SMiLE Sessions box set!

[Andrew G. Doe]

I specifically asked Brian and Van Dyke about the Zen interpretation, and they both said "no." Van Dyke further said, if there was it was accidental.

But David, as Bill stated earlier on, they were being disingenuous: they were misleading you. The secret must be protected and maintained at all costs, even if it meant lying. 

[Dunderhead]

Imagine if you guys did some really stupid childish thing and it was made very public? How do you think you would feel?

Brian's LSD use coincided with his critical period as an artist where he failed to mature fully. Brian, as an artist, never really grew up, it sort of got up to it and then lumped away. I would imagine that in retrospect that's very painful for Brian to consider, it's essentially the biggest regret in his professional career. Then he was conditioned through all the intervening years to blame drugs for what happened to him. Rightfully or wrongly.

There's plenty of 60s songwriters that have come out and said in later years that one of their works, that had been interpreted by their peers as concerning drugs, was about something utterly banal. To have the whole culture look at you and talk about something silly you did when you were a teenager, it's like we're constantly chiding them. Especially considering many artists, as they've become less relevant, and as they've moved continually away from that type of behavior have wanted to emphasize their natural talents or abilities as being beyond the realm of those who influenced them. I mean, how much is LSD mentioned as a positive development in Brian's career? Can you imagine reading articles about yourself that have things like "...and then he started doing LSD and became much better..." or someother bullmerda like that? It would be pretty tiresome to be asked about some of the really out there things you had considered or done constantly by the press, even when you're trying to have a solo career that's moved well past your work.

It's a big put on, like over in the Brianisms thread there's one where he says he's not influenced by Gershwin  
But even more than that I think he's sort of learned to remove drugs from the equation when he thinks about the past work, and sort of fill that gap with other things. So if you go up to those guys from the old days and ask them about drugs and mystical shamanism and hermetic rituals they'll try and shrug it off. That's why in general things Brian said back in 1966 take precedence over anything he's said since.

But that's just my attempt to get into the situation a little better.

[Roger Ryan]

I don't see why Brian or Van Dyke would deny a Zen influence on SMiLE because of embarrassment over drug use; drugs and Eastern philosophy are not one-and-the-same.

Around the time of BWPS, Brian acknowledged his use of LSD had a connection to his creativity (although he stresses the negative impact more, of course). Van Dyke has freely admitted he "inhaled" during those years. I don't think either of them has shied away from the fact that drugs were involved. Again, nothing unseemly would be revealed by saying that Zen philosophy played a part in the creation of SMiLE. Would Brian deny that Transcendental Meditation was an influence on "Transcendental Meditation" or "The TM Song"?

[Andrew G. Doe]

Brian's LSD use coincided with his critical period as an artist where he failed to mature fully.

After his first trip, Brian wrote the following, artistically immature, songs:

Salt Lake City
Girl Don't Tell Me
California Girls
Let Him Run Wild
Summer Means New Love
The Little Girl I Once Knew
Wouldn't It Be Nice
You Still Believe In Me
That's Not Me
Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)
Let's Go Away For A While
God Only Knows
I Know There's An Answer
Here Today
I Just Wasn't Made For These Times
Pet Sounds
Caroline, No
'Trombone Dixie'
Good Vibrations

You were saying ?

Brian, as an artist, never really grew up

In your opinion.

[ESQ Editor]

Brian's LSD use coincided with his critical period as an artist where he failed to mature fully.

After his first trip, Brian wrote the following, artistically immature, songs:

Salt Lake City
Girl Don't Tell Me
California Girls
Let Him Run Wild
Summer Means New Love
The Little Girl I Once Knew
Wouldn't It Be Nice
You Still Believe In Me
That's Not Me
Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)
Let's Go Away For A While
God Only Knows
I Know There's An Answer
Here Today
I Just Wasn't Made For These Times
Pet Sounds
Caroline, No
'Trombone Dixie'
Good Vibrations

You were saying ?

Brian, as an artist, never really grew up

In your opinion.

The music underneath the lyrics "grew" leaps and bounds… LSD was not the problem. It was the amount of drugs he was taking, mostly amphetamines, that altered his behavior.

[bgas]

The music underneath the lyrics "grew" leaps and bounds… LSD was not the problem. It was the amount of drugs he was taking, mostly amphetamines, that altered his behavior.

In your opinion

[bgas]

There's plenty of 60s songwriters that have come out and said in later years that one of their works, that had been interpreted by their peers as concerning drugs, was about something utterly banal.

Yes; like Lucy In the Sky was an LSD song...

[18thofMay]

Pp

The music underneath the lyrics "grew" leaps and bounds… LSD was not the problem. It was the amount of drugs he was taking, mostly amphetamines, that altered his behavior.

In your opinion

And Brians,his wifes,his peers,his closest mates....

