smile? It is a false narrative, and anyone who looks/listens objectively to TSS would know it. Mike spent months and months singing exactly what Brian told him to sing. Mike did not have a damn thing to do with Brian reworking Heroes and Villians over and over and over.

Oh, and I like VDP work on Smile. As time goes on though, I think the truth has come out about the two people most responsible for the collapse of Smile. VDP and Brian.

Great, great post.

Thanks. This topic has struck a nerve with me for a couple of years now. I'm really tired of the blame game.  VDP was a young, pretentious kid and seems to have had a huge ego that could not withstand critique.  Ever have the new "kid" come into the workplace and think they already know everything and start to rub everyone the wrong way before they are either fired or move on quickly to something else of their own accord? That's what the whole Smile and VDP thing reminds me of.

[guitarfool2002]

VDP bailed on Smile before Brian was done with it. The direction Brian was going in may have prevented him from ever finishing Smile, however, the fact still remains that VDP walked away. It was his choice and he made the choice to bail. Sorry, but a grown man playing the victim card rubs me the wrong way. And of course he has to bring up Mike again and again. If he is such an intelligent peace and love kind of guy why does he feel the need to help perpetuate the myth that Mike had a lot to do with killing Smile? It is a false narrative, and anyone who looks/listens objectively to TSS would know it. Mike spent months and months singing exactly what Brian told him to sing. Mike did not have a damn thing to do with Brian reworking Heroes and Villians over and over and over.

Oh, and I like VDP work on Smile. As time goes on though, I think the truth has come out about the two people most responsible for the collapse of Smile. VDP and Brian.

Great, great post.

Thanks. This topic has struck a nerve with me for a couple of years now. I'm really tired of the blame game.  VDP was a young, pretentious kid and seems to have had a huge ego that could not withstand critique.  Ever have the new "kid" come into the workplace and think they already know everything and start to rub everyone the wrong way before they are either fired or move on quickly to something else of their own accord? That's what the whole Smile and VDP thing reminds me of.

Van Dyke assumed the same role that Tony Asher had played in 1966, and what gets forgotten is how some of Brian's work with Tony got critiqued to the point of having lyrics which he had written with Brian discarded or rewritten before the song(s) was released under the Beach Boys name.

There was some backlash against Brian having an "outsider" working on songs, or vice versa having Brian work outside the family business, and all of that is on the historical record going back to 1962-63, and some would say still exists in 2013 according to recent interviews.

Re: the workplace scenario. Likewise, a boss can also hire someone specifically to shake things up or affect some changes, and when that new someone does do his or her job which they were hired to do and it rubs existing employees the wrong way, couldn't the issue be as much or more with the existing employees' reactions and feeling threatened by the newcomer than with the new employee who was hired to do a job and is executing those job duties? If it reaches a point where that boss who hired the new employee would then fire that new employee because the regular crew is being rubbed the wrong way, they're either not fit to be a boss or they simply have no backbone.

Ultimately the public embrace of and reactions to the work that Brian did with both Asher and Van Dyke would be the validation, even if it took several decades to materialize.

[Dancing Bear]

Van Dyke had every right to focus on SongCycle instead. He had been available for more than six months, worked his ass off on the lyrics, had helped with the tracking sessions. He probably didn't write any new lyrics in 1967 for the project. Brian was doing his thing in the studio rerecording H&V, Vegetables, Wonderful...

Does anyone here really believe that he should have refused Warner's offer to stand by Brian?

[Nicko1234]

Do not ignore the issues surrounding the Capitol lawsuit, Murry, the family dynamic of the Wilsons and Loves, the "loyalty" card, etc because each of those may have contributed (however big or small) to Smile's demise according to people who witnessed it, and it paints a more complex picture than trying to compartmentalize it into saying "Brian and Van Dyke" were most responsible.

Even if it's acknowledged that there were many issues at the time, that doesn't mean that one of those issues can't be highlighted as most important and responsible.

