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Hadn't heard this version yet.

https://youtu.be/7yJJ1vlbMfw?si=Fn268qHDriCZGGUX

I just finished reading David Leaf's original 1978 version of his "MYTH" book, and just wanted to point out the he has people saying in the mid-70's that if they were with Brian, just hanging, like old friends, that they thought Brian didn't seem any different than he did 5 or 10 years earlier.

Also, I watched an interview of Brian from an interview with someone European.  (Dutch?  Swedish?)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kwmmj7WEHXI

The most heartbreaking part of this interview is Brian constantly calling the voices he hears in his head as the devil talking to him. 

The brain is really amazing.  How it can do this is so strange.  (The brain does lots of other weird things, too.  My Mom heard phantom sounds in her heard, like water running, and loud sounds, etc., after a nasty bout with a drug that did way more bad than the good it was supposed to do.)

[tone]

I was talking only of the "heavy metal" aspect of Fire. Of course VDP was extremely eccentric and experimental in Song Cycle. But not heavy metal. I have a difficult in picturing VDP dismissing a piece simply because it had no lyrics. That would be rather petty. More likely he simply did not like the piece, whatever he said.

I do see what you're saying, I just find it hard to see Parks being offended by the music itself considering what he did on 'Song Cycle'. To make a more direct comparison, the tone of the middle of 'Van Dyke Parks' (the 'Nearer My God To Thee' segment with the Titanic sinking) sounds SO much like 'Fire' - the booming explosions are reminiscent of the drums in 'Fire', and the ship's horn sounds so much like the fuzz bass on 'Fire' (specifically that 'heavy metal' sound). I'm not at all saying they are identical, but the tone, to me, is strikingly similar...as in, if I were to fade 'Fire' into the middle segment of 'VDP's I think it would be a near-perfect fit. Then again, that could be a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the entire Smile debacle haha.

But, VDPs played on 'Cabin Essence' and I don't think he has ever shown a dislike to the sound of that song - a song that I'd say has just as equal a 'heavy metal' sound, specifically the chorus instruments & the fuzz bass on the outro. Idk, he could very well have disliked that sound, but I just find it hard to believe considering the 'weirdness' he put into his own album just months later.

Yes, Van Dyke's quote about not liking Fire because there was no room for vocals makes no sense to me, either.  It seems VERY out of character.  It's a true conundrum.  Maybe Van Dyke will expound upon it in his autobiography?  We can only hope!

MyDrKnowsItKeepsMeCalm said...

>>> We know that Brian was involved in (say) the various 1967-1970 albums even if he was no longer the most public persona of the band. Are there stories of 1967-1970 Brian commanding a room (or more specifically, a Beach Boys recording session) quite like this? <<<


Just listen to the backing tracks of the Friends songs.  I imagine most of them were done with outside musicians.  They have the same master's touch as the earlier recordings in my opinion.

Has Van Dyke Parks ever commented on how he felt about the Smile songs that came out in different forms than he had last heard them via Smiley Smile (or 20/20 and Surf's Up fro that matter)?

There is a quote in David Leaf's new book where he quotes Van Dyke's reaction to hearing Heroes & Villains on the radio for the first time and Van Dyke thinks, that's not how I expected it to sound!  Unfortunately David doesn't give us a follow up question of, "well, what did you expect it to sound like?"

David's SMiLE book does a big curlicue around "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" and VDP's assessment of how the project took a sudden, strange dark turn with it--starting on p. 64 and continuing into the subsequent chapter entitled "Don't F*** with the Formula."

It seems that VDP felt somewhat ambushed by that session; apparently he was not informed about it beforehand. I'm paraphrasing here, but it seems that Brian took whatever conception of "the Elements" that had been discussed or "pre-prepared" and went to a place with "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" that no one could have possibly anticipated. It sprang into existence outside the context of what he and VDP had been envisioning, and the nature of the music seemed to obviate the need for lyrics. That seems to have shaken up VDP and seems to have made it even harder for him to defend his lyrics to Mike Love (and possibly some others) when that collision occurred a few weeks later.

(Remember, the "Fire" session was late November '66, and the altercation about lyrics was early-mid December when "Cabinessence" was revisited.)

It's clear that there was some interaction between Brian and VDP about an "Elements" suite but it appears that Brian abruptly and unexpectedly took the idea into unknown territory, which threw several wrenches into the process. VDP suggests that the subsequent tinkering Brian undertook in early '67 made it difficult to maintain a through-line for the project: it's possible that some of the arguments between them in VDP's several short-lived returns centered around that escalating problem.

David Leaf suggests that Brian might have been spooked by "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" because it encapsulated a growing set of anxieties that were at work within him. He may have been simultaneously enthralled and repulsed by what he created, which would have made him more vulnerable to superstition-oriented phenomena (the purported "rash of fires" that ensued after the session). All of that, however, just magnified the rifts that eventually caused the project to be aborted.

