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I don't know if this is a new thought, but if the line about Plymouth rock rolling over was originally in Holidays, doesn't that suggest the song was originally about the pilgrim fathers celebrating Thanksgiving?

I don't really think that's what was going on.
Brian was clearly inspired by exotic music that was popular in the 50s and 60s. He probably watched Korla Pandit on tv and listened to Murry's collection of Martin Denny LPs (if such a thing existed). Let's Go Away For Awhile was the earlier exponent of this influence, and Diamond Head would probably be the ultimate culmination. The name "Holidays" I think pretty clearly refers to the vacation type of holiday you take in Hawaii or something.
I've always suspected that Brian had made a connection between LSD trips and actual trips to exotic lands. He seemed eager to hit on this theme somewhere in SMiLE, but he never seemed to quite make it. It's been suggested that Holidays is an early version of Worms altogether, which is something I wouldn't be surprised with. I think Brian was interested in using exotic sounding music as a metaphor, sitting on a sandy beach being used to represent enlightenment. Eventually the whole complex of ideas was boiled down into Little Pad.

But Holidays, musically and arrangement-wise, has absolutely nothing to do with Exotica.

A point worthy to discuss. My response to that: As it now seems, "Plymouth rock roll over" was a lyric originally destined for "Holidays". That has nothing to do with Hawaii, nor has any musical part of "Holidays" any relation to Hawaii. DYLW has the musical reference to Hawaii. The final version "On A Holiday" however connects to Hawaii lyrically. But was that the way the song started out?


I suspect you keep overrating drugs as a major subject of SMiLE.

That's a point, but you could also say the same about the track of H&V - it sounds nothing like the cowboy song it's supposed to be.

Didn't Van Dyke Parks mention that the lyric "Plymouth Rock" was in reference to the chicken:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Rock_%28chicken%29

"Chicken Holidays", maybe some type of early Barnyard?

Gosh, I had never thought of Plymouth in relation to the chicken. There's always something new to learn in the SMiLE universe.

In regards to Holidays...and I know this isn't important, just sharing...back when "Look" was mistakenly titled "Holidays", I took the meaning literally, as in the American meaning of "holidays"...it had such a Christmassy sound to it...it just sounded like playing with toys...of course, all that got corrected...

I posted about Holidays as a part of Barnyard in the past: http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,10327.msg187605.html#msg187605


Add the Plymouth Rock chicken lyrics and I'm even more sold.

Exotica is a very clearly defined genre of music that makes use of very specific instrumentation, arrangements, and scales. "Cowboy song" is very vague, ambiguous. Musically (not lyrically) that's not really a discernible genre.

Talking about Plymouth Rock and civilized chickens:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUNp3eBCLwE

Not only is this cartoon about chickens who stole a diamond called "Plymouth Rock" - it is also kind of SMiLE contemporary, being released June 15, 1966.

Strange coincidence, no? I stumbled over it on TV the other day.

The Plymouth Rock line seems like it HAS to go with Do You Like (dig) Worms? Isn't that the point of the song? What's under Plymouth Rock? Worms of course. The song is about how if you turn over the foundational stone of America, there are gross little worms. The line also invokes "rock and roll" as a medium of truth.

That is very interesting, I used to watch that cartoon along with "The Pink Panther" as a kid! Neat find.

Remember in "Teen Set" a mention was made of a film Brian said he wanted to make of chickens wearing tennis shoes, ostensibly "doing their number".

Not so much about chickens and rocks but this article is certainly relevant to worms. I remember reading a similar article years ago and thinking it made sense of do you like worms .Well worth a read.
http://www.charlesmann.org/articles/NatGeo-Jamestown-05-07-1.htm

That Van Dyke was a crafty one, wasn't he?

The unusual thing about Van Dyke Parks' lyrics is his ability to write in references which make perfect sense to the story arc, yet could be as far removed from or as close to his original intent, however the listeners care to interpret them. He strung together references which could be linked to so many events surrounding the narrative, yet who can say it was anything more or less than stringing together words and phrases that sounded interesting.

