SMiLE release thoughts from a returnee and some questions for the scholars

[drbeachboy]

Smile! Talk about your musical High. After 4 CDs worth of music, I'll be in drug induced coma.

[Jay]

Even if you think the line is "freshened" and not "freshen" you still have to wonder, what made the air fresh? What process occurred to clear the air?

And if you interpret the line "Fresh Zen Air" it's even more interesting...

I've sometimes interpreted that line as meaning that there's marijuana smoke floating up around him. And "lickety-split" could be licking the joint before you close it.

lickety...spliff?

[bossaroo]

a two-and-a-half is a dive: the diver performs two-and-a-half revolutions in the air.


that line in particular sounds made up on the spot, like it should have been the other way around:
Do a two-and-a-half, THEN hit the dirt

but maybe it was just Brian being goofy.... like eating the wrapper instead of the candy bar.

[Jay]

a two-and-a-half is a dive: the diver performs two-and-a-half revolutions in the air.


that line in particular sounds made up on the spot, like it should have been the other way around:
Do a two-and-a-half, THEN hit the dirt

but maybe it was just Brian being goofy.... like eating the wrapper instead of the candy bar.

perhaps he's alluding to do a a two-and-a-half roll in the dirt/mud, as a pig would do in a barnyard?

[Dunderhead]

That's a really great observation.
We know that Brian loved to swim, right? So it's like he's diving into the pig pen and doing a two and a half dive on his way in.
But I suppose you're right, the lyric should be reversed.

And if he was doing a dive, why would he leave his hat on

[?]

that line in particular sounds made up on the spot, like it should have been the other way around:
Do a two-and-a-half, THEN hit the dirt

Not an uncommon style with Smile lyrics.  See:

The crow cries and hover(s) the the cornfield.
The thresher uncover(s) wheat field.

Pretty straightforward that way.  If someone would have pointed that out to Mike maybe he wouldn't have freaked out. 

[Roger Ryan]

Okay, the only problem is that "agriculture" is a 2003/2004 lyric.  

The 1966 lyric is "open country."

Brian rather rushes his way through the H&V demo and often mumbles his lines but after repeated listening on headphones (come on and try it - millions of others have) you will agree it ain't 'open country' he's singing.
This was discussed on this board before (way back) and the general concensus was that  'I'm in the great shape of the agriculture' is 100% 1966 vintage. Actually it's more like 'I'm in the great shape of the 'agrrrrhuture'.

Thank you Bill for being the voice of sanity    Has Van Dyke Parks ever said he decided to change "open country" to "agriculture" for BWPS? I see Brian and co. being slavishly faithful to Parks' original lyrics when they existed. Sure, Brian sings "barnyard" twice instead of "farmyard" and I suspect he sings next time he'll leave his hat off on BWPS, but there is not another example of lyrics being drastically changed as has been suggested here. Brian is singing a track off-the-cuff for a DJ and blows the word "clean" so it comes out "fresh...un...air around my head". I mean which sounds like a real lyric: "Fresh, clean air around my head" or "Freshen air around my head"? I kind of like "Fresh Zen air..." but Brian's not singing that either. The few lyrics that exist to "I'm In Great Shape" are pure Parks and what sounds more like a SMiLE lyric written by Parks: "I'm in the great shape of the agri-culture" or "I'm in the great shape of the open country"?

The latter is kind of bland whereas the former has a nifty little pun. By splitting the word, Parks draws attention to the term "culture" which is normally associated with high art. Here it is used to describe the exact opposite: nourishment from the ground, farmland, salt of the earth. Again, this ties into the reoccurring themes of Americana and reminds us that the "iron horse" of "Cabin Essence" signals that the agrarian society will be superceded by an industrial one. Could this be why "Workshop" is now positioned after "I'm In Great Shape", to echo the idea that industry will transform the "agri-culture"?

[bossaroo]

so Van Dyke wrote the lyric: "Hit the dirt, do a two-and-a-half" ?!!?

no.

[juggler]

Okay, the only problem is that "agriculture" is a 2003/2004 lyric.  

The 1966 lyric is "open country."

