missed the boat?

[Chocolate Shake Man]

I guess he just wasn't made for these times. That's why he shelved Smile. It was ahead of its time.

You forsee a time in the future when people don't like dancing anymore? Has the town from Footloose taken over the world?

[filledeplage]

"H&V" could certainly move in a live context, but I find the chorus of the single to be too baroque. And just so you know, this whole line about being able to dance to a single is an argument against "H&V" put forth by the inestimable Bruce "Short Shorts" Johnston.  The question was: do you want to be a leader, a legend- or dare I say it? - a revolutionary? Or Mr. 5,000th dance song?

One of the top songs of '67 was "To Sir With Love". Not too many are waxin' rhapsodic about it these days.

Murry Murry Murry - check out YouTube Heroes and Villains, "ripperdingo"  and see if the back-in-the-dayers knew how to boogie! 
And the retro shorts were real shorts.  They wear culottes now! (basketball shorts)

[SMiLE Brian]

I guess he just wasn't made for these times. That's why he shelved Smile. It was ahead of its time.

 Has the town from Footloose taken over the world?

[I. Spaceman]

One of the top songs of '67 was "To Sir With Love". Not too many are waxin' rhapsodic about it these days.

That is an incredible, moving song.

[EgoHanger1966]

One of the top songs of '67 was "To Sir With Love". Not too many are waxin' rhapsodic about it these days.

That is an incredible, moving song.

Plus, it ties in with an incredible, moving film. People still wax poetic about that these days.

B-side is really good, too (I prefer it) - "The Boat That I Row"

[I. Spaceman]

Right on, I love that song too.

[Iron Horse-Apples]

I'd love to live in that footloose town.
If I was in charge I would take it several stages further and have people sent to interment camps for listening to the wrong sort of music.
You tap your foot, you lose that foot.
People who created dance music would be executed.
In my mind I am the charismatic leader of the National Tonalist Party
It would be great.



****And as I lay in bed this morning, with both sides of my brain working, last nights post turned into a groovy poem********

[Mr. Cohen]

Hey, you buncha Mike Loves! I'm only saying that it's ridiculous to stymie or criticize someone's artistic output because you can't dance to it.  It's a dumb criteria, whether or not it was the prevailing pop trend or not.

[I. Spaceman]

Hey, you buncha Mike Loves! 

What the f*** does that even mean? Get outta the muso basement and have some fun.

[bgas]

One of the top songs of '67 was "To Sir With Love". Not too many are waxin' rhapsodic about it these days.

That is an incredible, moving song.

Plus, it ties in with an incredible, moving film. People still wax poetic about that these days.

B-side is really good, too (I prefer it) - "The Boat That I Row"

Got to check out "the Boat That I row" then; I LUV Lulu and To Sir!!

[leggo of my ego]

One of the top songs of '67 was "To Sir With Love". Not too many are waxin' rhapsodic about it these days.

That is an incredible, moving song.

That is an incredible, moving song to slow dance to. 

[leggo of my ego]

I had a crush on Lulu when I was eight. 

[Mr. Cohen]

What the f*** does that even mean? Get outta the muso basement and have some fun.

Have some fun? Sonny, I once performed cunnilingus to 7 girls at the same time during the chorus of "Cabinessence". That's fun. Who rode the iron horse?, indeed. You just don't like me calling out the intellectual shallowness of your quote unquote "position".

[Mikie]

Sonny, I once performed cunnilingus to 7 girls at the same time during the chorus of "Cabinessence".

Wow, that's really something! Your tongue musta been real sore after that.

[I. Spaceman]

What the f*** does that even mean? Get outta the muso basement and have some fun.

Have some fun? Sonny, I once performed cunnilingus to 7 girls at the same time during the chorus of "Cabinessence". That's fun. Who rode the iron horse?, indeed. You just don't like me calling out the intellectual shallowness of your quote unquote "position".

I'l call your teeth outta your head. Get on the dancefloor, or take your dead ass home, whitey.

[Iron Horse-Apples]

Foot-lose Town

I'd love to live in Foot-lose town

And if I could I'd choose it

A place where dancing's not allowed

You tap your foot, you lose it

Come take a tour round Foot-lose town

Where armed gaurds march the streets

With orders they can shoot on sight

If you're caught "making beats"

And if I ruled in Foot-lose town

The power I'd abuse it

I'd soon build concentration camps

For folk who like dance music

And as for all those dance DJ's

For them I'd keep it real

They'd soon be cut and scratched to death

'Twixt two huge wheels of steel

And then there are those indie-kids

I'd give them what they like

"It's Noel and Liam Gallagher!!"