That's not taking anything at all away from the lyrics, but it is amazing how many lines can be drawn to and from his phrases to actual historical events, and you have to wonder if he really had all that in mind as he was working with Brian.

I think he absolutely did.  Don't they compare him to James Joyce in the press release for the box set?  Parks is nowhere near as intelligent or talented, but he's taking a similar approach of using words/phrases with loaded meanings that spiral far out from the superficial, A-to-B of the lyrics themselves.  A perfect example is the dorky, childish "Do You Like Worms" title, which as someone posted also asks you to question your support of official history and government.

It's interesting to read Frank Holmes' interpretation of the lyrics for Worms, since he was in direct conversation with Van Dyke about the underlying stories which inspired his artwork depicting the lyrics.

All of this begs the question why did Van Dyke not go on to greater acclaim and fame as a lyricist after Smile? He proved he had the chops to write challenging and compelling lyrics, yet post-Smile, he became more known for his music and as a musical arranger and composer.

It's almost as if Brian chose him at exactly the right time for exactly the right kind of project.

After Van Dyke's "Song Cycle" album didn't sell well, he decided to stop writing obtuse lyrics.

So the failure of one (his first) album caused him to ditch a natural talent? I don't believe that. But if it's true, it's a shame.

I don't have any links, but I've read/heard several interviews where he says that.

Wow, that would be a shame, I'm curious to hear more. The proof of his talent and skill as a lyricist, to me at least, is set in stone with Smile.

Yet his compositional and arranging skills - also on display with Song Cycle - didn't suffer the same fate as his lyric writing. In fact I'd say his compositions only became more quirky and some would say more inaccessible especially in the 70's.

What was Frank Holmes' interpretation?

VDP doesn't have attitude.  I think that's a big part of it.  He's like your grandfather, if he was more clever.  Guys like Dylan or Lennon get accolades for spitting out abstraction in part because they have attitude, whereas VDP is more inviting.  He's not "cool," which is a good thing.

Frank Holmes:

"Yeah, there was quite a bit of lyrics for that song. As it turned out, there wasn't much used from the version I had. The lyrics I worked from had to do with images of people waving from an ocean liner, and native Indians behind that.  The lyric went:  "Once upon the Sandwich Isles,
the social structure steamed upon Hawaii." Then it was "Rock, rock, roll, Plymouth Rock roll over..."  And then there's a piece called "Ribbon of concrete, see what you done done", which became  "Bicycle rider, see what you done done". It came from the old standard "CC Rider, see what you done done". I remember it went on, "See what you done done, to the church of the American Indian..." And there was a last part on there that went something like:
"Having returned to the East or West Indies - we always got them confused..."
It had to do with the white man's advancement."

I don't have it to post now, but take a look at Holmes' panel for "Do You Like Worms" from the Smile booklet for further interpretations of the lyrics as he saw them.

One sub-panel has a sign saying "Rhode Island Red" which is a type of rooster. Another has a carnival game with people holding fishing poles with worms on them standing blindly behind a curtain. That was explored in *great* detail back on the SmileShop, apparently that was some sort of an older carnival game which people knew about. I don't know where you could find those notes in an archive but that seemed to be close to where Homes was coming from with the imagery.

Oh really ?

Clang Of The Yankee Reaper (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VvsWDjZvlc)

I guess Frank never received lyrics for Child is Father of the Man?

You should check out VDP's latest work!!! Lots of great wordplay, with some of it in a style reminiscent of Song Cycle.

http://bananastan.com/singles.html

Name the author of these lyrics and the song they were [presumably] intended for.:


Reconnected telephone dialing, different color chords to your extension.
 
Don’t forget to mention, this is a recording.
 
Even though the echoes through my mind, have filtered through the pines.
 
I came and found my peace, and this is not a recording.
 
Doobie doo, doobie doo, or not doobie.

Aren't those some unused VDP lyrics for Cabinessence?

I've always thought that VDP's writing was also reminiscent of Hart Crane, who was steeped in American history but had a major penchant for puns. James Joyce is a fair comparison, but I think that there's a more 'American' version in the form of William Carlos Williams, who also was fond of neologisms, especially in The Great American Novel (1923), an improvisational masterpiece. I'd be surprised if VDP hadn't at least looked at Williams's In the American Grain.