Brian rather rushes his way through the H&V demo and often mumbles his lines but after repeated listening on headphones (come on and try it - millions of others have) you will agree it ain't 'open country' he's singing.
This was discussed on this board before (way back) and the general concensus was that  'I'm in the great shape of the agriculture' is 100% 1966 vintage. Actually it's more like 'I'm in the great shape of the 'agrrrrhuture'.

Well, the "concensus" (sic) was wrong.  I too have listened many times with headphones.  "Agriculture" ain't there.  The word "country," however, is clear as a bell.  I agree that the first part is hard to understand, and, as a result, for a long time there was debate over whether the preceding word was "open" or "upper."  Then, however, David Oppenheim's "Inside Pop" notes were discovered and included this reference:

"Heroes & Villains plays
        Vandyke Parks has been working on lyrics
        sings open country song "

So there you go...   An independent 1966 account of a different rendition of the song...

[Dunderhead]

It's so awful that we don't have those inside pop reels. I wonder what happened to them, if they're just sitting in a landfill somewhere now.

I really want to believe that if we all put our heads together we could find them. In one of the old threads trying to track them down Jasper posted,

"She also stated that they used to archive unused film reels in a archive in New York. The usual blabla I guess. But, I took the time to contact all film archives I could find in New York and even other ones that could possibly hold old CBS material all over America.
There was a positive answer from CBS News Archive, etc. I don't want to go into details."

But he never elaborated what that meant. If he received definite confirmation if they exist or not, or if he was told by CBS to quit bugging them or what.

I'd really like to put up a kickstarter project to receive funding to track down the inside pop reels.

[OneEar/OneEye]

The song is not about death, it's about preoccupation with death. It's not depressive in the same way as 'Til I Die. That song is more grim and nihilistic, about how life is so difficult and Brian is just waiting for Death. Wind Chimes is not like that at all, Wind Chimes is about fear of death, and overcoming that fear.

Just listened to Wind Chimes (albeit the Smiley version - which actually IMO is THE version) with this in mind, and it clicked in a way that was amazing (kinda creepy too).  Who knows if it was meant that way, but it works.   

[Dunderhead]

I think Wonderful is the most esoteric and mysterious of all SMiLE songs.
I've always sort of thought the song was just about, I guess, puberty? But I think it's so much more than that.

Firstly, who is the woman in the song? Most of the SMiLE songs seem to take a first person perspective. "I've been in this town"/"I heard the word"/"I'm in the great shape..."/"I'll give you a home on the range"/"next time I'll take my shoes off"/"I'm going to be round my vegetables"

Wonderful isn't like that. The song is entirely about a mysterious girl/woman. Who is it? Mrs. O'Leary? The innocent girl? The average young girl who might be listening to the song? The feminine ideal of Goethe's Faust?

How about Maya, Mother of Buddha, or Mary, Mother of Christ? Mother Earth? I've even read a connection to Queen Lili'uokalani of Hawaii.

There are a couple of things I thought when listening to the song,

The song starts with, "She belongs there, left with her liberty" and ends with "she returns in love with her liberty"
One gets a sense of journey from this, that at the start she felt left behind, and at the end she's come to love her condition.

The line "She knew how to gather the forest..."
to me conjures an image of Mary in the manger, surrounded by animals. I've also seen depictions of the birth of Buddha, where, since his mother went into labor while traveling, was surrounded by animals who came to witness his birth.

"God reached softly and moved her body"
To where? Could she literally have been moved by God to somewhere, as Maya was in the dream during which Buddha was conceived? Or was she moved emotionally, as in, "moved to tears". You could also read this as the beginning of puberty, or as a description of miraculous birth, or even just birth/conception in general.

What about the repeated "won-won-won-wonderful" Maybe this is drawing attention to the word "one" as a signifier of the grand unity of the universe and everything in it. maybe the wonderful represents the womb. After all she starts out staying in the "wonderful" and in the end she returns to the "wonderful".

"through the recess the chalk and numbers"
Here we picture school, recess, chalk, and numbers on blackboard. The line could be saying that the girl in the song had to go through these things in her journey down the path mentioned in the previous line. It could also be connected to the subsequent line "A Boy...", perhaps saying that the boy used these three things in order to bump into her, through them. But recess can also mean a hidden place, chalk could mean rock formations of chalk, and numbers could mean people, as in "masses". What exactly would that mean? I don't really know. Maybe it is just about school, but there's an air of mystery there isn't there? Maybe the journey through the recess, the chalk, and the numbers somehow symbolizes the passage through life. "The Chalke" is also the name of the gate that lead into the palace at Constantinople. Perhaps there's a link to some historical figure or martyr. I did try and look for one but it seemed like a wild goose hunt.