[Andrew G. Doe]

[brain fart]

[bgas]

Pp

The music underneath the lyrics "grew" leaps and bounds… LSD was not the problem. It was the amount of drugs he was taking, mostly amphetamines, that altered his behavior.

In your opinion

And Brians,his wifes,his peers,his closest mates....

Yes, sure, all to obscure the presence of his mental problems which we he was , most likely, born with( IMO)
AND we're not going to credit/blame the LSD , but we're going to blame other drugs(mostly amphetamines)? 

[OBLiO]

Hi Andrew,

I was thinking of Boston, yes. And here is an interesting quote from Thomas Jefferson
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants"
patriots and tyrants or heroes and villians.  

Absolutely, correct. My bad. I should have said "which "leads to" Autumn.... if you chart the stars by creating tables you
know when to plant and when to harvest. I can't say specifically Vega will tell you it is time to harvest, I am not a farmer
or an astrologer. But, I noticed on the back of the original SMiLE cover (was this ever verified?), the 12 zodiac signs and
I believe I came across something that stated there were to be 12 songs on the album. It crossed my mind that there
may have been an idea to follow the stars, so to speak in the track listing... just an idea... but to look at the star Vega
and when it appears... plus the original lyrics use the word cornucopia... I interpreted the song, or maybe only the title,
as having to do with Harvest time... pick your vegetables eat your vegetables and stock up for the winter. (And then
he turns into woody woodpecker and  creates abstract art by steam rolling the bully   )

What is the visual pun in the artwork? I think Van Dyke used Vega-Tables as the title because it is a pun and fun with words.
But the title on Smiley Smile is vegetables. So, in the end there is no reference to star tables. Again it may have just been
fun and pun time. But I like to interpret it as harvest, eat, and stock up on your vegetables if I want to make it through
the winter. In Frank Holmes drawing, he uses the word "Vega". written on a table. the table is placed in five positions
along a crack (looks to be dark blue/purplish night sky) between the room and the garden/field. The room has a window and
you can see the sky.  Again, this is only MY interpretation.

Thanks.

I need to figure out how to use the quote thing... ha

[bgas]

I need to figure out how to use the quote thing... ha

You look in the upper right corner; see that box that has "Quote" in it?
You put the tip of your pointer on that and click it!  ( don't ticket)

[Dunderhead]

Hey man! That's just like, your opinion, man!!!

[18thofMay]

The music underneath the lyrics "grew" leaps and bounds… LSD was not the problem. It was the amount of drugs he was taking, mostly amphetamines, that altered his behavior.

In your opinion

Be-ha-vi-our....Uppers,speed etc Alter what you do and when you do it!

[Bill Tobelman]

"You know, any sane magician would never reveal his method of deception. And I don't think that a sensible musician would either."
-Van Dyke Parks

[OBLiO]

Oblio said:

The only thing I can say about the use of LSD is that it is not needed to achieve
enlightenment, but it was sold that way when it was new and did influence many top artists at that time.

Right you are. It was sold as a shortcut to enlightenment. Likely many were fooled by thinking their experience was something more than what it was. Others used it as a starting point down their life/path.

There is another thing about the Elements section: in eastern philosophies there are more than four elements.
Wood and Metal, i.e.  In India, "ether" is considered an element.
Zen Gardens use rock formations: earth water fire air sky in an ascending order.

This is also true, the basic elements differ depending on where you are and what you're into.

Similarly, SMILE largely depends upon Brian's surroundings and his influences. This is why I goofed when I started my webpage. I was too Zen oriented and not enough Brian Wilson oriented.

And thanks for your kind words. Let's both take the side of truth.

Hi Bill,

Yeah I think there is truth in all interpretations. Your perspective is another window and introduced me to ideas I hadn't thought of.
Sometimes intentions are subconciously connected without even trying and I believe Zen was one of many influences at that time.
So it could have been a mistake to Brian or Van Dyke looking back on it, but unavoidable due to what they were into at the time.
It is a snapshot in time. They were throwing in everything, including the kitchen sink.

[OBLiO]

"You know, any sane magician would never reveal his method of deception. And I don't think that a sensible musician would either."
-Van Dyke Parks

oh and then there is this... nice...

[OBLiO]

According to the tireless Mott, C., Brian moved to Bellagio in April 1967, as I recall: if I'm wrong, he'll correct me.

Yep, signed a contract for the house in late March and the press reported they were already moving in early April.

Thanks. Was curious about this and it does "seem" to coincide with the shelving(postponing) of the record.

[Andrew G. Doe]

What is the visual pun in the artwork? I think Van Dyke used Vega-Tables as the title because it is a pun and fun with words.
But the title on Smiley Smile is vegetables. So, in the end there is no reference to star tables. Again it may have just been
fun and pun time. But I like to interpret it as harvest, eat, and stock up on your vegetables if I want to make it through
the winter. In Frank Holmes drawing, he uses the word "Vega". written on a table. the table is placed in five positions
along a crack (looks to be dark blue/purplish night sky) between the room and the garden/field. The room has a window and
you can see the sky.  Again, this is only MY interpretation.