But VDP was also a Southerner, so the high modernism of William Faulkner (who, some argue, myself amongst 'em, was also a Joycean disciple)  was also no doubt a point of reference.

The 'acid alliteration' (who said Mike Love was no lit-crit!) of the beats is most often cited, but VDP sits comfortably in a long line of experimental American wordsmiths.

Re: Holidays instrumentation - great ideas Micha. Re: instrumentation - the marimba is a classic exotica element. Smile is all about post-modern hybridisation though, so you get that exotica element, but it's combined with a slightly hokey broadway show tune aesthetic. Pretty common in VDP's arrangements actually.   

I think it's also to do with the failure of his solo singles, and the implosion of Smile must have had an effect.

I listened to what I think is the old Vigotone boot today - and I think there is a version of the Bicycle Rider section on it that actually features the words "Having returned to" overdubbed :o - not present on the GV box version. On the boot it is disc one, tracks 22 and 23, starting at 0:17. Could someone smarter than me check that out?

Bicycle Rider with extra vocals. You mean this?

http://www.sendspace.com/file/19k0fe

Intriguing, eh? I wonder if this is in the Box set. Anyone have any idea?

Judging by the Box Set tracklist, I'm guessing this will be on disc 3, track 5:

5. Do You Like Worms: Bicycle Rider Overdubs (Heroes And Villains Part 2) 1/5/67 [DO YOU LIKE WORMS (ROLL PLYMOUTH ROCK) Session: 10/18/66] (0:22)

Yes, the "Having returned to" vocal is on there.

I doubt it will be on TSS, as this is obviously from an acetate, and only two tracks have been sourced from acetate, this not being one of it. And would that vocal still be on multitrack, it would probably have been on the GV box set. But of course I don't know for sure.

Anyway, this vocal bit on a section not commonly associated with that section strengthens my belief that the "newly mixed" sections of Cabin Essence are genuine Brian 1966 mixes. You know, with the grand couli vocals on the second chorus.

Is that really part of the "Having returned to" vocal? It sounds more like another vocal echoing the line before, singing something like, "What have you done to the..."

Even hearing little stuff like this breaks my heart with its "What could have been"s :(

I've always heard that line as 'What you done to me', and I've heard it on other sources than that.... I think it's on the multi-tracks, although we don't know. Without a doubt that section will appear in the 'Vocal backgrounds' track on the first disc, so we'll see.

This is fun. I listened to it again, imagining your propositions. What I could consider was "Look what you done to", but the words closest to what I think I hear is still "Having returned to", even if that makes less sense than your propositions. Unless we get that vocal isolated, I regard your guesses as valid as mine.

Hypehat, what are the other sources you've heard that?

I'm afraid i'm not listening to SMiLE material atm to sharpen my appetite for the box, but it's definitely on other boots - it becomes harder to hear in the fuller mixes of that section, but it's absolutely there. I only have Project SMiLE on this PC, but I can hear it in a few of them.

Great catch! I had forgotten about that piece...I've listened to that for years from different sources trying (then giving up) to figure out what he was saying.

Micha, I also now hear it as "having returned to", though I cannot rule out the other suggestions. But definitely I hear "having returned to", and wow, what a possibility that would open up!

Great work. :)

I'm not sure I agree with that logic. Not everything that is available now in the vaults was available or utilized back when they assembled the GV box in the early 90s. For example, there are missing yodels in Wonderful in the GV box.

My two cents:   Always thought it was "what have you done to..."

If I remember correctly, the yodels are on the multitrack, the GV box version is a 1966 test mix, and for TSS the yodels were digitally mixed into it. Of course I don't know if the "Having returned to..." vocal will be on TSS, I guess it won't and will be happy to be proven wrong, and if it is I hope it is mixed loud enough so we can tell what Brian actually sings there.

What possibility? :)

Darian and co. did an extremely comprehensive job on making Smile a finished, presentable piece of work, but there's always these little details that didn't make it that I really miss. The harmonies in the 2nd chorus of "Child" had to have been an oversight, though. Still. Well done.