The Smiley Smile Message Board

I wanted to carry this over from the locked board:

Van Dyke has writen a response to the big article on 'Smile' published by the New York Review of Books. i've seen the question of the collaboration between Van Dyke and Brian discussed here and this is of relevance.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18629

Volume 53, Number 1 · January 12, 2006

Letter
'SMILE'
By Van Dyke Parks, Reply by Scott Staton

In response to A Lost Pop Symphony (September 22, 2005)

To the Editors:

Re: "A Lost Pop Symphony," by Scott Staton [NYR, September 22, 2005].

For forty years, in numerous print articles, Brian Wilson has repeatedly stated he contributed music only to Smile. As well, I've maintained I only provided lyrics. Although I truly appreciate Scott Staton's take on the work, I must disabuse him of Brian's having envisioned the album as "an affectionate critique of America's mythic past" etc. Manifest Destiny, Plymouth Rock, etc. were the last things on his mind when he asked me to take a free hand in the lyrics and the album's thematic direction.

Music expresses feelings. Words, thoughts. In combination, they make songs. Still the most portable of all cultural goods, songs have consoled, amused, and even stirred peoples to nationhood. This broad potential of the song-form dates from the time of David to the present.

Brian sang: da da da da da da da da dah. I wrote "Columnaded ruins domino." I've lived to regret it for the majority of my adult life. Now, I'd like to enjoy it justly. Still, I thank Scott Staton for the print. Many more deserving talents never get a whit of recognition in their lifetimes. We got lucky, I guess.

Van Dyke Parks
Los Angeles, California

Scott Staton replies:

I'm disappointed that Van Dyke Parks feels I mischaracterized his collaboration with Brian Wilson. My piece did make plain Parks's important lyrical contribution to Smile. In describing him as a crucial participant, I referred to him six times and suggested that his departure from the project made it difficult for Wilson to complete it. I also referred to his first two solo full-length recordings as "minor masterpieces of idiosyncratic Americana," and much of the piece closely considered the substance of Parks's lyrics.

Despite these acknowledgments, Parks apparently feels that he wasn't given just credit in my piece. This is surprising, because past remarks of his have clearly indicated that he was hired by Wilson, with whom he shared an interest in American themes, and that he worked with him in a collaborative but subordinate role. As I understand it, his task as lyricist was to illustrate images that Wilson's music evoked. This is suggested by recent comments of his that are available on-line, in "audio portrait" sound files at the Web site of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (www.ascap.com /audioportraits/vandykeparks.html).

In these comments, Parks says of his collaboration with Wilson: "I was trying to follow his instincts, unquestioning, like a dog. Just be devoted and work hard to try to provide words to the phrases he came up with." He says that the music of Smile is "anecdotal, fragmentary, schizophrenic...and the lyrics were required to follow suit.... What comes first, the music or the words? In this case, it was the music." He continues: "Melody, it seems to me, provides the most fundamental, the deepest feelings, and I think feelings trump thoughts any time."

Parks goes on to describe Wilson's music as "image laden," and explains that "we just kind of wanted to investigate...American images.... Everyone was hung up and obsessed with everything totally British. So we decided to take a gauche route that we took, which was to explore American slang, and that's what we got." Parks's liberal use of the word "we" to describe Brian Wilson and himself implies that they shared an understanding of the album's thematic direction.

In an interview with Parks published by The Guardian in 1999, he stated that Brian Wilson "was completely in control." On the topic of possibly reviving Smile for release, he said, "I would like Brian to address this particular dilemma of his own life. If Brian would want to work on it, then I would be involved in that. But I don't want to be paid to go to the embalming room. It was his baby." For his part, in his 1991 autobiography Wilson recalled playing early recordings of Smile songs at a dinner and explaining the material to his guests. "The whole album is going to be a far-out trip through the Old West," he said. "Real Americana. But with lots of interesting humor." In spite of his failure to complete the work in 1967, it seems Wilson had an idea of Smile's thematic underpinnings.

None of this is to diminish the significance of Van Dyke Parks's contribution to Smile. I hold his work in very high regard and much appreciate that he wrote lyrics for Smile.


I think this guy is missing the point of what Van Dyke is saying.  He's saying that the lyrical content and thematic content was left to Van Dyke by Brian, and that Van Dyke came up with the manifest destiny, Plymouth rock to Hawaii, American West lyrical themes.  He's not saying that Brian's music didn't inspire him to come up with these themes, due to the images Van Dyke heard in the music, or that they weren't collaborating (clearly the musical ending of Worms wouldn't have been written without the lyrical Hawaii references coming first, right?) - but that Brian didn't tell him top write about that, it was Van Dyke's decision, with Brian of course agreeing and having the ability to veto whatever Van Dyke came up with.  Van brought the Americana trip into Smile - Brian brought the Elements, as Van Dyke has admitted having nothing to do with that (other than writing the lyrics to Vegetables - but this was a theme Brian no doubt came up with, as is evidenced by the Vegetables "arguments").

This is another fascinating aspect of the greatest album ever made. Please excuse my understatement.  ;D

Is it me or does Van Dyke Parks have some superiority complex  ???

Exactly, and for little reason.

I disagree. I don't see anything seemingly superior about his remarks. But I think he would be justified to be proud of his work. I mean, the guy is a killer lyricist. Even aside from SMiLE, his own solo works feature densely-crafted wordsmithing of a very high order. Plus he's a damned fine arranger and skilled musician.

If you want superior, look into what's been going on with Carole Kaye lately.

I think it's safe to say the man enjoys the sound of his own voice. Don't get me wrong, I loved his earlier music and lyrics (especially), but come on...he comes across as almost insanely pompous.


I hope this doesn't start another post about somebody being banned from somewhere.

Oh Christ, not THAT again.

Exactly.

I understand the writer's confusion. Van Dyke has always made a big deal out of his subordinate role on Smile and now all of a sudden he is pissed that he isn't getting enough mention.

