Were the sections of The Elements ever enumerated?

[18thofMay]

Um.........
Right..

Dude, you couldn't even make ONE post that wasn't like this. All your stuff about being respectful is smoke, you're just a troll and that should be clear to everyone now.

Troll.....Yeah sure champ no worries! I was posting from my phone and a significant portion failed to appear! What I said was that you provided a really long post from a one sentence quote. And it was impressive... Nevertheless

[OBLiO]

Found an interesting history page on the Chicago Fire. http://www.thechicagofire.com/index.php
Did the cow do it?

Another thing I remembered today was the Stone Soup story...
The stone is put into a pot of water and cooked on an open fire. Passersby add ingredients, or additional elements, and the tasty aroma fills the air.
A story of cooperation... working together. 

[OBLiO]

apologies in advance, you've probably answered this elsewhere, but which fragment do you feel best represents earth? swedish frog? was it a pythagorean trip and the earth element was to represent the sphere in its placement in the frequency spectrum of the heavens?

according to fludd's universal music terra is Γ, or low G. is swedish frog grunting in a low G? maybe you would need to speed it up to determine. what other chants did he compose in G?

i like this as a model for the proper smile element suite: http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/sta19.htm

earth, water, air, fire...or maybe the other way around

sorry im still pretty new to smile. the elements are really fascinating! i appreciate all the knowledge you guys provide.

Hurrah!!! I've been dying for someone to get into this side of SMiLE, i'm a bit weak on this but really really interested in it!!

Anymore info on this and SMiLE?? please say yes!!

Music of the Spheres. I thought about that, as well. The idea that the song keys were important and the track list would create a chromatic road map.
From the link provided... "These sounds of the seven planets, and the sphere of the fixed stars, together with that above us [Antichthon], are the nine Muses, and their joint symphony is called Mnemosyne.'" (See The Canon.)This quotation contains an obscure reference to the ninefold division of the universe previously mentioned." Reminds me of string theory or M-theory... vibrating strings.

[desmondo]

The accuracy and dependability of a single quote from Brian can be debated all day long, but it remains a direct quote from Brian himself.

I suppose if we had never heard the Fire element and he described it as a string and timpani piece, we would be as equally incredulous. In my mind when he says a piano piece, I just imagine some tinkering on a piano, which of course couldn't possibly represent Air. I still find it somewhat improbably, but who knows?

Air - Piano piece?? - could be anything from a multiple piano thing to a rough demo type thing a la Don't Talk - don't all of Brian's songs start life as a piano piece

[desmondo]

Why are we over complicating this

MOC - obviously is Fire
VT - obviously Earth - the song title and the booklet
WC - very likely Air despite what Brian says - the title says it all - plus all those pianos

Water - well probably DaDA - see BWPS for the answer

[Andrew G. Doe]

VT - obviously Earth - the song title and the booklet

Except that it's listed as a separate song by mid-December.

[desmondo]

VT - obviously Earth - the song title and the booklet

Except that it's listed as a separate song by mid-December.

Yes but the name, the cartoon, BWPS all outweigh a tracklisting that was still awaiting final final sign off (sequence, artwork proofs etc). Also a tracklisting can be presented in any way you choose - I know its one of the great mysteries but I can be a dickwad for 10 minutes too

[Andrew G. Doe]

VT - obviously Earth - the song title and the booklet

Except that it's listed as a separate song by mid-December.

Yes but the name, the cartoon, BWPS all outweigh a tracklisting that was still awaiting final final sign off (sequence, artwork proofs etc). Also a tracklisting can be presented in any way you choose - I know its one of the great mysteries but I can be a dickwad for 10 minutes too

Um. As evidence of how "The Elements" was going to sound in 1966/67, I'd call a 2004 BWPS sequence pretty shaky. 

[desmondo]

VT - obviously Earth - the song title and the booklet

Except that it's listed as a separate song by mid-December.

Yes but the name, the cartoon, BWPS all outweigh a tracklisting that was still awaiting final final sign off (sequence, artwork proofs etc). Also a tracklisting can be presented in any way you choose - I know its one of the great mysteries but I can be a dickwad for 10 minutes too

Um. As evidence of how "The Elements" was going to sound in 1966/67, I'd call a 2004 BWPS sequence pretty shaky. 

We shall see

[Andrew G. Doe]

VT - obviously Earth - the song title and the booklet

Except that it's listed as a separate song by mid-December.

Yes but the name, the cartoon, BWPS all outweigh a tracklisting that was still awaiting final final sign off (sequence, artwork proofs etc). Also a tracklisting can be presented in any way you choose - I know its one of the great mysteries but I can be a dickwad for 10 minutes too

Um. As evidence of how "The Elements" was going to sound in 1966/67, I'd call a 2004 BWPS sequence pretty shaky. 