I don't think it was Van Dyke who was responsible because he did what was asked of him in writing the lyrics. He has said that he left because of Brian's drug use which is fair enough.

Brian has to take responsibility (while obviously being sympathetic towards his mental health problems) because to release a Smile album from what they'd recorded would have been pretty easy at that time. But it's clear that the drug use combined with the mental health problems that he already had had left him shattered and he didn't know anymore how to complete Heroes and Villains never mind the album itself.

The other band members (Mike in particular) probably were critical of some things but that's not abnormal in a band at all. What is abnormal is junking an entire album because of it.

[JohnMill]

Do not ignore the issues surrounding the Capitol lawsuit, Murry, the family dynamic of the Wilsons and Loves, the "loyalty" card, etc because each of those may have contributed (however big or small) to Smile's demise according to people who witnessed it, and it paints a more complex picture than trying to compartmentalize it into saying "Brian and Van Dyke" were most responsible.

Even if it's acknowledged that there were many issues at the time, that doesn't mean that one of those issues can't be highlighted as most important and responsible.

I don't think it was Van Dyke who was responsible because he did what was asked of him in writing the lyrics. He has said that he left because of Brian's drug use which is fair enough.

Brian has to take responsibility (while obviously being sympathetic towards his mental health problems) because to release a Smile album from what they'd recorded would have been pretty easy at that time. But it's clear that the drug use combined with the mental health problems that he already had had left him shattered and he didn't know anymore how to complete Heroes and Villains never mind the album itself.

The other band members (Mike in particular) probably were critical of some things but that's not abnormal in a band at all. What is abnormal is junking an entire album because of it.

I've never felt that Brian junked "SMiLE" because Mike Love didn't like it.  Did that possibly contribute to his decision not to more forward with project with as much gusto?  Probably.  But I just think as you brought out in your thread he ended up getting tangled up in a web of his own mania and had no idea how to bring the album to a conclusion.  I've always felt that the fate of "SMiLE" always rested in the hands of one person: Brian Wilson.  Which is why I was not surprised at all that it wasn't until 2003/2004 when Brian decided with some urging from Melinda to revisit the project that it finally saw the light of day.  Hindsight being what is is, I think we can all look back now and not be at all surprised that "SMiLE" did not surface without Brian Wilson's capitulation in the seventies, eighties or even the scrapped post-PSS "SMiLE" box in the mid-nineties. 

[Nicko1234]

I've never felt that Brian junked "SMiLE" because Mike Love didn't like it. 

Yes, you're right. My post was badly worded. What I meant was that for the people who believe that is what happened, it wouldn't be a normal reaction from Brian.

[guitarfool2002]

Do not ignore the issues surrounding the Capitol lawsuit, Murry, the family dynamic of the Wilsons and Loves, the "loyalty" card, etc because each of those may have contributed (however big or small) to Smile's demise according to people who witnessed it, and it paints a more complex picture than trying to compartmentalize it into saying "Brian and Van Dyke" were most responsible.

Even if it's acknowledged that there were many issues at the time, that doesn't mean that one of those issues can't be highlighted as most important and responsible.

I don't think it was Van Dyke who was responsible because he did what was asked of him in writing the lyrics. He has said that he left because of Brian's drug use which is fair enough.

Brian has to take responsibility (while obviously being sympathetic towards his mental health problems) because to release a Smile album from what they'd recorded would have been pretty easy at that time. But it's clear that the drug use combined with the mental health problems that he already had had left him shattered and he didn't know anymore how to complete Heroes and Villains never mind the album itself.

The other band members (Mike in particular) probably were critical of some things but that's not abnormal in a band at all. What is abnormal is junking an entire album because of it.

The issue of Van Dyke and his reactions to the drug use were addressed and I think pretty fairly challenged by a post I wrote earlier in the thread, I hope you'll go back and re-read it if you missed it earlier. In short, Van Dyke was traveling in circles both in LA and in the next ten years or so of his life and friendships where heavy drug use was a part of life among some of the friends and working associates he was around. Both before *and* after Smile. So it's still a stretch for me to see the history of who he worked with and to pinpoint something that was consuming those around him solely to Brian Wilson in 1967, especially considering there were folks with far worse habits and behaviors that were in and around Van Dyke's circle of associates and friends.