Søren

Apart from being awesome, and all.

I don't think "superiority" is the right word, but there is some sort of issue going on there, perhaps insecurity and a bit of jealosy.

Van Dyke himself said hundreds of times that he didn´t work WITH Brian, he worked FOR Brian. But I´ve never read a review about SMiLE were he wasn´t mentioned and praised, so I think he gets the respect, which he highly deserves, imo. I just hope he doesn´t follow Carol in this aspect.

About that "superiority": Van Dyke is incredible talented in many ways, and he is also clever enough to know that. Should he lie and say "I´m not good at anything."?

Yeah really. Look what happened to Brian.

Brian could use some of the confidence that Van Dyke has.

Therein lies the difference between Brian and Van Dyke.

I think you guys need to re-read Van Dyke's letter. He is merely clarifying a point. The writer mistakenly assumes that Brian was the source for the manifest destiny aspects of SMiLE. Van Dyke simply points out the fact that Brian gave him no such framework. I still don't see the arrogance that some of you are sensing.  ???

I think most people who are referring to it don't mean simply in that letter, but in the whole of their exposure to him.

I think Van Dyke is very, VERY talented, but there's a simultaneous preciousness and arrogance to him that's very irritating.

I disagree. I find him hilarious most of the time. He simply uses language in a more 'old school' way than we do. I think the closest example of what I'm talking about is Mark Twain. Serious lit credentials, but with that crucial touch of wit that balances it.

I find him funny, too, but not always intentionally. I mean, don't YOU laugh at him in the American Band documentary?

That's actually from the It's OK documentary.

Seeing that for the first time was among the greatest moments of my life. Somebody should use a pic of him from that as an avatar.

OK, well, the clip from It's OK shown in AB.
And that whole "You'll show them teabags" thing in Beautiful Dreamer, my god, that's a Mike Love moment. I think that's the reason Van and Mike don't like each other, because they are so alike.

That's because they're both great and they know they're both great.

If we're poking fun at his, ah, idiosyncracies, how about the great bow on one knee during the first Smile show, as seen on Beautiful Dreamer? Brian seems awfully confused at that maneuver.

Isn't Brian confused at a lot of maneuvers?

True, and the room ain't big enough.

Egos have to be checked at the door with Messrs Parks and Love.

So it would seem.

Posts like those will give you hip cred on Male Ego.

And lynched on the Blueboard. All this is that.

sh*t happens.

You guys are like me and Chris D used to be. Hogging the board, using it as a conversation-space. Just be prepared for engendered hatred.

I thrive on hatred.

"And I'm so-unaccustomed to hatred," he said sarcastically.

Warning: It is dangerous to use the terms, "hip cred," and, "Male Ego," in the same sentence.

Speaking of funny, this thread has been.  If birthday cake were involved somehow, I'd probably lose it.

i think readers should also see the piece on Smile by Scott Staton published in the New York Review of Books.  Here is the passage in "questsion":

<After releasing the brilliant Pet Sounds in 1966, a personal meditation on love and growing up that bore no trace of either surfing or hot rods, the twenty-three-year-old Wilson conceived of Smile, the highly anticipated follow-up (originally titled Dumb Angel), as his "teenage symphony to God."

He envisioned the album as an affectionate critique of America's mythic past, a cartoonish representation of Manifest Destiny from Plymouth Rock to Hawaii. Like the American composer Charles Ives, whose unconventionally impressionistic work sometimes seemed to attempt to include and interpret all of American culture, Wilson made wide reference to American history and music, from the folk songs of Woody Guthrie and the familiar "You Are My Sunshine" to pop standards like "I Wanna Be Around.">

i think that since the album is bascially "Brian's baby", in the words of Van Dyke, and since Van Dyke has always made much of his role being subordinate, this loose critical reference to the American scope of the record is harmless.  Staton does give proper respect to Van Dyke, which is why Parks's letter struck me as somewhat pedantic.  and he also kind of suggests Brian had no idea about the American element of the recording, which is hard to believe.

i also think his "superioirty" or "envy" or whatever comes through in his remark in his letter about "columnaded ruins domino", which suggests that Staton didn't give him credit for the line.   In the piece, Staton says more than once that Van Dyke wrote the words to Smile, so again it seems as if Van Dyke is just looking to make a big deal out of nothing when he writes that he "wants to enjoy [having written those words] justly." 

i don't know, maybe the literate and intellectual Parks just wanted a piece of the New York Review of Books action>!

CS

No.

He is responding to the assertion that Brian 'envisioned the album as an affectionate critique of America's mythic past.'

Dumb Angel had nothing to do with this. The songs that make up SMiLE evolved after Van Dyke started writing lyrics to Brian's 'feels.' I

In other words, Brian wrote the music, Van Dyke wrote the words, and Brian approved the words. Not the other way around.

One element of the myth around SMiLE that I find a little perturbing is the idea that the BB sang only surf/car/sun songs prior to this and VDP took them away from this (and by extension, I think, into the realms of aesthetic credibility). This is referred to in VDP's reply to the letter, in the article in the other VDP thread, and I've seen the man himself denigrate previous BB lyrics as, and I'm paraphrasing, "diddy-wah-diddy".  Much as I like Parks' work, personally, I think this is unfair and not a little disingenuous. I also think it's unnecessary on his part.

He's also said that Asher is the best lyricist Brian ever had. Don't forget when he said those quotes, he was rightfully pretty mad at the Beach Boys.

I dunno.  Sometimes I think it depends which way the wind's blowing.