What do I think the song means?
Well from the Goodbye Surfing article:

"They want me to put him down," the writer complained. "That's their idea of objectivity—the put-down."
"It has to do with this idea that it's not hip to be sincere," he continued, "and they really want to be hip. What they don't understand is that last year hip was sardonic - camp, they called it. This year hip is sincere.
"When somebody as corny as Brian Wilson starts singing right out front about God and I start writing it—very sincerely, you understand—it puts them very uptight.
"I think it's because it reminds them of all those terribly sincere hymns and sermons they used to have to listen to in church when they were kids in Iowa or Ohio.
"Who knows? Maybe they're right. I mean, who needs all this goshdarn intense sincerity all the time?"

SMilE was largely about spirituality and sincerity. About faith, and belief. Those things were very important to Brian I think. Wonderful seems to capture the importance of those qualities, innocence (or perhaps naivety), sincerity, faith, spirituality, religion. On one hand its a song about a young girl growing up. But I also think it's about birth, about not only literal birth but artistic birth; creativity. Creativity, play, artistry, those things are very important to Brian's overall mode of spiritual enlightenment, and I think in order for those things to happen innocence and faith are required.
Finally I see the song as being about birth, life, death, and rebirth. I see the first stanza and the last stanza as being bookends of a journey of life, from womb to womb. It has the sense of being about reincarnation, about the cycle of the universe, like, as Brian would put it, waves rolling in.

I think that's what makes the song so strong, it subtly blends all these different things together, and somehow manages to be about all of them simultaneously.

[Jeff]

Let's just get the various naysayer comments out of the way now.

"It's just a song about a girl."
"You're reading way too much into it."
"You sound like a religious nut I know."
"Brian didn't really care about lyrics and wasn't even capable of thinking beyond a surface level."
"Anyone can interpret anything to mean anything."

That about cover it?  Did I miss anything?

[Dunderhead]

Wonderful has really nice lyrics. I was thinking of them the last couple of days, trying to pick out any allusions or things like that, but the lyrics are so mysterious it's hard to really get a handle on them.

I don't think what I posted was really very far off from what a lot of us sort of understand the song to be about. It's not just about one person's innocence or spirituality, but about the importance of those things in a general program of enlightenment.

I tell you, I don't really think SMiLE would have had a "cycle of life" part, where Wonderful was the beginning and there was some literal progression of "getting older" or something across multiple songs. I think Wonderful by itself is the cycle of life movement from BWPS, it didn't need to be followed by any other songs, but in 2004 I guess they decided to pad it out into a "movement".

[bossaroo]

the combination of Wonderful and Look was a stroke of genius, not to mention Child into Surf's Up.

I dislike the parts that were added however.

[rab2591]

the combination of Wonderful and Look was a stroke of genius, not to mention Child into Surf's Up.

I dislike the parts that were added however.

I really like the simple lyrics over 'Song For Children' - but I was unhappy with the instrumental. They took out the flute part when Brian sings "When is the Wonderful Me, Wonderful You...." in the middle of the song. That and the bass was incredibly lacking compared to the 66/67 version.

As has been mentioned before today: BWPS sounds way too clean!

[hypehat]

FWIW, it IS supposed to be a song about a young woman being deflowered. Van Dyke has never made a christian, indian, buddha, or otherwise connection to it, and one would figure Van Dyke of all people to talk up the most intellectual position on his lyrics. He has related to it in terms of his wish to write the 'great love song' (without consulting my Priore for the exact quote).