And that point would seem to erase the offer that was given him by Warners to be his own boss, his own musical identity as an artist, and have control over his own music. For an early-20's guy in LA, that was an amazing offer, still is in terms of 2013's music business. It's akin to hitting the lottery to have that kind of offer for a debut album.

I honestly feel that there cannot be and will never be one main reason behind any of this, and if we start assigning such a label to any of what we know of Smile, it will simply not be accurate. I thought the Smile fan and research community in general had accepted that and moved beyond that some time ago, where the series of events taken as a whole need to be factored in far more than one finger of blame or responsibility, because it wasn't that easy to package.

[MarcellaHasDirtyFeet]

Brian has to take responsibility (while obviously being sympathetic towards his mental health problems) because to release a Smile album from what they'd recorded would have been pretty easy at that time.

Ehhhhh I feel that's an awfully presumptuous statement to make. Given the difficulties of working with analog tape and the sheer volume of what was recorded, and without the benefit of 45 years of hindsight, not to mention the hurricane swirling around him, Brian probably wouldn't have found the task to be as easy as you might think.

[Nicko1234]

Ehhhhh I feel that's an awfully presumptuous statement to make. Given the difficulties of working with analog tape and the sheer volume of what was recorded, and without the benefit of 45 years of hindsight, not to mention the hurricane swirling around him, Brian probably wouldn't have found the task to be as easy as you might think.

Note that I said, 'a Smile album'. I didn't say it could have been the definitive Smile album or a perfect one. Could they have completed something at that time when you consider all of the recording that they'd done? Yes, I believe so.

[Bicyclerider]

Do not ignore the issues surrounding the Capitol lawsuit, Murry, the family dynamic of the Wilsons and Loves, the "loyalty" card, etc because each of those may have contributed (however big or small) to Smile's demise according to people who witnessed it, and it paints a more complex picture than trying to compartmentalize it into saying "Brian and Van Dyke" were most responsible.

Even if it's acknowledged that there were many issues at the time, that doesn't mean that one of those issues can't be highlighted as most important and responsible.

I don't think it was Van Dyke who was responsible because he did what was asked of him in writing the lyrics. He has said that he left because of Brian's drug use which is fair enough.

Brian has to take responsibility (while obviously being sympathetic towards his mental health problems) because to release a Smile album from what they'd recorded would have been pretty easy at that time. But it's clear that the drug use combined with the mental health problems that he already had had left him shattered and he didn't know anymore how to complete Heroes and Villains never mind the album itself.

The other band members (Mike in particular) probably were critical of some things but that's not abnormal in a band at all. What is abnormal is junking an entire album because of it.

The issue of Van Dyke and his reactions to the drug use were addressed and I think pretty fairly challenged by a post I wrote earlier in the thread, I hope you'll go back and re-read it if you missed it earlier. In short, Van Dyke was traveling in circles both in LA and in the next ten years or so of his life and friendships where heavy drug use was a part of life among some of the friends and working associates he was around. Both before *and* after Smile. So it's still a stretch for me to see the history of who he worked with and to pinpoint something that was consuming those around him solely to Brian Wilson in 1967, especially considering there were folks with far worse habits and behaviors that were in and around Van Dyke's circle of associates and friends.

And that point would seem to erase the offer that was given him by Warners to be his own boss, his own musical identity as an artist, and have control over his own music. For an early-20's guy in LA, that was an amazing offer, still is in terms of 2013's music business. It's akin to hitting the lottery to have that kind of offer for a debut album.

I honestly feel that there cannot be and will never be one main reason behind any of this, and if we start assigning such a label to any of what we know of Smile, it will simply not be accurate. I thought the Smile fan and research community in general had accepted that and moved beyond that some time ago, where the series of events taken as a whole need to be factored in far more than one finger of blame or responsibility, because it wasn't that easy to package.