We shall see

Seeing as BWPS is being used as a template for the 'reconstruction', no contest.

[desmondo]

VT - obviously Earth - the song title and the booklet

Except that it's listed as a separate song by mid-December.

Yes but the name, the cartoon, BWPS all outweigh a tracklisting that was still awaiting final final sign off (sequence, artwork proofs etc). Also a tracklisting can be presented in any way you choose - I know its one of the great mysteries but I can be a dickwad for 10 minutes too

Um. As evidence of how "The Elements" was going to sound in 1966/67, I'd call a 2004 BWPS sequence pretty shaky. 

We shall see

Seeing as BWPS is being used as a template for the 'reconstruction', no contest.

ahh that word 'template' -such agood one

[Dunderhead]

You run into the same problem with vegetables though as you do with Fall Breaks. Vegetables aren't really earth are they? They're plants that grow out of earth. Vegetables aren't elemental. Earth is dirt, not anything that grows out of dirt. Vegetables contain water don't they? They're just not elemental...

"well he was just using vegetables as a metaphor for dirt", well I still believe that he was doing that with vegetables=drugs. Drug song, not element song.

[Andrew G. Doe]

You run into the same problem with vegetables though as you do with Fall Breaks. Vegetables aren't really earth are they? They're plants that grow out of earth. Vegetables aren't elemental. Earth is dirt, not anything that grows out of dirt. Vegetables contain water don't they? They're just not elemental...

"well he was just using vegetables as a metaphor for dirt", well I still believe that he was doing that with vegetables=drugs. Drug song, not element song.

Or as I believe, "Vega-Tables" = vegetables. Health food song, not element - or drug - song.

[A Million Units In Jan!]

I think that Brian probably, very early on, had an idea for all the elements-for example, Vega-Tables was earth-and then around the end of November decided that Elements was only gonna be Fire and Water. Just a hunch.

[Roger Ryan]

I hesitate to bring this up again, but we don't really know that "Water Chant" was a water chant, right?

We know that the Beach Boys decided to use it as part of "Cool, Cool Water" and may have done so, in part, because the "wa-doo" vocals sound an awful lot like "water". But do we believe the chant sounds like water flowing because we're conditioned by "Cool, Cool Water" to hear it that way?

Was this segment actually labeled "Water Chant" in '66/'67?

[Matt Bielewicz]

No, not for sure, Roger... but something very *like* the Water Chant was described in the article 'Smile, Brian, and pull them strings', reprinted in LLVS, where it was described how Brian was directing the creation of an evocation of  'underwater life'. That's close enough for me, although I grant you that it's not a definitive identification. And it could refer to those 'Fishy Swim' chants, I suppose (which I can't remember if I've ever actually heard or not... one SMiLE-era chant starts to sound very like another after all these years...!).

It's a good point though, and one I made the other day here... just because something was stitched together in a certain way on a later album (like the Water Chant and a track  musically resembling I Love To Say Dada to form 'Cool, Cool Water' on Sunflower), doesn't mean that's how it might have been on SMiLE if it had been finished in 1966-7. It also doesn't necessarily mean that particular SMiLE-era chant is a 'Water Chant', just because it was in a track with 'Water' in the title three years later. Or, indeed, that 'I Love To Say Dada' was 'the Water section of The Elements'. If there even WAS one of those...

Question everything...! The only problem with that approach is... you end up with many more questions than answers...!

MattB

[Chris Brown]

No, not for sure, Roger... but something very *like* the Water Chant was described in the article 'Smile, Brian, and pull them strings', reprinted in LLVS, where it was described how Brian was directing the creation of an evocation of  'underwater life'. That's close enough for me, although I grant you that it's not a definitive identification. And it could refer to those 'Fishy Swim' chants, I suppose (which I can't remember if I've ever actually heard or not... one SMiLE-era chant starts to sound very like another after all these years...!).

I'm pretty sure the article is describing the "Fishy Swim" chant - if I'm not mistaken, it goes on to quote Brian saying that he'll try something similar with the Beach Boys when they're back in town.  He wouldn't say that if he was talking about Water Chant, which was already recorded with the Beach Boys, whereas "Fishy Swim" wasn't - then again, maybe he recorded a demo with the Vosse posse that he later re-did with the Boys, and that's what he's describing.

[hypehat]

The two are too similar, imo.

[Chris Brown]

The two are too similar, imo.

I don't know, they've never sounded very similar to my ears - one contains singing (albiet very odd non-traditional singing) and a lot of echo and the other is all spoken word with no studio effects to speak of.