I mean, you are closer to the mark than before. I, personally, see a lot of overanalysis of literature in my course. I'm suspect to it, I suppose. You are overstepping the mark on Vegetables, in my opinion, and Barnyard and Great Shape are not obvious 'Farmyard' or 'Country' lyrics, but then VDP was hip to Brian's musical innovation - These are not country songs in the Nashville sense, and so Van did not decide to talk about how his dog left him.
He had to think quickly, and given his lack of lyrical innovation since that period I imagine he had to write fast and under pressure. They are country forms not used in typical country ways, much like Brian in his music - The banjos and tack pianos, but not playing simple twelve bar or even simple chords - and this, along with the chemical influence that you suppose made him so much smarter, I reckon he acted simpler (You can't honestly tell me you're smarter after a joint, can you?). Not using simple country, or romantic cliches, is Van Dyke's forte. Have you heard his early records? The man can not write a pop song to save his life. What he can do is express ordinary things in a unique, but verbose manner. He is familiar with cliche, but the challenge of any writer is to make them fresh. This, I believe, is the extent of Van Dyke's country lyricism. Old things done anew. The same matters Hank, Marty Robbins, etc got with, but from another, smaller perspective.  

And Vegetables, I believe he could not have given a fig about. Round about the time Brian got obsessed with Vegetables, VDP got disillusioned with the project. Infer what you will.

Smile, for all its innovation, is not self-consciously complex. It started life as a 'Dumb Angel', after all.  

[Wirestone]

Thank you Bill for being the voice of sanity  LOL  Has Van Dyke Parks ever said he decided to change "open country" to "agriculture" for BWPS? I see Brian and co. being slavishly faithful to Parks' original lyrics when they existed. Sure, Brian sings "barnyard" twice instead of "farmyard" and I suspect he sings next time he'll leave his hat off on BWPS, but there is not another example of lyrics being drastically changed as has been suggested here. Brian is singing a track off-the-cuff for a DJ and blows the word "clean" so it comes out "fresh...un...air around my head". I mean which sounds like a real lyric: "Fresh, clean air around my head" or "Freshen air around my head"? I kind of like "Fresh Zen air..." but Brian's not singing that either. The few lyrics that exist to "I'm In Great Shape" are pure Parks and what sounds more like a SMiLE lyric written by Parks: "I'm in the great shape of the agri-culture" or "I'm in the great shape of the open country"?

This is one of the greatest posts in this thread.

The notion of this word being a Parksean pun -- and your explanation -- is so obviously right that the matter is settled as far as I'm concerned. And if that wasn't what it actually was in the 1960s, it's what it SHOULD HAVE been.

[Dunderhead]

FWIW, it IS supposed to be a song about a young woman being deflowered. Van Dyke has never made a christian, indian, buddha, or otherwise connection to it, and one would figure Van Dyke of all people to talk up the most intellectual position on his lyrics. He has related to it in terms of his wish to write the 'great love song' (without consulting my Priore for the exact quote).

Then again he also refused to "explain" his lyrics.

I mean, you are closer to the mark than before. I, personally, see a lot of overanalysis of literature in my course. I'm suspect to it, I suppose. You are overstepping the mark on Vegetables, in my opinion, and Barnyard and Great Shape are not obvious 'Farmyard' or 'Country' lyrics, but then VDP was hip to Brian's musical innovation - These are not country songs in the Nashville sense, and so Van did not decide to talk about how his dog left him.
He had to think quickly, and given his lack of lyrical innovation since that period I imagine he had to write fast and under pressure. They are country forms not used in typical country ways, much like Brian in his music - The banjos and tack pianos, but not playing simple twelve bar or even simple chords - and this, along with the chemical influence that you suppose made him so much smarter, I reckon he acted simpler (You can't honestly tell me you're smarter after a joint, can you?). Not using simple country, or romantic cliches, is Van Dyke's forte. Have you heard his early records? The man can not write a pop song to save his life. What he can do is express ordinary things in a unique, but verbose manner. He is familiar with cliche, but the challenge of any writer is to make them fresh. This, I believe, is the extent of Van Dyke's country lyricism. Old things done anew. The same matters Hank, Marty Robbins, etc got with, but from another, smaller perspective.

Firstly, it's not about being smart. Joints don't make you smarter, that's not what I was trying to say. It's about connections. Doing psychedelics increase your ability to connect things. When you're on an LSD trip language can "change", in that you perceive it in different ways. Alternate meanings can become clearer, the origin and etymology of words and phrases can strike you. It's hard to explain. Making connections is something the mentally ill often do, in the form of paranoia and delusion. But making those connections carries over into everything, into new and interesting metaphors. So do I think drugs make you "smarter", no, that's a misreprsentation of my point. Do psychedelics affect thinking in ways that would enlightening and interesting for artists? Absolutely.