Van Dyke's feelings about the collapse of Smile are complex as well and cannot be simplified to one reason or attitutde.  Look at his blaming Mike for Mike's hostility towards him and his lyric writing with Brian.  Multiple writers and people on the scene have confirmed this, including Brian.  I suspect that while Van Dyke appears on the surface to be supremely confident and even arrogant at times, underneath that he must have had  doubts about his ability to write "Beach Boys" music with Brian that would fit in with their musical history and be successful in the marketplace.  In a sense Mike was confirming to Van Dyke his worst fears about the Smile project that he didn't want to admit to himself.  Van Dyke was insulted and hurt by Mike's attitutde AND by Brian not having his back.  As a defense mechanism he responded with an "I don't care if you like my lyrics, don't use them if you don't want to" and an I don't need this, I'm out of here attitude, but that was a front.  So he walked out on the project, and I believe has felt guilty about abandoning Brian and Smile ever since.  BWPS was closure for Van Dyke almost as much as it was for Brian.

Mike may have sowed seeds of doubt in both Brian and Van Dyke but those doubrts were there all along.  Brian's erratic behavior and "dominating" Van Dyke, Mike's attitude, their own doubts, Brian's increasingly obsessive complulsive reworking of tracks without any clear prospect of finishing the album, Van Dyke's leaving, and add in Capitol pressure and the lawsuit, Murry and god knows what else, and Brian (and Brian alone) pulls the plug.  But if we're assigning "blame" I would say Mike would be pretty far down the list, and the two people at the top would Brian and Van Dyke.

[hypehat]

Van Dyke had every right to focus on SongCycle instead. He had been available for more than six months, worked his ass off on the lyrics, had helped with the tracking sessions. He probably didn't write any new lyrics in 1967 for the project. Brian was doing his thing in the studio rerecording H&V, Vegetables, Wonderful...

Does anyone here really believe that he should have refused Warner's offer to stand by Brian?

This is a good argument, and key. I reckon he didn't write a thing in 1967, given the vast majority of sessions were for H&V and Veggies. If he did, it would have been Dada, and we have no record of period lyrics for that. His work was done, unless he wanted to stick around and be quizzed by the band.

Tony Asher didn't turn up to any vocal sessions, did he... His only anecdotes, as I recall, focus on him going to the tracking dates.

Van Dyke also mentions in this particular interview that he was still dealing with the death of his brother at that time, which coloured his songwriting for Song Cycle. If you were grieving, Brian's organised fun might not really appeal to you

[guitarfool2002]

Do not ignore the issues surrounding the Capitol lawsuit, Murry, the family dynamic of the Wilsons and Loves, the "loyalty" card, etc because each of those may have contributed (however big or small) to Smile's demise according to people who witnessed it, and it paints a more complex picture than trying to compartmentalize it into saying "Brian and Van Dyke" were most responsible.

Even if it's acknowledged that there were many issues at the time, that doesn't mean that one of those issues can't be highlighted as most important and responsible.

I don't think it was Van Dyke who was responsible because he did what was asked of him in writing the lyrics. He has said that he left because of Brian's drug use which is fair enough.

Brian has to take responsibility (while obviously being sympathetic towards his mental health problems) because to release a Smile album from what they'd recorded would have been pretty easy at that time. But it's clear that the drug use combined with the mental health problems that he already had had left him shattered and he didn't know anymore how to complete Heroes and Villains never mind the album itself.

The other band members (Mike in particular) probably were critical of some things but that's not abnormal in a band at all. What is abnormal is junking an entire album because of it.

The issue of Van Dyke and his reactions to the drug use were addressed and I think pretty fairly challenged by a post I wrote earlier in the thread, I hope you'll go back and re-read it if you missed it earlier. In short, Van Dyke was traveling in circles both in LA and in the next ten years or so of his life and friendships where heavy drug use was a part of life among some of the friends and working associates he was around. Both before *and* after Smile. So it's still a stretch for me to see the history of who he worked with and to pinpoint something that was consuming those around him solely to Brian Wilson in 1967, especially considering there were folks with far worse habits and behaviors that were in and around Van Dyke's circle of associates and friends.