<
He envisioned the album as an affectionate critique of America's mythic past, a cartoonish representation of Manifest Destiny from Plymouth Rock to Hawaii. Like the American composer Charles Ives, whose unconventionally impressionistic work sometimes seemed to attempt to include and interpret all of American culture, Wilson made wide reference to American history and music, from the folk songs of Woody Guthrie and the familiar "You Are My Sunshine" to pop standards like "I Wanna Be Around.">

--Whoa, what is up with this impression that Van Dyke is being "superior" or something because the above description peeved him? It takes nothing away from Brian  to say that that passage gives what is very likely a wrong impression.
It makes sense that he's peeved.
"an affectionate critique of America's mythic past, a cartoonish representation of Manifest Destiny from Plymouth Rock to Hawaii"--
IF THAT is not  a summation of some of VDP's abiding concerns in his life in music, I dunno what is.
Clearly, what VDP is implying is, folks, Brian was a genius composer and he had some great but vague notions about what to do for a monster-Pop Music project in the Spring-summer of '66;  but it was VDP,  his hired lyricist, in the course of trying to fit words to  melodies, who drew on his own obsessions to come up with words that would later suggest--
"an affectionate critique of America's mythic past, a cartoonish representation of Manifest Destiny from Plymouth Rock to Hawaii"--

Now of course Brian had plently of ideas, (Like maybe recording  odd cover tunes, or tracks for a comedy album or a health-food album etc.) but it's hard to  believe that the "Americana"  concept was NOT instigated by Parks in the course of writing the lyrics. After all, Parks in '66 already was a   folk musician, coffee house  bohemian armchair-historian and  Americana collector-fan who travelled in circles where this concept  would already be discussed and appreciated. Consider that  after seeing the intellectual framework   of the SMiLE project scuttled in the subsequent  12 months, Parks immediately started work on his own   to realize that vision, in the form of a series of Americana-fantasy projects, starting with the magnificent cartoon-acid-music masterpiece Song Cycle.

I think what is going on here is that VDP, in the course of seeing the accolades mount for the now completed project, wants to stake out the portion of SMiLE turf that he feels the most emotionally and intellectually bound up in. Make no mistake, Parks  seems to want us to know-- of course the project was a collaboration--but the "critique of American history"  was his critique,  and the Americana concept, the references to Charles Ives and Carl Stallings (Warner Brothers cartoon composer) et cetera are postcards from HIS musical homeland, as is evident  in Song Cycle and forty subsequent years of composing, arranging & performing.

i think that's a fair summation.

The nail has been hit squarely on the head. Nice post.

i agree with the summation as well.  still, there's no changing the fact that in interviews and the like van dyke has always presented smile as being predominantly the work of brian wilson ("brian's baby").  and his line in his letter, where he states "i wrote 'columnaded ruins domino' and want to enjoy it justly", implies that the reviewer didn't identify him as a lyricist and somehow suggested that Brian was working alone, which is not the case at all if anyone reads the proper piece.  but i wholeheartedly agree that van dyke had everything to do with the lyrical articulation of the americana theme.  at the same time, however, the beach boys were resolutely AMERICAN well before van dyke came on the scene, and the whole thematic question, i think, proceeds from that nature of their music.  and the intimation, by van dyke and others in this thread, that brian was completely uninvolved with the "conception" of the american scope of the record also strikes me as both unlikely and a little silly. 

also, i hate to keep going on (although this topic is hot i gather because this question is fundamental to the SMILE collaboration), but this quote of Parks in the reply also made me think a sec:

 "we just kind of wanted to investigate...American images.... Everyone was hung up and obsessed with everything totally British. So we decided to take a gauche route that we took, which was to explore American slang, and that's what we got." Parks's liberal use of the word "we" to describe Brian Wilson and himself implies that they shared an understanding of the album's thematic direction.

i wonder what the big deal is, if in this interview Van Dyke is all about identifying the American preoccupation (of which "manifest destiny" and "Plymouth rock" can be seen as extensions) as being *shared* by Brian and him -- he doesn't at all say that the preoccupation with American themes was his own.  other people seem to be trying to rationalize the collaboration on his behalf (that he came up with everything American), when he should be held to the words he has spoken and the way he presents *their* "exploration of American slang".  let's face it, if Van Dyke had always wanted to say he was given free reign to come up with the theme of SMILE before, he shouldn't have said different and then waited until 2005 to right the record.  if anyone has good Van Dyke quotes from the past that demonstrate otherwise they should post them up. 

but, adversely, and seriously -- i don't think one whit of recognition or credit should be taken from Van Dyke. 

Hmmm. Well we're on the same page but here's the thing-
First off I don't think saying "the beach boys were resolutely AMERICAN " is necessarily relevant here cause in the mid sixties, the Beach Boys  did not come across as any more "American"  than the Four Seasons or Bob Dylan or The Supremes, to pick at random acts that they shared the charts with at that time. The whole "America's Band" thing , I think we'd agree, was a much, much  later image.

Now,  there WAS a fair amount of fear/consternation aimed at the British Invasion acts and I think that's what Van Dyke refers to in a lot of these interviews.  The established Top 40 artists in the States were a little worried. Foreign acts were all over the map. Spector was worried, the Wilsons, the A&R guys, everyone was thinking "what the hell is up with these Brits owning the charts all of a sudden?"  The year before (in '65)  the U.S had "answered back" in the form of Folk-Rock-- The Byrds, The Lovin'Spoonful. The Turtles, Sonny & Cher- a flash-in-the-pan  which had provided  a paycheck for more than a few of the starving pseudo-intellectual stoned folkies that Van Dyke hung with, like his pal David Crosby, who graciously introduced him to  one of those worried Top 40 chartbusters, a certain Brian Wilson.  Wilson wanted someone with the hippie anti-establishment folk-rock juice that he lacked, to help  him in his desire to "catch up " with the Brits.

