The Smiley Smile Message Board

I like Brian's efforts with regard to feeling comfortable, healthy, and at home. Despite the fact that his life often was grim and harsh, he obviously felt the need to compensate for that in music. I'll give some examples:

Back Home ('milk the cows, feel chickens, eating everything that Ma puts on the table')
H.E.L.P. (health throught education brings love and peace)
Mama Says ('eat a lot, sleep a lot, brush 'em like crazy, run a lot, do a lot, never be lazy')
Vega-Tables

Can you provide your favourite here, with a line or two?

Too Much Sugar: "Eat your veggies and wholegrain too, fruits and fibres will nourish you"

A classic.

Know what you mean - I like to think of them as Brian's Slice of Life songs.  Love Saturday Morning in the City -  "next door is having a garage sale...", refs to the paper boy, the mail etc – not specifically healthy stuff, but very much delight at being surrounded by the familiar. Others I like in this vein include Busy Doin' Nothing, I Went To Sleep, Marketplace etc etc.

Don, I hope he's not FEELING the chickens, as you wrote! Then again, who am I to say what comforts BW...

That's what happens when you let Brian write the lyrics. Can you imagine if they had done that from the start?

I wonder how something like  Busy Doin' Nothing would have fared on the charts in 1962  :smokin

I like how the melody for Marketplace almost sounds like it could be used as a jingle for a supermarket TV ad. Like, "Stop 'n Shop, Stop 'n Shop, our lowest prices can never be beat! Pro...duce, cannndy, we have all that you could need! Bring the... Family!" Okay, so it would be a TV ad from the 50s, but still.

AmyB, that is too funny (and true.) I think I may have to ask for your virtual hand in e-marriage. One day we can have iChildren.

Yes, and we can name them Carnie and Wendy.

I love Brian's slice-o-life tunes....  'I'd Love Just Once to See You', 'Games two can play' (I'm fat as a cow, how'd i ever get this way?  ;D), the first verse of 'Still I dream...' being particular favourites. Plus pretty much everything else in the thread. They're very charming.

'I went to sleep' to me is quite sinister - it's so detached and weird.

I went to sleep 'sinister', that's gold  ;D ;D

lol

Chicken f*cker chicken f*cker!

I wonder if "All i Want to Do" was a DENNIS slice of life song.

Slice 'o pie, maybe.

Wasn't there one about a cigarette butt being flushed down the toilet?

Yes, "Everybody Wants to Live" (from the Adult/Child sessions/rejected album) begins "a cigarette butt when you throw it in the water goes pfft / but the trick, but the trick is you shouldn't laugh. 'Cause if you start laughin you're just a coward. If you start laughin you're just a coward. Everybody wants to live just once..."

Is it odd that I think that's amazing

I think all of Brian's new songs for that album--Everybody Wants to Live, Life is For The Living, Lines, It's Over Now, Still I Dream of It, and It's Trying To Say (Baseball) (I don't think I"m forgetting any)--are amazing. They are so good, they make up for On Broadway. Almost.

"Sweet Sunday Kind Of Love" and "Winter Symphony" are homey....

Break Away -"when I lay down on my bed, I hear voices in my head"...

Pretty creepy, knowing what we know now...

A lot of the ones I was going to say have been mentioned, but no one's said Oxygen to the Brain yet.

Back in my college days, I had roommates who would request that song over and over every time someone new came over...they had to make them listen to it!  Then we would all laugh for like 10-20 minutes! haha Sounds weird, but I guess you had to be there. Memories.

I love all those songs that were mentioned (although I don't think that "Everybody Wants To Live" really qualifies to be put in that category), but I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the earliest comfort/home song..."In My Room".

Thanks for mentioning all those songs, girls and guys. There are actually more than I had in my mind when I opened the topic... and In My Room is definitely a candidate. Amazing how the dichotomy 'how it is, and how it should be' drove Brian to create that stuff. A psychologist would probably call it 'overcompensating', but psychologists should not deconstruct art at all. Perhaps there are artists who lead a very ordinary life and write continuously about 'rock and roll all night', and the joys (?) of drugs and drinking, not to mention all the sex romps they have... the other way around, so to speak.

I`ve liked some of Brian`s health songs but some are also among my least favourites...

Just Say No is painfully embarrassing to listen to imo and VegeTables does nothing for me. There are some great songs from thr Smile period obviously but any couple of stoners could have written that.

being/becoming

Thanks for reminding me that it's almost time to go out and feel the chickens.

Smile was full of 'em!

I'm In Great Shape! Barnyard! Smog speech, etc...

 ;D yeah bubba, it's my hobby too. Due to the absence of a woman in the house, I am restricted to feeling chickens.