You just answered your own question.  

Speaking of Frank's illustrations in the booklet, I can't believe no-one's commented - unless I missed it, which is always likely - on the 'quoting' of one sketch in another, thus:

sun/cloud/wave from "Vega-tables" in "Surf's Up"

sun/cloud from both in "diamond necklace play the pawn"

two-step/lit circle/lamp on wooden floor from "SU" in "necklace"

wooden floor from "SU" in "H&V" (as store front), "Worms" and "lost and found"

lamp from "Su" & "necklace" in "Lost and found..."

railway from"H&V" in  "Home on the Range"

raining clouds from "necklace" in "Worms"

smile shop from cover in "necklace"

cabin from "lost & found" in "Home on the range" (duh !)

similar visual puns on "Vega-tables" and "H&V" ("all a" on a board)

framed smile from cover in "Vega-tables"

and the dominoes in "lost & found", of course.

[hypehat]

"You know, any sane magician would never reveal his method of deception. And I don't think that a sensible musician would either."
-Van Dyke Parks

I see that quote and raise you....

At home, as the black acetate dub turned on his bedroom hi-fi set, Wilson tried to explain the words. "It's a man at a concert," he said. "All around him there's the audience, playing their roles, dressed up in fancy clothes, looking through opera glasses, but so far away from the drama, from life 'Back through the opera glass you see the pit and the pendulum drawn.'" "The music begins to take over. 'Columnated ruins domino.' Empires, ideas, lives, institutions everything has to fall, tumbling like dominoes. "He begins to awaken to the music; sees the pretentiousness of everything. 'The music hall a costly bow.' Then even the music is gone, turned into a trumpeter swan, into what the music really is. "'Canvas the town and brush the backdrop.' He's off in his vision, on a trip. Reality is gone; he's creating it like a dream. 'Dove-nested towers.' Europe, a long time ago. 'The laughs come hard in Auld Lang Syne.' The poor people in the cellar taverns, trying to make themselves happy by singing. "Then there's the parties, the 'drinking, trying to forget the wars, the battles at sea. "While at port a do or die.' Ships in the harbor, battling it out. A kind of Roman empire thing. "'A choke of grief.' At his own sorrow and the emptiness of his life, because he can't even cry for the suffering in the world, for his own suffering. "And then, hope. 'Surf's up! . . . Come about hard and join the once and often spring you gave.' Go back to the kids, to the beach, to childhood. "'I heard the word' of God; 'Wonderful thing' the joy of enlightenment, of seeing God. And what is it? 'A children's song!' And then there's the song itself; the song of children; the song of the universe rising and falling in wave after wave, the song of God, hiding the love from us, but always letting us find it again, like a mother singing to her children." The record was over.

Obviously not a 'sensible' musician.

Van Dyke Parks has a wonderful sense of rhetoric. That's a very good thing to say. I like that quote, it's snappy, and I can see why you chose it. I can't reconcile it with the fact we know an awful lot about Smile thanks to VDP and Brian talking about it!

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Salt Lake City
Girl Don't Tell Me
California Girls
Let Him Run Wild
Summer Means New Love
The Little Girl I Once Knew
Wouldn't It Be Nice
You Still Believe In Me
That's Not Me
Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)
Let's Go Away For A While
God Only Knows
I Know There's An Answer
Here Today
I Just Wasn't Made For These Times
Pet Sounds
Caroline, No
'Trombone Dixie'
Good Vibrations

You were saying ?

Scratch Salt Lake City off the list (and the map, too, while you're at it!) and I agree completely

[Sam_BFC]

Salt Lake City is perhaps lyrically immature and artistically more mature?

[Dunderhead]

The difference between Good Vibrations and Heores and Villains says it all. Somewhere in between those two releases Brian peaked. I don't think Brian ever fully ripened as an artist.

I'm not sure what Andrew's point is, are those good songs? Yes. Are they fully mature relative to Brian's total output? No. Good Vibrations was a major turn and represented the most radical expression of his vision yet. It's the first full blossoming of everything Brian Wilson could be. In some ways Brian had the most freedom of any artist in the studio era, the amount of control he had was pretty astonishing.

If the question is, do you think Salt Lake City is less ambitious and innovative than Cabinessence or Surf's Up, I'd say emphatically yes.

[bgas]

The music underneath the lyrics "grew" leaps and bounds… LSD was not the problem. It was the amount of drugs he was taking, mostly amphetamines, that altered his behavior.

In your opinion

Be-ha-vi-our....Uppers,speed etc Alter what you do and when you do it!

L  S  D and Men-tal He-alth... alter what you see, what you do, when you can do it,why you do it, how you can do it, they're with you forever, and they come sneaking up on you when you least expect them

[Runaways]

Scratch Salt Lake City off the list (and the map, too, while you're at it!) and I agree completely

er...you got something against mormons?