After Parks came on board, being a conceptual punster, he clearly saw the irony in a "surf music band" trying to get Meaningful so as to continue the Folk-Rock  backlash against the endlessly inventive but commercially vulnerable Beatles, (this is now june or so of 66. pre-Revolver)  and encouraged Brian's already dry-witty tendencies. Parks' first batch of lyrics- for the tune Surf's Up--  established this ironic idea:  a "surf's up" tidal wave  triumphing with the charm of a New World "children's song"  over the Opera House decadence of the  Old World. Brian was knocked out by the idea  that he had inspired something so Artistic  and Heavy,  and probably encouraged Parks  to press ahead in a similar vein. So Parks gladly wrote more stuff around his personal historic/asthetic passions, implying  an "americana" framework  that I seriously do not think Brian would have ever come up with on his own, but which he nonetheless embraced wholeheartedly.
Anyway, that's my take on why Parks wants  credit for his lyrics suggesting some grand Americana concept, if there IS any grand Americana concept (and reviewers will always be inclined to create one even if the composers were actually "whistling in the dark").

Above post said;

The following passage from Brian's "biography" may help show where Brian's and Van Dyke's heads were at concerning the "American" thing.


If I'm reading the above correctly, Van Dyke Parks equates the Beach Boys' image (the stage outfits) with the United States of America.

The Beach Boys cannot escape the fact that they are American, and therefore, you may as well BE American because people are going to view you as American no matter what you do.

That's why we have the Americana thing in SMiLE, because, it's a Beach Boys album and Van Dyke Parks is thinking that the Beach Boys are inescapably American.

Yup- great find there. Even if it's semi-apocryphal (do we know who actually wrote that bio?) it sounds plausible. Yeah Parks probably did equate the Boys with America-- even if, at that point in time, it was a novel idea.

I mean I still maintain that the average fan (which was certainly NOT Parks) did not necessarily see the Beach Boys  as a particularly "American" pop group. In 1966, it was still a world where "Americanism" was represented in popular culture by Pat Boone,  Guy Lombardo,  maybe Georgie Jessel (now forgotten) wearing his uniform... the Beach Boys were a rock and roll group , and a in 1966 there were still millions of mainstream Americans over 30 years old who assumed that all rock and roll was, by definition, Unamerican.
So Parks  was once again, way ahead of his time  in recognizing  the essential "American-ness"  of the whole Murry-directed  collegiate candy-stripe-shirt-cum-surfer-hodad image thing. He saw the Beach Boys as ambassadors of a culture that he thought was doing something horrible, and he wanted to play a role in redeeming that culture, by injecting some hip, cosmopolitan world-view  into Brian's baroque-bubblegum universe. Brian may of heard his ramblings, thought "I never saw us that way, I don't know anything about Vietnam, but now that you mention it..."

The theme of redeeming a shamed America has played a role in all of Parks' work- especially in the form of redeeming the specifically Southern cultural forms like the maligned minstrelsy (see "Jump!") that Parks identified with as a Southerner (with all the attendant guilt etc.).
It probably played a role in his early involvement in the Folk scene, in his embrace of Calypso, and in his attempts to collaborate with rock musicians.

I don't think that's what ANYONE is arguing here!

Brian wasn't completely uninvolved. For God's sake, he went out and found Van Dyke and decided he'd be the right guy for the job. He then sat him down and sang, "Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba!" Van came back with, "I've  been in this town so long that back in the city...." Brian approved it and I'm sure a lot of discussion went on about it until it was done. But if it had been, say Tony Asher sitting there, it may well have been a song about emotions instead of Manifest Destiny. Van Dyke brought a particular viewpoint to the table and the fact is he's been pretty fucking humble about it. So much so that now people are taking his part for granted.

Well, before I got into them I think I perceived them as being five times Pat Boone, or surfing Doris Days as Bruce said it, and like Boone they also played a very cleaned up kind of rock'n'roll, with the barbershop harmonies and so forth. I think for europeans they represented that whole toothpaste-smile, hollywood happy ending  american thing, so I think they were actually perceived as being something very american all along and of course they were also Americas answer to Beatles. 

Søren

Isn't there an interview with Al (Goldmine?) where he talks about heroes and Villains having its genesis in the very early days of the BB? I don't mean the lyrical complexity and this isn't to be interpreted as a dig at Parks... I think he was referring to the actual music.  It'd be interesting to know which bit...

I don't have Van Dyke's exact "pan-patriotic/trans-presidential" quote in front of me but I think most folks know that one. Essentially Van Dyke says that the Beach Boys' pan patriotic, trans presidential, vibe was the perfect medium for Brian and Van Dyke to "talk about what we knew."

Van Dyke's comment appears to say that they could talk about "what they knew" using American (and therefore Beach Boys) imagery.

This summation is consistant with that derrived from Brian's bio quote from the above posts.

Another thing to consider regarding Van Dyke's letter to the NYT is that Parks seems to indicate that the American bit was not front and center in the Brian Wilson's mind. It was not the driving force behind SMiLE.

And because of this, popular interpretations of SMiLE that point to the Americana thing probably should rethink things a bit.

strong posts on the "America" aspect of the Beach Boys by Bill and Barba.  i like those ideas about the uniforms and the lyrical accentuation Van Dyke brought to the Beach Boys' American quality.  Barba knows his stuff, but i still think, in agreement i think with some of teh other posts, that the Beach Boys were straight-up, California sun, blue-eyed manifestations of the American experience.  i mean, they perfectly encapsulated the adolescent flush of postwar prosperity in American culture, even emerging out of the sunny planned communities of California, land of Hollywood and the stuff of dreams the world over (inc. in Britain).  And they prominently wrote about American-centris fads like surfing and hotrods, both native cultural trends to America, and broke real big with zanily patriotic songs like "Surfin' USA" and "California Girls."  so i think there was no question that the beach boys were especially *American* in the moment of the sixties.  i don't agree that the "America's band" thing came later -- it was an outgrowth of what they always were.

and then another point i was thinking, which is really just a point of info -- remember the David Leaf "Story of Smile" documentary on Showtime and now DVD?  we've all seen it, it's what it is, etc.  in it the narrator himself describes Smile with words that basically say that Smile was going to follow the movement of a "bicycle rider from Plymouth Rock to Diamond Head."  i remember very much that it said that in the documentary, and David Leaf is probably the most unimpeachable Beach Boys authority.  why didn't anyone raise a fuss then if it's such a big deal when the New York Review of Books (www.nybooks.com / not the New York Times) basically says the same thing>? 

you guys can check the Leaf description if you have a copy of the doc.