Secondly, I don't think Barnyard or Great Shape are strictly "country" songs. I think reading Great Shape as strictly a song about being in physical great shape requires you to willfully ignore the actual lyrics. What does it mean to Freshen the air around your head? What does it mean to be in the shape of agriculture/open country? What does it mean for "mornings" to tumble out of bed. The lyrics are more complicated and nuanced than I think you recognize. The song isn't "I enjoy the fresh air/I wake up/I eat breakfast/I'm in great shape", there's more than that there.

I don't really understand what you mean when you say Van Dyke was under "pressure", he and Brian were friends and they were collaborating with one another. You assume that Brian and Van Dyke never really spoke about the lyrics or discussed the songs. I guess that's just something we can't get on the same page about. You think that Brian supplied a theme, played the song on the piano, and Van Dyke filled in the lines while they went along, but once Brian supplied the theme, discussion stopped. I don't believe that, I think it was more collaborate and that Van Dyke helped in the actual composition of the songs, and that Brian fully understood the lyrics and made suggestions and corrections as they went along.

And Vegetables, I believe he could not have given a fig about. Round about the time Brian got obsessed with Vegetables, VDP got disillusioned with the project. Infer what you will.

Why do you say this?

Smile, for all its innovation, is not self-consciously complex. It started life as a 'Dumb Angel', after all.

I don't think that's what this name means, I've never interpreted it as an angel who was intellectually undeveloped. In SMiLE, dumbness is a good thing, it's a positive quality of spirituality that has nothing to do with "book learning". As in, being so overawed that you can't speak, that type of dumb.

[Chris Moise]

Who is it? Mrs. O'Leary? The innocent girl? The average young girl who might be listening to the song? The feminine ideal of Goethe's Faust?

How about Maya, Mother of Buddha, or Mary, Mother of Christ? Mother Earth? I've even read a connection to Queen Lili'uokalani of Hawaii.

Just my .02 but that reads like a parody of someone reading way too much into something.

[Cam Mott]

This type of thing used to be encouraged. What was the name of that piece Stan Shantar did? What happened to Stan?

[Winston Wrong]

Okay, the only problem is that "agriculture" is a 2003/2004 lyric.  

The 1966 lyric is "open country."

Brian rather rushes his way through the H&V demo and often mumbles his lines but after repeated listening on headphones (come on and try it - millions of others have) you will agree it ain't 'open country' he's singing.
This was discussed on this board before (way back) and the general concensus was that  'I'm in the great shape of the agriculture' is 100% 1966 vintage. Actually it's more like 'I'm in the great shape of the 'agrrrrhuture'.

Thank you Bill for being the voice of sanity    Has Van Dyke Parks ever said he decided to change "open country" to "agriculture" for BWPS? I see Brian and co. being slavishly faithful to Parks' original lyrics when they existed. Sure, Brian sings "barnyard" twice instead of "farmyard" and I suspect he sings next time he'll leave his hat off on BWPS, but there is not another example of lyrics being drastically changed as has been suggested here. Brian is singing a track off-the-cuff for a DJ and blows the word "clean" so it comes out "fresh...un...air around my head". I mean which sounds like a real lyric: "Fresh, clean air around my head" or "Freshen air around my head"? I kind of like "Fresh Zen air..." but Brian's not singing that either. The few lyrics that exist to "I'm In Great Shape" are pure Parks and what sounds more like a SMiLE lyric written by Parks: "I'm in the great shape of the agri-culture" or "I'm in the great shape of the open country"?

The latter is kind of bland whereas the former has a nifty little pun. By splitting the word, Parks draws attention to the term "culture" which is normally associated with high art. Here it is used to describe the exact opposite: nourishment from the ground, farmland, salt of the earth. Again, this ties into the reoccurring themes of Americana and reminds us that the "iron horse" of "Cabin Essence" signals that the agrarian society will be superceded by an industrial one. Could this be why "Workshop" is now positioned after "I'm In Great Shape", to echo the idea that industry will transform the "agri-culture"?

I always listened to the H&V demo and heard Brian sing the opening "Hero's" verse, then go into "I'm in great shape" and presumed that the lyric was "Flashing arrows 'round my head, mornings tumbled out of bed". I pictured Brian dreaming the opening "H&V" section and just as the arrows flashed around his head, he woke up from the dream. It has never sounded like ".... ..... air" to me.