[OBLiO]

I was thinking today about the elements as a soup recipe, but then the recording session described in Goodbye Surfin' has Brian saying that Fire will scare people. Fire references The Chicago Fire... what if Earth was to be The San Francisco Earthquake? Water might have been a flood and Air could have been... not sure, maybe a Hurricane or something. Fire didn't become negative until actual fires broke out and that's when the direction would change. So it is very possible the original idea was to have these elements exhibit an actual historical disaster. Nature's reminders. Ever see George Carlin's take on how Mother Nature deals with us stupid humans? All that changed and now we have the elements relating to spiritual matters... Fire is probably the only recording made of the original concept, but it still works on a different level. Mrs. O'Leary really doesn't know how the fire started, but was told someone went into the barn to milk her cows. It could be the cow never actually started the fire, but history has Mrs. O'Leary carrying that weight. The cow ends up as a metaphor for that burden... lay before me holy cow... lay my burden down.

[Matt Bielewicz]

I'm pretty sure the article is describing the "Fishy Swim" chant - if I'm not mistaken, it goes on to quote Brian saying that he'll try something similar with the Beach Boys when they're back in town.  He wouldn't say that if he was talking about Water Chant, which was already recorded with the Beach Boys, whereas "Fishy Swim" wasn't - then again, maybe he recorded a demo with the Vosse posse that he later re-did with the Boys, and that's what he's describing.

That's exactly what I assumed Brian meant, Chris - in other words, that he'd sort of 'demoed' something he liked the idea of with the Vosse Posse, and he was going to record it 'properly' for the album with the voices of the other Beach Boys when they returned from tour. And then THAT 'proper re-record' ends up being what we know as Water Chant.

You say:

He wouldn't say that if he was talking about Water Chant, which was already recorded with the Beach Boys...

IS there a definite date for the recording of the Water Chant with the Boys? And if so, when was it? Sorry, didn't know that.

The 'Smile, Brian, and pull them strings' article has to have been written in late 1966 from the sessions it describes which *can* be tied to specific dates. And for some reason I had it in mind that the Water Chant was undated or was thought to have been a 1967 recording. Really not sure though...!

MattB

[Chris Moise]

Yes but the name, the cartoon, BWPS all outweigh a tracklisting that was still awaiting final final sign off (sequence, artwork proofs etc)..

The track list Brian Wilson sent to Capitol was awaiting Brian Wilson's final sign off?  The way you wrote it makes it sound like someone just put together a track list and they were waiting for Brian to veto or approve it. As the producer of the album Brian was the source of the list. Of course, as producer he was the one person that could change his mind, make revisions, etc.

I don't understand why the '66 handwritten list isn't given more weight. It came from Brian and it's the only 1966/67 track list known to exist. Obviously there is still much unknown/unfinished but that list is by far the best we have.

[Andrew G. Doe]

I don't understand why the '66 handwritten list isn't given more weight. It came from Brian and it's the only 1966/67 track list known to exist. Obviously there is still much unknown/unfinished but that list is by far the best we have.

It's not given the weight it once was because...

1 - it's not Brian's handwriting (looks to be Carl's or Diane's, I forget which)...

2 - when Peter Reum showed it to him in the early 80s (granted, not the best period of his life), he said he'd never seen it before.

The feeling is that Capitol were screaming for something to put on the back cover and someone (not BW) hastily scrawled down the titles that they knew about.

[hypehat]

The two are too similar, imo.

I don't know, they've never sounded very similar to my ears - one contains singing (albiet very odd non-traditional singing) and a lot of echo and the other is all spoken word with no studio effects to speak of.

That's more to do with the idea. Fishy Swim is a casual recording with people who can't sing and are quite stoned. And there is some echo on some of the them, iirc. But it's still evoking water, in my eyes (or ears). They still drone, with repetition (mumma-mumma-now vs. down on the ocean, down on the ocean floor) and the same 'vibe', i suppose.

[Bicyclerider]

I don't understand why the '66 handwritten list isn't given more weight. It came from Brian and it's the only 1966/67 track list known to exist. Obviously there is still much unknown/unfinished but that list is by far the best we have.

It's not given the weight it once was because...

1 - it's not Brian's handwriting (looks to be Carl's or Diane's, I forget which)...

2 - when Peter Reum showed it to him in the early 80s (granted, not the best period of his life), he said he'd never seen it before.

The feeling is that Capitol were screaming for something to put on the back cover and someone (not BW) hastily scrawled down the titles that they knew about.

1 - whether Diane (it's Diane according to the Blueboard, isn't it?) - Brian's assistant and musical contractor for the Smile sessions - or Carl, it still came from Brian - whether a hasty list or not.  And he knew it would be used as the track list for the back cover, that was the purpose of submitting the list.

2 - is this really surprizing? While Brian's memory can be remarkable at times, there are definite holes and many of his statements can't be taken as fact.  As you point out, particularly in the early 80's cocaine days.