CS

The above poster noted that in David Leaf's SMiLE flick;

I'm pretty sure that the "bicycle rider" quote and the "how great America could be" quote from the DVD are not really David Leaf thoughts but rather thoughts from a knowledgeable Beach Boys authority. You'll notice that those two thoughts don't seem to fit neatly into the SMiLE DVD, they seem out of place. I tend to think that they were "throw in" thoughts used to justify the Americana thing because there wasn't any Americana stuff being offered up by the film's participants (the major SMiLE people; Anderle, Parks, Wilson, Schwartz, Vosse, etc).

Doesn't that speak volumes about SMiLE and the Americana angle.

here we go again.  nothing against bill, but the thoughts didn't seem particularly out of place to me or thrown in to justify anything.  enthusiasts have posited the Americana bicycle rider trek since the beginning of the Smile saga, and it was always presumed that the cross-country conceit (with reference to the railroads and old west) was meant to give the album some kind of narrative/conceptual arc.  therefore it's no surprise that the documentary would have said as much.  also, again, "Beautiful Dreamer" was produced and directed by David Leaf.  so I don't agree he was blithely unaware of what was in the documentry's narrative script -- in fact, i don't doubt he had a lot to do with it's writing. 

From Van Dyke's letter to the NY Times;

Scott Staton replied to Park's letter;


The big problem I have with this is calling the Americana stuff "Smile's thematic underpinnings." I think that this is the big mistake that slews of SMiLE people make.

During the "SMiLE era" Brian Wilson made it clear that his new music was "spiritual music." Songs of faith, religious music, that was "the whole movement." And at the same time Brian also stated that "psychedelic music" was going to be the new "happening" music.  There is no contradiction here. The mostly LSD inspired psychedelic movement used spiritual texts as a guideline and Brian's metaphysical literature endeavers go hand in hand with all of this. Brian believed that laughter could help prompt a spiritual experience and so laughter fits in there as well. Brain also believed that vegetables were an "important ingredient" in heath and "spiritual enlightenment." There are no contradictions here. If anything, the spiritual angle is SMiLE's "thematic underpinning"!!!!!!!!!!

It is when people throw the American thing into the mix that SMiLE becomes disjointed and problematic. What folks don't realize is that when Van Dyke Parks told Mike Love that the SMiLE lyrics "...don't mean anything," he wasn't kidding.

When London's hipper crowd criticized the Beach Boys' stage outfits in 1966 they were missing the point of how musically cool and hip (and DEEP) the Pet Sounds/Good Vibrations era Beach Boys really were. The same crowd probably would have missed the point again when SMiLE came out. But that may have been part of Brian's and Van Dyke's plan to show that beyond that surface appearance lay the heaviest of the heaviest, the deepest of the deep! If you are going to get hung up on appearances your aren't going to understand anyway.

first, from Van Dyke MOUTH (www.ascap.com /audioportraits/vandykeparks.html).
< "I was trying to follow his instincts, unquestioning, like a dog. Just be devoted and work hard to try to provide words to the phrases he came up with." >

second, from Scott Staton's piece on SMILE published in the New York Review of Books (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18264):

< A work unified by recurring musical motifs, Smile was imagined as a collection of three suites composed of discrete musical segments that would evoke themes of frontier Americana and childhood, as well as the four natural elements—the movement of air could be heard, for example, in the song "Wind Chimes." Wilson intended the album to be the preeminent psychedelic pop-art statement.

The psychedelic era produced rock music's most recklessly innovative work. The use of the drug epithet "psychedelic" suggested the recording and arranging of songs in ways that would approximate aspects of an altered state of awareness. The result was music whose bizarre conventions demanded (and often rewarded) close attention from the listener. For Wilson, this psychedelic element had a spiritual quality. As he related in a 1966 interview,

"About a year ago I had what I consider a very religious experience. I took LSD, a full dose of LSD, and later, another time, I took a smaller dose.... I can't teach you, or tell you, what I learned from taking it. But I consider it a very religious experience."

Wilson hoped the release of Smile would set off the commercial eruption of psychedelic music that he and others (such as the Beatles) anticipated. "Psychedelic music will cover the face of the world and color the whole popular music scene," he declared. "Anybody happening is psychedelic." >

i personally wondered about the "3 movement" assertion in the passage above, thinking maybe that wasn't accurate.  but then i saw the following on the SMILE FAQ < http://www.thesmileshop.net/history_faq.html >:

< Q: What is this about 3 movements? Is that something he had planned from the 60s?

A: According to Peter Reum, yes. He apparently spoke to Brian around 1980, and Brian had revealed that a 3-movement structure for the song had always been planned. Darian and others have anecdotally confirmed that.

The 3 movements deal with the three main themes of the album. The first movement is basically the "Americana" movement, and its songs deal with the old west, western expansion, and American history. The second movement is the "Childhood" movement, and its songs deal with childhood, innocence, loss of innocence, and growing up. The final movement is the "Elements" suite. >

i don't believe that Van Dyke's lyrics don't "mean anything."  Few things in this world genuinely have no meaning, and no i don't think that Van Dyke lyrics, on Smile or otherwise, qualify.

CS

Well, Van Dyke DID say that the lyrics have meaning for him (meaning Van Dyke himself) in Domenic Priore's latest SMiLE book. Similary, Frank Holmes' SMiLE pictures often contain meanings only known to Frank himself (this is documented in 1997's ESQ).

Here's something to consider. In the "stage outfits" story in Brian's bio Van Dyke says, "We should hit it head on."

You'd think that if they were going to "hit it head on," given the context, they would have come up with one of SMiLE's Americana type pieces. But when they "hit it head on" they come up with "Surf's Up" instead. Not exactly Plymouth Rock or Manifest Destiny.

