Ah, Heroes and Villains. The track that began my SMiLE obsession. 1995, having seen the Don Was film and wanting to know more, I was just finding out what all this Beach Boys stuff was all about. I was particularly taken by the partial rendition of God Only Knows sung by Brian and Carl at the piano that you see in the film, and the version of 'Til I Die' that was also on the subsequent album. So I took the usual route I do when I want to know more about an artist. I buy a Greatest Hits. In fact, I got myself a copy of the Greatest Hits double CD that came out that year in the UK (the one that was the first to release the single edit of the LA Light album single version of 'Here Comes The Night' on CD, though of course I didn't know that then).
Within a couple of plays, I realise that though the 'early years' cars and surf stuff leaves me cold (and it did - it took me a couple of years to really like anything the Beach Boys did before 1964) there is something really interesting going on towards the end of the first disc and the start of the second. God Only Knows is there; I remember it from the film, and I really like it. There's something called 'Caroline, No', which is great (a different version of that was also in the Was film). Great stuff, I'm realising that I could get quite interested in Brian Wilson's career. Good Vibrations opens Disc 2, and of course I *do* know that one, at least a little bit. But the real magic is the last cut on CD 1. A track called Heroes and Villains. Apparently, I read, it was a single in 1967.
It's the harmonies I notice first - the backing harmony pads and the 'doot-doots' in the verse. They grab me straight away. I'm thrown by the dischordant transition to the chorus, and further disorientated by the way everything is mixed out at the end of that section, leaving just that creepy organ for a couple of seconds. But GOOD disorientated. I like it. I love it even more when the track explodes back into life for the 'Stand or fall' verse. I'm just wondering what else this track can do to surprise me, when the chorus goes through that dischordant transition again. "What's next?" I wonder briefly, loving the ride.
And the next section is the one that seals the deal. It takes my fast-growing interest in this band and raises it to the next level. The lyrics are terrific; a series of tumbling syllables that seem to trip over each other as they rush out of the lead singer's mouth, but make perfect, if oddball, sense. They're like poetry - by the line 'healthy, wealthy and wise' I'm totally sold. And the gymnastic backing harmonies are making my heart sing as all of this happens and they rise up the scale. "Wow, that was beautiful," I think; "if only I could hear that again." And as if they weren't great enough the first time round, I DO get to hear them again, this time without the lead vocal partly masking them. And then there's a lovely rallentando to a harmony spread, and just when it somehow most needs to happen, a dead stop.
People talk about that amazing pause in Good Vibrations, the one that follows the organ bridge, just before the big harmony 'aaaahhhhh!' that brings us back to the chorus, and yeah, sure, I do really love that moment, too. But the dead stop in the single version of Heroes and Villains pips that for me. I'd swear, the first time I heard that pause, it seemed to go on longer than any subsequent time I heard it. I started to get up to see if my CD player had a problem. I couldn't believe this incredible single could end there.
AND THEN... it *wasn't* the end. Of course it wasn't. I sat amazed as I listened to a barbershop section even more beautiful than the one I'd just heard wash over me. I caught a line about snuff. I wondered what the hell that was all about. And then we were back to that creepy chorus and the organ and then the track was done.
What did I do next? I played it again, of course. And a third time after that.
Shortly after that, I read that there were other versions of this track out there. And there were even rumoured to be really long versions. I grabbed my wallet and ran down to the record store. I came back with a copy of the Smiley Smile twofer and a new obsession, thanks to David Leaf's liners. So there was supposed to have been a WHOLE ALBUM of stuff like Heroes and Villains? A WHOLE ALBUM?
?
I was away.
So... long answer to a short question. To this day, the bits of H&V I can't live without are the fade back to the organ at the end of the first chorus (yes, that organ! I know some people hate the Baldwin, but I love, love love it), the 'my children were raised' section from the single, and the 'sunny down snuff' part. They are what really raised the Beach Boys music up for me, and made me want to know more.
To this day, I don't rate the 'Cantina version' of H&V as highly as the later 45 version. I know that's at variance with what a lot of people think, but what the hey; I reckon Brian made the right call in scrapping it and continuing to record. I quite like the actual Cantina section itself, and I'm glad it made the 2004 version. But the performance of the 'my children were raised' part in the earlier February 67 mix is not as beguiling or interesting to me (it lacks those wonderful backing harmonies), and I really miss 'sunny down snuff'. Yeah, the tape feedback explosion and the False Barnyard fade are neat (and I *do* wish they had somehow made the 2004 cut)... but they don't sock it to me like those harmonies near the end of the 45 version. Even now, those parts make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. There's something simply incredible going on there.
I've always said the SMiLE music has something quite different about it. I'd never heard any of the Beach Boys singles from the late 60s, and so I had no preconceptions when first listening to that double Greatest Hits CD. I didn't know who wrote what or when, who (or what???) Van Dyke Parks was, or anything. Apart from Good Vibrations, I didn't know what had been a worldwide smash, and what was a miserable failure. I just listened, and simply liked, or didn't like. And I *really* liked Heroes and Villains - it was like nothing else I'd ever heard. And then, on Disc 2, after Good Vibrations, there were a few tracks that washed over me, something called Friends that I thought was quite nice and that I might play again later, some more bland-sounding bleh (as I thought of Bluebirds Over The Mountain and I Can Hear Music - still two tracks I haven't come round to loving)... and then suddenly, something called 'Surf's Up'. There! That track had that different quality about it again. It wasn't just the lyrics, although I did like them, straight away. And it wasn't harmonies, like in H&V - there were precious few of those until the tag. But that track made me sit up, again, straight away, and want to know more about Brian Wilson's songs. At that stage, I had *no idea* what songs had been planned for SMiLE. But Surf's Up stood out in some way, like Heroes and Villains did, and well... frankly, like Bluebirds Over The Mountain *didn't*.
So, H&V. Bloody brilliant production, and an amazing song. As long as it features 'sunny down snuff', the rallentando version of 'My Children Were Raised', and yes, dammit — THAT organ. Next on my list are 'Western Theme', 'Soul Made Beautiful', 'Bridge To Indians' and the 'clangy' chorus backing track you get near the start of the box set 'H&V Sections' track, the one without any vocals and the cellos sawing their way up the scale. That part is the one I always associate with that Van Dyke Parks quote about how Brian used to 'saturate the tape with music'. Oh, I could go on and on about what I love about H&V — but I think I've said enough for one night.
MattB
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