The Smiley Smile Message Board

Sorry I'm sure this doesn't deserve its own topic but I was listening to CIFOTM the other night, and it struck me how the foreboding piano intro is so 'pregnant'! It literally sounds like the nervous anticipation of a father waiting for his child to be born, as if he's watching the clock ticking. Then of course you have the baby crying in the 'father of the man' bit (waa waa) and in the slow part of the song (the muted horn). Is this somebody else's theory that I'm hijacking here? If so apologies, but if this hasn't been mentioned, thought it might be worth considering. I have always wondered what the significance of this section is. It sounds so deliberate in its forebodingness.

I never thought of that. Brilliant interpretation.

I jotted that down in my notebook in 1968 or so. I lost the notebook.

I never thought of it that way, but now that you mention it, I can definitely hear what you're talking about.  That section is one of my favorite Smile sections...you're right, it has a very foreboding feel too it.  I didn't like the fact that they moved it to the end of the song on BWPS - I thought it worked a lot better as the intro to CIFOTM, for that very reason.

Hmm interesting thought.

Wow, good observation! I never thought of it this way.

Maybe that part DOES make more sense at the beginning.

Edit: Woah! I think I just thought of a way to make an interesting version of this song.

(Goes to tinker)

Edit #2: OK, here's the idea I'm thinking of:
1st section: The piano with the muted horn as Buddha said. The father is anxiously waiting for the child.
2nd section: This is the first chorus with only what sounds like two or three band members. The crowd starts to build up in anticipation of the birth
3rd section: This is the guitar/piano part with the horn. This represents the birth as Buddha said.
4th section: This is the other chorus floating around with what sounds like the whole band singing. This is also the one that has Brian's "moaning" that is heard in the Surf's Up demo.
5th section: This is the "woah child" vocal section. The father is having trouble trying to get adjusted to the new life
6th section: Final part. This is the one with the vibes. The vibes indicate a lullaby being sung to the child. The final vibe hit means the baby is asleep. The first night of being a parent is over.

If the intro were to represent a sense of anticipating the birth, then Father of the man bit with the wailing horn is the crying baby, perhaps the slower sections represent an old man - so you have the whole cycle of life within the song.

If Brian was planning a cycle of life type suite as part of smile in 66 as has been suggested (I think) then perhaps it could have consisted of the following songs, as they all have a similar feel, and in subject matter they fit well:

Good Vibratiaons - Guy meets girl, checking her out etc.
Wonderful - Can never decipher VDP's lyrics, but this has a sort of 'consummating the relationship' feel - maybe this is a marriage song.
Child - awaiting the baby, the baby is born.
Look - childhood
Surf's Up - I find the lyrics indecipharable, but musically it sounds like it could represent adulthood, or perhaps the reflectiveness/wisdom/melancholy that comes with age.

"You know it makes you nervous when you wait for your boy,
You wait nine months for a bundle of joy..."

Perhaps there has to be something in this theory of Buddhahat's. SMiLE's resonance in the BB's output lasted way beyond SMiLE and Smiley Smile, maybe this is another example.

Wow! Didn't think of those lyrics. Thanks, that is a brilliant point.

This is qute possibly the best thread in this message board's entire existance.

Now, every time I hear this song, I will hear your interpretation of it. :\

Ha ha, my own small legacy in the great smile saga! Not sure if I should be apologising to you though?!

YOU WANNA FIGHT?!?!?!

 :3d

:lol :lol

Related to your above post....One thing I found interesting about BWPS (one of the few :P) was the sequencing of the second movement. After all of the years I've been listening to "Look", I never thought it was connected to children. But, it was titled and sequenced on BWPS as "Song For Children" and, two songs later, followed by "Surf's Up". So, when Brian sings, "I heard the word, WONDERFUL thing, A CHILDREN'S SONG", well, it makes me wonder if "Look" was, in fact, a children's song.

It also makes me wonder why it wasn't titled, "A Children's Song" instead of "Song For Children", but I'm OCD... :police:

It certainly does sound like it could be a song about childhood. It has a toy like quality to it. It's likely that Brian was writing songs about childhood at this time as, of course, You Still believe In Me started out as 'In My Childhood' with the bike horn and all. These type of songs were clearly on his radar c.66

Does anybody know (apart from Alan Boyd  ;)) the way Brian edited the "Child Is Father Of The Man" sections together in the completed, mixed backing track that's in the archives? That would obviously tell us a lot as to how Brian envisioned the song back in '66.

As to interpreting lyrics, I would say that "Wonderful" is about a somewhat naive teenage girl who falls for a boy who seduces, then leaves her. She then returns to her parents, hurt but less gullible. It's sort of the reverse of "She's Leaving Home".

Thanks for the Wonderful lyrics interpretation. I shall listen closely with this in mind. I must admit, I'm never very good at deciphering obscure lyrics.

I'm pretty sure the one on the odeon boot that goes: slow piano part/child chorus/verse/chorus (I think) is an original Brian edit. I remember AGD describing another mix he'd heard that moved the slow piano bit to the middle somewhere. This mix possibly started with the verse and I think it was a Brian edit. AGD would have to clarify that though. I got the impression that Brian tweaked the form of the song during the smile period, but that it started out with the slow foreboding bit at the start. I may be wrong about this though.

There's a great explanation of Surf's Up by Brian himself in LLVS.

Specifically, in the "Goodbye Surfing Hello God" article by Jules Siegel

Thanks, I do know that Brian explanation of the song's meaning, and have to say, it never shed much light on the lyrics for me! Still find them inscrutable - or "beautiful in their obscurity"!!

Here's an interesting link: The source of the title for Child is Father of The Man. Two poems by William Wordsworth just after the year 1800. Both poems share three common lines:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ode:_Intimations_of_Immortality_from_Recollections_of_Early_Childhood

Absolutely brilliant interpretation, Buddhahat!  Whether or not it was intended isn't important.  Musically, it's there and it simply magnifies the importance of the tune.

Thanks B-Rex!


IThanks Tune-X -  I'd never read the actual poem that the famous line came from. The following lines make me feel more certain that the parts of the song are attempting to capture, birth, manhood and old age:

So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,

So the intro is birth, the fast chorus could be manhood and the slow part could be old age, or at least the intro represents birth and the slow bit represents manhood or old age or both.

Agreed about the ages theme for this song. Seems that Child was meant to be one of the "deeper" tracks on Smile. That lonely piano part seems to signify a moment before something is about to happen, be it birth death or something else. I assumed that part of the song represented the final moments before someones passed on--with the "Child" representing a spirit that led them by the hand into the afterlife. Deep stuff indeed!  :hat

Have listened to what exists of the song and have wondered time and again what the original lyrics would have been.

Is there a Brian edit of this song, or perhaps several?

I've always assumed that the edit on Odeon boot which goes bridge/chorus/verse/chorus is a genuine Brian edit, but now I'm not sure.

There is a 3.10 min edit on Secret Smile that goes Chorus/verse/chorus/verse/chrous/bridge/chrous. There is an identical edit on Archaeology - is this a Brian edit?

In a very sick way, Feel Flows could be right upon seeing the girl in Good Vibrations.