But if you go with the spiritual interpretation of SMiLE then you DO think that "Surf's Up" is hitting it head on! "Surf's Up" seems to me to be the ego loss spiritual event in one song. The singer is "a broken man too tough to cry" who becomes transformed, and emerges a child (because he is reborn).

In the Jules Siegel article (Goodbye Surfing, Hello God) Brian is cited as saying "it was my whole life...life, death, and rebirth" and it seems that these three sections of Brian's life are played out in "Surf's Up" and, on a larger scale, in the three movements of SMiLE.

But, like I said, this stuff is the heaviest of the heavy & the deepest of the deep and probably not something the general public is going to understand. It is a lot easier, I guess, for most people to dig SMiLE as the American saga and to see Brian as an eccentric artist.

Bill, straight up, i see what you're saying, but we should should lay things plainly.  check what you unfold in your post, which i think you don't see for all the simple beauty:


What about teh above makes you think "Surf's Up" is necessarily outside of the American aspect of Smile, when it's direct (whether mythologhical or not, see above quote) inspiration is a musing on a parable of the Beach Boys as symbolic United States of America, suddenly out of step with the new cultural reality, changing so fast. 

I agree with your suggestion that "Surf's Up" is about EVERYTHING.  but it's also famously a meditation on the defeat of empires and the cultural realities they determine (aristocracies, opera, diamonds and chandeliers.... war), as well as THE FALL of these empires/realities ("columnaded," "adieu or die" etc.).  there is an image of America in the midst of what many regarded as a senseless war, sacrificing the innocence of its citizens.  it is also about teh loss of self and the meeting with god, the RETURN, with the children's song, etc.  it is the psychospiritual ARC, that song.

so it all seems to me to be of a piece.  take the elements.  "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" is a specifically AMERICAN piece of folklore.  the "I wanna be Around" element is a quote from an American pop standard.  the brassy explosions of Wind Chimes and flute whistly parts of Holiday sound like oldfashioned Barnum and Bailey circus music. 

and frank's pictures are totally meaningful, i agree -- whether to him or anyone else.  just like all this other stuff.  and it all seems pretty clear to me that brian was involved in all of this, and van dyke brought the sharpness and intrepretive, gonzo depth to the lyrical texture of SMILE>  Brian famously went around telling people what certain songs "meant" at any given time, everything was laden with representation -- which is what made SMILE so cool and mysterious to begin with.  what was going to be the sum of all of this "significance"?  do you think it would have been right to say that Brian was n't envisioning crazy ideas about all things, in collaboration with Van Dyke and not? 

so isn't it really just splitting hairs when people suggest, 40 years later, with the guy mentally ill and in the throes of a crazy comeback, saying anything in front of microphones, being both honest and clueless, that he wasn't *responsible* for envisioning the record?  i mean, that's kind of what Van Dyke snootily says, "Manifest Destiny and such were the last things on Brian's mind when he asked (*guess who*) ME to take a FREE HAND in the lyrics and *thematic direction." 

Quit prancing 'round the floor, Mr. Parks.  we always gave you love, and you always said you were working with and for brian and that the whole thing was cool and Brian was in control and it was about this and that, blah blah, and now you're gonna say, "this guy didn't do it.  those are my ideas."  boo hickey. 

brian gave up his mind in the psychedelic FALL of teh self, he gave up a lot of himself because of SMILE.  "Surf's Up" preludes his FALL from greatness and the end of what had for him been a cozy reality.  that is just another reason why SMILE is truly Brian's, that's why it's his name on the finished album and not "Beach Boys" or "and Van Dyke Parks".  cos it's HIS and everything on it is his, and if you can't say that while giving proper props to Van Dyke for the special quality he brought and not offend him (Van Dyke), well then GOOD GRIEF. 

CS

check this out, the British paper The Guardian comments briefly on this "skirmish":

http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,1679924,00.html

· Expect more skirmishes from the old debate as to the literary value of pop lyrics - most usually formulated as Is Dylan Better Than Keats? Published this week is Bob Dylan and Philosophy (Open Court Press) in which 18 philosophers interrogate the work of a man who once warned that "counterfeit philosophies have polluted all of your thoughts". Soon after comes not one, but two new biographies of published poet Pete Doherty and then a re-issue of Paul du Noyer's We All Shine On: The Stories Behind Every John Lennon Song. There's ammunition for both sides of the debate in the latest issue of the New York Review of Books. In a letter responding to a review of Brian Wilson's album Smile, 30 years in the making and eventually released last year, Van Dyke Parks, the Smile lyricist, complains that his contribution was downplayed in the review, and sheds some light on the alchemical process that occurs when words and music combine. "Brian sang: 'da da da da da da da da dah'. I wrote 'Columnaded ruins domino'. I've lived to regret it for the majority of my adult life. Now, I'd like to enjoy it justly."

Here's a bit of Brian Wilson's explanation of "Surf's Up" from Goodbye Surfing, Hello God. Brian explains;


Okay, we know that the spiritual work, SMiLE, was inspired by a very religious LSD trip and sure enough the above explanation of a "Surf's Up" lyric seems to properly locate us "on a trip."

Then there's the ego loss kind of stuff that Brian alludes to;

After this, his explanation heads towards "childhood" which, as I stated before, comes with being reborn.

Then comes the main thing;

So, I'm afraid I do not think that "Surf's Up" is about EVERYTHING. "Surf's Up" is about the spiritual experience.

It is really interesting how Brian explains Van Dyke Parks' "Surf's Up" lyrics in an interpretive manner.

According to Parks, Brian wrote " da, da, da, da ,da, dah" and then Van Dyke wrote "columnated ruins domino" and then, based on the Jules Siegel article we know, Brian read Van Dyke Parks as "Empires, ideas, lives, institutions--everything has to fall...."