I always hear "Upper country" also.

[XY]

Well, the "concensus" (sic) was wrong.  I too have listened many times with headphones.  "Agriculture" ain't there.  The word "country," however, is clear as a bell.  I agree that the first part is hard to understand, and, as a result, for a long time there was debate over whether the preceding word was "open" or "upper."  Then, however, David Oppenheim's "Inside Pop" notes were discovered and included this reference:

"Heroes & Villains plays
        Vandyke Parks has been working on lyrics
        sings open country song "

So there you go...   An independent 1966 account of a different rendition of the song...

And on the Oppenheim notes, the "Open Country Song" is followed by "Sunshine".
So, on this mid December day, Brian sat there in his living room, played "Child Is The Father Of Man" for the camera, then"Hereos & Villains", "Open Country" and "Sunshine", followed by "Surf's Up".

[A Million Units In Jan!]

I always thought it was pretty clear that Wonderful is about a girl growing up and hitting puberty-'God reached softly and moved her body'; 'through the recess, the chalk and numbers';   and losing her virginity-'A Boy bumped into her Wonderful'. And 'lost it all to a non believer'-She lost her virginity so someone who wasn't as pure as she was, who didn't share her ideals.

[hypehat]

Not bothering to quote cos it's huge, but hey Fishmonk. Btw I'm sorry if I'm coming off as hostile, this sort of thing should be encouraged really.

Being smart IS about making connections! I'm struggling to think of another way to describe the analysis of literature. Trying to find the links of wordplay. But what I'm trying to say is that it's more of a question of Van Dyke's intent. They wrote all the songs in an atmosphere of what all parties seem to agree was incredibly creative and quick for Brian, who never had the longest attention span, and so Van Dyke had to keep up. Did they sit about and discuss them? I bet they did. Brian was also into his Subud and oriental psychology and the rest of that, so obviously he could keep up with Van Dyke's allusion. I'm guess I'm saying you are reading things into Van Dyke's lyrics that he did not intend to go there. But then that's cool. People read Freud into Shakespeare, despite the obvious. So again, I should not be dismissive of your efforts.

But i think we disagree about the nature of intoxication of the mind. I have not experienced 'new and interesting pathways of thought' (to paraphrase your line of reasoning) upon inhaling, indeed the opposite has occured. I think that whole drugs issue, bear in mind we are talking about a guy who took acid THREE times, is mostly responsible for the silliness of SMiLE - laughter, humour records, vegetables (which is actually quite a modern POV, so it seems a shame to cheapen it with drug connotations) etc - than the intellectual side. Intoxication doesn't really help the intellectual faculty, imo - my previous post, for example, composed after a large quantity of rum. 

Why should he explain his lyrics? He doesn't have to. He has said very disparaging things about his own lyrical ability, though. Something along the lines of 'I just throw words that sound nice together in there'. I don't think he was talking about Smile, though, and hell he's probably just being modest. He does talk a lot about them in the latest Priore smile book, fwiw.

And of course they're country songs! One's called Barnyard and has animal noises on it, you know. Great Shape is harder to pin down, I'll grant you. But then it's hard enough to decipher the damn lyrics anyway  I think it's 'Fresh clean air' and 'Open country'. But the eggs and grits and lickety splits are just a) fantastic sounding b) the cliches rearranged a lot so they sound 'new'. And it's another matter entirely to think it could have been part of H&V at one point.... This sort of close criticism is tricky to pull out of your hat, isn't it?

My Vegetables point was supposed to mean that he and Brian didn't actually see eye to eye on the humour stuff - fire hats, vege-tables, goofing off around the recording studio. I think VDP (not unreasonably) would have wanted Brian to finish things like Cabin Essence instead of gathering around the mic and joking about. He always seems kinda awkward in those situations, which is obviously just my take on what I can hear.

We agree on the 'Dumb Angel' point. I was referring to guitar clad idiots making concept albums and thinking they're smarter than they actually are, as opposed to Smile which isn't about being smart at all. The whole Smile concept is very Romantic (and not just 'Child Is The Father Of The Man', but the entire thing), but I don't think I can formulate the Wordsworth-Wilson connection without a few more cups of coffee 

God, that's a long post.