And that point would seem to erase the offer that was given him by Warners to be his own boss, his own musical identity as an artist, and have control over his own music. For an early-20's guy in LA, that was an amazing offer, still is in terms of 2013's music business. It's akin to hitting the lottery to have that kind of offer for a debut album.

I honestly feel that there cannot be and will never be one main reason behind any of this, and if we start assigning such a label to any of what we know of Smile, it will simply not be accurate. I thought the Smile fan and research community in general had accepted that and moved beyond that some time ago, where the series of events taken as a whole need to be factored in far more than one finger of blame or responsibility, because it wasn't that easy to package.

Van Dyke's feelings about the collapse of Smile are complex as well and cannot be simplified to one reason or attitutde.  Look at his blaming Mike for Mike's hostility towards him and his lyric writing with Brian.  Multiple writers and people on the scene have confirmed this, including Brian.  I suspect that while Van Dyke appears on the surface to be supremely confident and even arrogant at times, underneath that he must have had  doubts about his ability to write "Beach Boys" music with Brian that would fit in with their musical history and be successful in the marketplace.  In a sense Mike was confirming to Van Dyke his worst fears about the Smile project that he didn't want to admit to himself.  Van Dyke was insulted and hurt by Mike's attitutde AND by Brian not having his back.  As a defense mechanism he responded with an "I don't care if you like my lyrics, don't use them if you don't want to" and an I don't need this, I'm out of here attitude, but that was a front.  So he walked out on the project, and I believe has felt guilty about abandoning Brian and Smile ever since.  BWPS was closure for Van Dyke almost as much as it was for Brian.

Mike may have sowed seeds of doubt in both Brian and Van Dyke but those doubrts were there all along.  Brian's erratic behavior and "dominating" Van Dyke, Mike's attitude, their own doubts, Brian's increasingly obsessive complulsive reworking of tracks without any clear prospect of finishing the album, Van Dyke's leaving, and add in Capitol pressure and the lawsuit, Murry and god knows what else, and Brian (and Brian alone) pulls the plug.  But if we're assigning "blame" I would say Mike would be pretty far down the list, and the two people at the top would Brian and Van Dyke.

It still feels like the issue of blame is more semantics than anything else, as I doubt there are many in 2013 who don't think Brian was the one who scrapped Smile...and I said as much earlier in this thread. It would be a disservice to put all the historical focus on the fact that, yes, Brian "pulled the plug" on Smile when there was a perfect storm of events and people which came together at perhaps exactly the wrong time which led to the collapse of the Smile album. And we may never know all of those events, either, so why whitewash the whole thing by focusing on the notion of blaming someone rather than the reasons and events which led to that point?

It's too complex an issue to assign blame, and again perhaps those relatively new to the whole Smile saga would seek to do that but I thought that was old news several decades ago as Brian himself has said many times "I scrapped it" or "I threw it away", and heck, Derek Taylor's press release in 1967 among others said with no doubt that Brian pulled the plug!

So why in 2013 is the issue of assigning blame in any way coming up in light of everything else?

[guitarfool2002]

Van Dyke had every right to focus on SongCycle instead. He had been available for more than six months, worked his ass off on the lyrics, had helped with the tracking sessions. He probably didn't write any new lyrics in 1967 for the project. Brian was doing his thing in the studio rerecording H&V, Vegetables, Wonderful...

Does anyone here really believe that he should have refused Warner's offer to stand by Brian?

This is a good argument, and key. I reckon he didn't write a thing in 1967, given the vast majority of sessions were for H&V and Veggies. If he did, it would have been Dada, and we have no record of period lyrics for that. His work was done, unless he wanted to stick around and be quizzed by the band.

Tony Asher didn't turn up to any vocal sessions, did he... His only anecdotes, as I recall, focus on him going to the tracking dates.