NOW THEN! If you then jump to the Surfing Saints article where Brian talks about the "Ultimate Religious Experience" you'll find Brian saying "...everything is always changing and time never repeats itself" which isn't all that different from "everything has to fall...." and then you wonder if the "Ultimate Religious Experience" is ultimately responsible for " da, da, da, da ,da, dah." And we know, by Brian's own statements to Tom Nolan about his inspiration for SMiLE, that this is precisely what Brian had in mind all along. It all finally fits together.

Another thing to consider with regard to the ego loss thing is Brian's claim that the Beatles' album REVOLVER is "religious" (this claim is from the Tom Nolan article). If Brian is thinking that the ego loss process is religious then he may very well have picked up upon such lyrics as "I know what it's like to be dead" and "it is not dying" from "She Said, She Said" and "Tomorrow Never Knows" respectively. REVOLVER would indeed appear as religious to Brian Wilson!

So, as you can see, by taking a more spiritually oriented approach to SMiLE some of the confusing statements from the past seem to start making some sense.

And when Brian said, "Reality is gone; he's creating it like a dream" that may have been similar to  Brian's instructions for Van Dyke at the outset of SMiLE.

c'mon bill, spiritualism and GOD and the self and its death/rebirth -- this is what i meant by EVERYTHING.  that is the STUFF, man!  i totally agree, but you gotta call it what it is -- which is ALL THINGS>   i am down with it, i am down with SMILE as the psychospiritual trek.  it is the TREK of ALL THINGS given american trappings. 

and brian all along had ideas about it, like you say, interpretative points and feelings that accumulated over those months of composition and recording.  he should deservedly be endowed with "envisionment", cos the guy had a vision, and van dyke had what it took to set that vision in stark lyrical relief.

I always thought the "American History" part of Smile was just to use and incorporate different styles of popular American music like jazz, dixieland, acid rock, etc. I don't think there was a "concept" bigger than that.

Have you read the lyrics, man?
You can't see the connection and overarching themes of H&V/Bicycle Rider, Cabinessence, Surf's Up and Do You Like Worms?
That's one of the most interconnected series of songs I've ever heard!

Couldn't Smile originally have meant to be about the loss of Americas innocence or spirituality, with the indians a.o. representing the spiritual aspect, where the solution was spiritual/psychedelic regeneration a la "Surf's Up" and "Vegetables". In that way it would be a combination of the two themes.
It seems to be an age old theme among american writers and artists, that the "true" american dream has been lost and replaced by commercialism, imperialism and so forth and wasn't that also one of the agendas of the folk movement in the sixties. Couldn't Van Dyke and Brian not be just be two more lining up to explore that theme and suggesting "psychedelic enlightenment" as the solution.

Søren

I agree wholeheartedly with this!
- In fact,that interpretation is what I've always  suspected on my own and been reinforced by  Parks' own ramblings-- that is when he wasn't saying "it doesn't mean anything"-
And I believe he takes that stance  on occasion when the oblique, weird qualities of his older lyrics may sort of embarrass him as being too "druggy" and symptomatic  of his 22-year old artsiness. After all, the mature Parks lyrics (e.g. for Orange Crate Art) are still loaded with word-play  but much more "conventional"-- and in recent years he probably wants to emphasize  that he is now   a much more "accessable"  writer  (with more... universal, hence commercial, appeal-?).
BUT the question remains, to what degree did this theme of American history  as a morality-play about reconnecting with spirituality-- come only from Parks' lyrics, and to what degree did it come from WIlson's spiritual /druggy obsessions at that time?
I believe the overall theme  as described above evolved in the course of the collaboration, from maybe roughly June-through-October of '66,  but that the Americana aspect came from Parks, and they BOTH realized  how that  tied in with the zeitgeist of the times AND  what Brian was trying to emotionally express.
And I still maintain that Parks was understandably peeved that the NY RoB reviewer, by talking about Ives and Manifest Destiny etc.  in the context of Brian ONLY, was unintentionally giving the wrong impression.

BUT neither Parks nor Wilson, over the years, have felt confident that they  wanted to still expound  on that theme-- and I believe  that Wilson  never reeally signed on to it completely. (At least, not all the political/historic implications)
So they've been back-pedaling  and avoiding  the "thematic"  issues for forty years. Wilson probably forgot  the whole thing (or even repressed it)  as part of  an era  he wanted to forget.
It's up to us now in retrospect   to piece it together, which Soren did quite succinctly.

In sum: Parks had the intellectual fuel in his lyrics, Brian had the spiritual ignition...
 

What we need to remember is that the music of the Beach Boys has always been about an American (specifically Californian) mythology. This is something that Brian took from Chuck Berry. Berry's classic stuff was always less about typical boy/girl stuff than about creating a mythical Teen-Age America "where hamburgers sizzle on an open grill night and day." It's not a coincidence that "Surfin' USA" borrows its tune from Berry, or that its title alludes to "Back in the USA." "Surfin' USA" is Brian's first grand attempt at creating the California Myth:

If everybody had an ocean
Across the USA
Then everybody's be surfin'
Like californ-aye-yay.

This is the genius of "Surf's Up", that VDP understood the myth-making ideal of the BB's surf songs, and took it to a higher level.

Tony Asher's lyrics for Pet Sounds didn't add anything new to Brian's music; Asher simply created a more refined and sophisticated version of themes stretching from "Surfer Girl" and "Don't Worry Baby" to the second side of Today. While VDP's lyrics might seem like a radical departure for the BBs, I'd argue that they were simply a much more sophistical and literary version of a mythological impulse that runs throughout the BB catalog.

Based upon my research it seems highly probable that Brian Wilson's spiritual transformation had something to do with putting a bad past behind him. Being reborn implies ditching some of your past and this sort of thing would have helped Brian given his troubled upbringing.

So for instance, in BWPS we have the fire music which is related to his 2nd LSD trip (in which he revisits his embattled past, reliving fights with his dad--check it out in Brian's bio!). After this Brian has the ego death thing "if I die before I wake I pray the Lord to take my misery" somewhere "in a plastic pool, and sink" only to find that he is really reborn and "in the pink."

