The Smiley Smile Message Board

I know there's another thread about his but I can't believe there's no real discussion on it considering its a new Brian song and there are reams of pages on 'Midnights another day'.
That said, I can't even get hold of it myself as it's not on my itunes, so I can't even discuss it myself! Has anyone heard it?

Matt -- I think you just answered your own question. The song is hard to get hold of, so people simply haven't heard it. I think there's a lot going on with it, myself, but it isn't quite at the level of MAD.

I bought the CD, it arrived yesterday. So I had a chance to listen to it quite often and I did. I felt a bit confused on hearing it for the first time, that is, the whole song. The snippet from Amazon does not do justice to the song. I think the song is great. It has the usual Brian ingredients on vocals, but this time, I think Van Dyke Parks had a great hand in the song itself. It sounds a bit like Parks' music. It could be a song from the follw-up of the album Orange Crate Art but ten times better. The lyrics are all Van Dyke Parks, a sort of global warning. I heard Van Dyke Parks talk and sing about this subject once during a concert of him almost 3 years ago, so he's genuine on this subject. I listened to Midnight's Another Day and then this one and I noticed they were both of the same high quality and.....they sounded great when I played them after each other.

Yeah, I scoured the shops too but no show!
Well it sounds very interesting, especially as this has nothing to do with Lucky Old sun (probably?), it's odd that Brian is putting out these peculiar one off songs (What love can do as well) as he recently said, maybe his writers block is finally gone!

I've just got ahold of "Live Let Live"... It's not the same kind of music as MAD obviously, but it's really good and enjoyable. The lyrics are particularly good, but I'm a sucker for VDP lyrics so I guess I'm not totally objective about that.

Brian's voice is not as in good shape as in the MAD demo, and his singing is not as "subtle", but it's good though. Oh, and as in most of MAD, he does the backing vocals himself.

I've heard this entire song a few times now, and I admit my distaste for it after hearing just the free snippet was unfair.

Brian does seem engaged vocally--he's generally enunciating VDP's lyrics well. The vocals are still a bit shouty for me in spots, and I'd like to hear the band doing more of the backgrounds just to add the kind of texture you get from different voices. (I can't say for sure that any of them sing at all, actually. It may be Wall of Brians.) But other than a few notes here and there (the final note before the "Live let live..." line, for example), he does fine.

The electric guitar lines throughout remind me of VDP's use of guitar, the sort of thing you'd hear on OCA or the Moonlighting... arrangements. They are nice, little arpeggiations of diads and triads in an upper register. And I like the typically Brianesque piano playing block chords on every beat (in this case, 8th notes throughout the 6/8 song) with the arrangement built around it. That construction just screams "Brian" to me.

I don't think the strings are real--does anyone know for sure?

All in all, though, it is a pretty good song. Better than I thought it would be for sure. Very worthy of inclusion on an album of his own material, if he wants to include it somewhere as opposed to letting it disappear on a soundtrack.

Got the CD today, listened a few times.

Don't like it. Really don't like it.

Oh AGD! ::)
I've heard it now, I quite like it, It's better than anything on GIOMH (!), and the 6/8 time gives it an old BB feeling. The production is nice and even Brians BVs are fine, nice to hear him attempt the falsetto again too!
The only thing i'm not sure about are some of the words, musically though I enjoyed it, it is quite VDP-ish which leads me to wonder did he have a hand in it....oh, who cares anyway!

Deleted because I was an idiot and didn't read Matt's post closely enough.

Why? Just curious, as I still haven't heard it yet...

I think it would perfectly fit on GIOMH.


That's what I miss on most new BW solo songs.


My MIDI instruments sound better than those on this recording. Cheap-sounding production.


Those are the best thing of the song IMHO.


Possible. But to me, a lot of those recent BW solo songs all sound the same anyway. Thank God there's something like M'sAD once in a while.

I don't think M'sAD is mind blowingly special, i'd rather have just as much 'pop' stuff from Brian as much as the grownup ballads.
I'm not saying that the production is particularly great on this song, but this is in comparison to Brians recent work (which is all we can compare stuff like this too) - and tracks like the stuff on GIOMH and the remake of 'SORNR' - are not great productions. They seem to be slowly getting less harsh.

just heard it and it sounds like a james bond theme song, is this for the upcoming bond movie  ;D

when was this recorded ?

I just heard it and like it very, very much. Especially the middle-eight which sounds like 50's/60's Doo-wop. Very nice song and I like the fact that Brian puts out some stronger material these days.

Just heard it. It's...nice. Actually, to be honest, I don't really care for the words. A little TOO preachy...which is funny when you consider just how left-wing I am :lol I like Brian's vocals on it, I think he's singing pretty good, but the song doesn't blow me away yet. I think after hearing MAD, the bar's been raised. This song is pleasant enough, but no great shakes.

Great. Now I sound like Simon f*ckin' Cowell... :lol

Brian singing acapella all one one note is a seriously bad idea... the lyrics are clumsy and preachy at the same time... it sounds thrown together... just do not like it.

I haven't paid much attention to the lyrics yet, but I love the melody and vocal arrangement.

finally had a chance to hear this, and while it has its moments, on the whole, it's a dud. the lyrics are tepid, the melody unmemorable and in some places a total clunker, and Brian's voice isn't a good fit. I'll overlook this one and take another listen to MAD, which is the appropriate--and gorgeous--music for Brian to (co-)create at this point in his life.