Van Dyke also mentions in this particular interview that he was still dealing with the death of his brother at that time, which coloured his songwriting for Song Cycle. If you were grieving, Brian's organised fun might not really appeal to you

The first point: We have session photos of Van and Brian in the studio, most date from 1967, including the famous one of them both playing the same Rickenbacker guitar. We have a session tape where Van Dyke is on the studio floor conducting a large band with strings as they record an instrumental section of Heroes which never had lyrics. We have other less obvious evidence too in similar forms as those examples.

So he was there in the studio as Brian did tracks which had no intended lyrics, and also there as other instrumental tracks were recorded in '67. He did more than simply write the lyrics and wash his hands after that work was done.

Second point: There is a series of photos taken at Columbia where Tony Asher is seen standing behind the patch bay as Brian, Bruce, and Terry are at the board, and I believe Mike is seen in another shot from that series, but I could be wrong on that point. But Brian was not cutting too much of the instrumental stuff on Pet Sounds at Columbia, yet Asher was there in at least that one set of photos. Of the few extended vocal sessions we do have from the Pet Sounds era, is Tony mentioned on any of them, or can he be heard in the booth or floor at all? Remember too, he had an actual corporate job which he took a leave of absence from to write with Brian - meaning at some point he was back writing for the ad agency at perhaps the same time Brian would have been tracking vocals. Just a thought.

Third point: Everyone grieves in different ways, no one can claim to state what did or didn't appeal to Van Dyke at this time. Perhaps he needed this activity as well to take his mind off the grief? It's silly to speculate how one deals with grief, so let's not assume he didn't want to be there. The session tapes don't feature a down or sullen Van Dyke, in fact when they are all goofing off and making noises into the microphone, Van Dyke sounds like his usual sarcastic self yet he's also participating and contributing to the goings-on rather than getting up and walking out. Not to mention the regular sessions where he can be heard basically working alongside Brian and offering suggestions and encouragement.

I do get the feeling Brian had a more willing and eager friend in Michael Vosse who seemed pretty happy to be doing all this crazy stuff with Brian. But Vosse wasn't the musician Van Dyke was.

[Cam Mott]

VDP may have made suggestions and some of them may have been accepted by Brian but if Anderle's right not enough of them were accepted to suit VDP because he says VDP had a problem with the music being not sophisticated enough. Jimmy Lockert told me this and you hear it on the tapes, Brian would listen to suggestions and he may adopt them, he might even try it, or he might dismiss it out right. He only did what he wanted to do.

There may be many reasons but in my opinion the only real problem was Brian fell out of love with what VDP gave him and the plans he had for the tracks and album didn't work anymore and he changed up what could work for him and dumped the rest for something different.

[Sound of Free]

On a related point, who wrote the lyrics to Wind Chimes, Brian or Van Dyke? The credit originally was to Brian only and I don't think it was changed until BWPS cam out, and it was Wilson/Parks. It was also that way on the box set.

When I saw Brian's solo credit and the fact that the words didn't sound like any of Van Dyke's other lyrics on the project, I always figured Brian wrote them.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

There may be many reasons but in my opinion the only real problem was Brian fell out of love with what VDP gave him and the plans he had for the tracks and album didn't work anymore and he changed up what could work for him and dumped the rest for something different.

If that's true then what explains the presence of Heroes and Villains, Vegetables, She's Goin' Bald, and Wind Chimes on the next album. If Brian really didn't like what VDP gave him anymore, why record an album in which over a third of the material was co-written with Parks?

[Chocolate Shake Man]

On a related point, who wrote the lyrics to Wind Chimes, Brian or Van Dyke? The credit originally was to Brian only and I don't think it was changed until BWPS cam out, and it was Wilson/Parks. It was also that way on the box set.

When I saw Brian's solo credit and the fact that the words didn't sound like any of Van Dyke's other lyrics on the project, I always figured Brian wrote them.

Parks claims Wind Chimes but disavows He Gives Speeches. I think it's the other way around.