Or take, if you will, "Surf's Up" with the openining battle scenes. We follow the same basic scenario. The embattled past, ego death, and then rebirth (see some of my above posts for more "Surf's Up" ego loss stuff).

And since I said that those same basic three things (birth and death and rebirth) are also essentially SMiLE's 3 movements then we must conclude that the first movement of BWPS is the embattled past movement. And sure enough, we have the battling "Heroes & Villains," and then the  Native Americans vs. the Manifest Destiny driven Eurocentric bicycle rider in "Roll Plymouth Rock," and then the strong musical contrasts of "CabinEssence" dipicted by Frank Holmes' contrasting the cabin with the teepee, it's nature vs the machine, the crow vs the thresher. To sum, I think that the Americana stuff (which is set in the past) depicts Brain Wilson's spiritual experience by using American imagery.

As far as I remember from one of Tom Nolans articles, Van Dyke was quoted for saying something about the BB's wanting to get rid of their image, but that he didn't understand it, because he thought the whole image of the beach and the ocean had everything. I don't remember exactly what he said, but something about the ocean being the answer and I think he also saw it in terms of ecology.

Søren

I seem to recall Parks mentioning ecology in Prioie's latest SMiLE book.

One thing that we tend to do when we analyze things is break them into categories. People tend to break SMiLE down into various categories. The spiritual experience out of which SMiLE arose most likely didn't involve a number of categories. That experience most likely offered up a new way of seeing things, a new perspective.

There is a part in an older Beach Boys book that describes "Good Vibrations" in a way that also describes this "new perspective" and also relates well to my prior post about reborn Brian ditching his fight filled past.

So if Brian's personal vision is painted by Van Dyke Parks using American imagery there may be a message to be had. Brian's personal past had been filled with many battles with his dad and the spiritual vision had offered relief from and a break with that past. Similarly, America's past had also been filled with battles. We have the Old West style gunfights, or the taking of the Native American's land, or the battle to conquer nature. Many of these battle have been waged in the name of God.

Brian's "teenage symphony to God" seems to have come out of an experience that Bruce Golden sums up nicely.

And if we apply that same vision to America one would see a past they would not be particulary proud of. But one would also see a vision for a better future.

When Domenic Priore asked Brian and Van Dyke about SMiLE in the late 80s Brian responded, "if it helped out spiritually then I'm glad we did it" and Van Dyke said "we accomplished something. we got out of Viet Nam." These comments seems right on target with the thoughts that preceed them.

Some people have said that BWPS was important for America NOW! And I agree, it is.

Yes- great post, Bill!
Of course  we should be careful maybe about taking specific quotes too seriously over the years- These two guys have said all sorts of things. But the gist of it is  I would guess pretty close to your interpretation
And those quotes,  and even the possibility that they are out-of context- do lead me to this observation-

Van Dyke is a "maximalist" - always drawing connections between seemingly unrelated things, looking for the Big Picture, and in interviews  he   has so MUCH  to say,  in so  many complex ways,  that often he jumps from a question  that is  specific  to an answer that is actually general, or vice versa-  i. e.
"What did SMiLE accomplish, Van Dyke?"
answer: "we... we got out of Vietnam"
meaning, in a sense, "we"  as a generation, by creating works with the perspective and vision of SMiLE, encouraged a cultural climate  that forced a government to amend a policy. Van Dyke's mind works like that- always drawing connections from the particular to the general  and back to the particular, seeing puns  and strange echoes  that others ignore.

Brian by contrast is a minimalist- in interviews and in art, he always bringing a thought or expression  down   to a specific factoid, a discrete emotional state, a mundane (but perhaps transcendant) experience ("Busy Doing Nothing", to see an example of this in lyrics form)  and avoiding  the connections   that threaten to swamp him. His M.O. in 1966  was the recording  of discrete little "feels"- pieces of music   that might just be  20 seconds or so,  fleeting snapshots  of an emotional attitude  expressed with his amazing talents  and command  of the studio.

Clearly, SMiLE needed the Maximalist  technique  of a Van Dyke Parks   to be anything  but  a chaotic  collection of fleeting impressions. And to the extent   that SMiLE  functions  cohesively,  I believe we have to thank  the  bedrock  of their complimentary collaboration  in those few months in '66.

Nice post by Barba Yiorgi who said;

It is worth noting that Brain Wilson was subjected to a "chaotic collection of fleeting impressions" in late 1965, when having an acid flashback, at Pickwick Books. Brian realized that the experience was tantamount to a Zen riddle.

With SMiLE being essentally a Zen riddle capable of transmitting the spiritual experience the stage is set for individuals to have a spiritual experience. If enough individuals are affected then perhaps the larger group can produce spiritually conscious change on a national level. In this way Brian & Van Dyke are essentially "on the same page."

I realize that my blabbing comes across as a pipe dream to most readers but they too must remember that the revolutionaries during the mid sixties often innocently thought that anything was possible. And Brian Wilson's status implied a piece of work on this very level.

Tom Nolan described Brian as "...the seeming leader of a potentially-revolutionary movement in pop history....that's exactly what he is, because if you ask him where he thinks music is going, he will say one simple word. 'Spiritual'"

And if you see the tv show Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution you'll find that "Surf's Up" is directly proceeded by the following;

"Their idea is to love us into submission....As they see it, our society, while apparently healthy and certainly bountiful, is in a deep crisis of values. They are hoping for a return to the human centered community they feel modern life has moved away from. And they think that they, together with other young people like them, are forming a model upon which that society can be constructed."-David Oppenheim

It was David Leaf who noted that the word in 1966 was that "...Brian was working on this mind-blowing, unified concept album called SMiLE."

And since the late Timothy White noted that in Brian's world of the psychedelic mid sixties "nothing was impossible," then maybe we should consider the idea that these folks may all be right.