I don't think there's a definitive answer as to what "the Elements" would have been, which leaves the question of what "snapshot" of SMiLE seems to give it the best possible flow as a "symphony" or "oratory" (as some music scholars refer to it). What Brian and VDP (with help from Darian) devised/revised in 2003 is their take--and deserves its place as the official version--but other scenarios and other sequences are clearly possible (and possibly preferable).

That's really interesting. I always thought VDP was sincere and defending the music with the sometimes quotes "you can throw the lyrics out if you don't like them, the words aren't important" as if to say "what's important is the music, Im just trying to help set a scene with my words but ultimately the specifics don't matter." This now makes me wonder if he wasn't being passive aggressive, like "well, as Brian has shown, the lyrics don't even matter anyway." That's a real shame.

Everything lines up perfectly for once though, for this new emergent narrative to make sense. Psychedelic Sounds Nov 4, where the element sections have lyrics albeit not particularly great ones. (And now this opens a new hole, where Id always assumed there was no fire-related chants because Fire was already a blueprint in their mind, if "Cow" was a surprise, why not working fire concept tonight?) Then Fire is recorded on 11/28 and the CE altercation about a week later, 12/6 (feel free to double check me). Now the call from Brian, another surprise, to defend the lyrics is feeling like a pattern of behavior of being sidelined, surprised and belittled from Van's perspective.

I will never believe your latter thought, that Van Dyke was saying his lyrics don't matter because the music was all Brian was interested in now.  I also don't believe the other boards thought that Van Dyke really didn't think much of his lyrics.  I believe he thought his lyrics were great... AND... that Brian thought his lyrics were great, too.  But when you get pushed with your back up against the wall, and you're fighting a "family business" and you're not part of that family, I believe Van Dyke maybe thought he should just bow out gracefully.  If the Boys didn't understand the lyrics, and apparently Brian didn't have the strength to defend the lyrics, either, then Van Dyke bows and makes his leave.  Remember, in David Leaf's new book Van Dyke also says that he felt physically threatened during the SMiLE sessions.  I just think the whole SMiLE dream falls apart once Brian starts getting push back from the Boys and the record company.  He just didn't have the strength to fight them again... or anymore.  And as David Leaf points out in his first book, Brian needs encouragement.  If you don't like what he's doing, he'll second guess himself.  In the beginning, with the Posse, he was getting nothing but encouragement.  Things were going great.  Then the Boys come home.  Perhaps Brian hears from his record company, too.  David Leaf says that Mike Love hated SMiLE.  In those moments SMiLE is almost all but lost.  Brian bides his time, but can't get anyone to change their mind and he eventually locks it away as his own little precious jewel, that he finally let the world see in all its glory in 2004!

And why do you keep saying you can't buy David Leaf's book?  It's been on sale for months.  I just found it on sale at Amazon for about $32.00.  Here's the link...

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=David+leaf+book&crid=3KXNJUPFGY6XB&sprefix=david+leaf+book%2Caps%2C130&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

You can buy David Leaf's first book there, too.  The newer version with the 1985 and 2022 updates tacked on at the end of the book.

No one seems able to give a straight answer to that question. Various sources Ive read outright say the work was done or it wasnt. Some sources imply lyrics without outright listing them, like Brians second autobiography  and Dennis playing an acetate to a reporter. I think they mustve been in flux.

I think the lyrics must have been in flux or rejected or unfinished, or maybe they just talked about what they would be but didn't write them. The song is such a major composition, that got so much studio time dedicated to it, that I just can't imagine that if it had been fully finished with verses, then someone, actually probably a number of people, would have remembered that at some point and said so in a non-cagey way. But I've never seen any remotely direct reference in any kind of primary source.

Someone else pointed out on this board years ago, in response to a very excited post of my own about how the Dennis comment implied cowboy lyrics, that Dennis was reportedly playing this live on the piano, and that the verse of Child has a sort of loping, cowboy-song quality which would be easy to accentuate in the left hand if you were playing it as a solo piano piece without words. Given that there has never been any other reference to a western theme connected to the song, that seemed like the most plausible explanation to me the moment I first heard it...

By Douglas Fink/PapaLaPap (in the "Sad, Sad Summer" 2025):
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    "SL00P"s  SECRET  "€~METER"  =  CESSP00LS !«
__________________________________________________________
"BRIAN DOUGLAS WILSON" + anagram epitaph:
"SAIL~BOARDing SUN: LOW"
__________________________________________________________

(BW~epitaph freely after JULIA's SMiLE Jigsaw Puzzle:)
   JULIA...   HAIL U, "J" !«

BRiAN WILSON = "DUMB ANGEL"/"Pied Piper"/"SANDALPHON"FunFun !?

   "WILSON/SCHMILSON"?     NO !  "WILSON/SMiLEson"!  

Nice to have JK back HERE again as well !! And by the last line in the quote  below, I personally  mean: Go~and~check~JK~out !  Welcome back....

Most recently (I seem to be back in some capacity)

As the man says, "Go and check him out!"

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