Their heads uopn a spike

And they'd be seen for miles around

Atop the city wall

You mustn't rock in Foot-lose town

A warning to you all

And as their glorious leader

Folk would hail me loud and hearty

'Cos we're all National Tonalists

(For short the Nati Party)

So come and live in Foot-lose town

I'd love to be your saviour

Where all the kids are getting down

To Bach's "Well Tempered Clavier"

If that last rhyme scheme didn't work

You must be from the States

Oh look that brings me neatly to

One more of my pet hates

If you say route to rhyme with flute

You'll get my point ex-ect-ly

It means you live in En-ger-land

Where we all speak correctly

And so here ends my poem

I hope you get my point

I'm living in a world I hate

I long to blow this joint

[Mr. Cohen]

See, I just don't get where you guys are getting all this from. What, because I said Smile is as valid as dance music? Because I pointed out - correctly - that dance music often has less intellectual merit from a purely musical perspective? Of course, intellectual merit isn't always that important. I think variety on the airwaves is good. Or do you disagree?

[I. Spaceman]

Music has no intellectual merit, in and of itself (and even if it did, the concept is nauseating in a rock context, even a loose one). Lyrics sometimes have intellectual merit, of course. And if you think folks don't dance to records with intellectual lyrics, you haven't seen The Byrds perform The Bells Of Rhymney on Where The Action Is.

[Iron Horse-Apples]

See, I just don't get where you guys are getting all this from. What, because I said Smile is as valid as dance music? Because I pointed out - correctly - that dance music often has less intellectual merit from a purely musical perspective? Of course, intellectual merit isn't always that important. I think variety on the airwaves is good. Or do you disagree?

Don't quite see how you think I'm disagreeing. When it comes to music I'm so right wing I'm hanging off the edge by one fingernail. Respectfully of course.

[Iron Horse-Apples]

Music has no intellectual merit, in and of itself (and even if it did, the concept is nauseating in a rock context, even a loose one). Lyrics sometimes have intellectual merit, of course. And if you think folks don't dance to records with intellectual lyrics, you haven't seen The Byrds perform The Bells Of Rhymney on Where The Action Is.

Depends how you listen. I honestly never tap my foot, so I listen to everything on a purely intellectual level. My pleasure (and it's great pleasure( is derived from analysing music. I do respond emotionally, but only in the way a mathematician will cry over a beautiful equation. The moment you start listening with your body, you lose that.
Listen to Art Of Fugue and tell me music has no intellectual merit in and of itself. It's based on the arrangement of patterns. If you think composers sit there in a state of bliss as they work, really feeling it, then your way off. 99% of it is number crunching. So for the composer, it's an intellectual exercise. I agree with you on quite a bit Ian, but not this.

[Please delete my account]

Looks like you're arguing about three different things:

1. Must good music be danceable  (no)
2. Must a big hit song be danceable (probably yes)
3. Would there have been any songs you can dance to on "Smile"? (yes: H&V, worms, vega-tables, Love to say dada, and don't forget Good Vibrations)

[NHC]

I'm guessing there's something called "dance music" as a genre.  I'm too old to know that for sure. I was simply thinking of songs you can dance to like we did in the 60's. It has nothing to do with music intellectualism or musical depth or artistic merit or anything. 

[monicker]

If you wanted the other side of that coin, you could go to where the intellectuals were checking out free-form jazz and remnants of the beat clubs, and those other jazz and or folk clubs where signs were posted telling the patrons dancing wasn't allowed.

You're about two decades late there. That was in Bebop clubs in the '40s, a reaction to Big Band/the emergence of Swing.

Not saying Brian was or wasn't somehow affected by some restriction of popular music, but notice that for his big planned Smile single he lifted a driving Phil Spector beat and rocking groove that would, in fact, get people up and moving for at least a decent portion of the record, that is if Heroes had been released in early '67 as scheduled. At some point, just like on Pet Sounds and other BB's releases, you could have music to move with and music to listen to and contemplate existing on the same album.

I didn't realize being born after the fact by a few years just how much of a dancing song "Heroes" really is or was until I saw the crowd in New York grooving and moving like mad to the driving beat of the song when the American Band doc had that live clip of them playing it outdoors, and the crowd is moving, clapping, and bopping along like crazy. Before that I think I assumed it was one of Brian's listening trips rather than a groove-along crowd pleaser...it was both.

I would argue that Heroes is the antithesis of a dance record, it's a train wreck in that regard--all the sudden stops and starts, the jarring edits, the different (slow) sections that bring the music to various halts--because it toys with the listener/dancer. Rather than being an obvious, flat-out undanceable song, it's ostensibly danceable, the opening verse masquerades as a dance record, but then it goes all over the place at breakneck speed, so it's misleading, which fucks with people. It's a frustrating thing when all you want is for the record to just play so that you can dance, but the damn thing keeps stopping and starting and it's got these long stretches of head-scratching music. It's a tease, almost as if the dance crowd is being mocked or taunted. On the other hand, if you knew a song was just a non-dance song, some real "arty" thing with no beat, etc., then you could just sit that one out altogether, instead of frustratingly standing there on the dance floor, starting and stopping over and over, maybe looking a bit foolish, trying to figure out when the beat's gonna pick up again. I imagine people would've just thrown their arms up and given up. That gray area in the middle is a dangerous place to be.

[I. Spaceman]

Music has no intellectual merit, in and of itself (and even if it did, the concept is nauseating in a rock context, even a loose one). Lyrics sometimes have intellectual merit, of course. And if you think folks don't dance to records with intellectual lyrics, you haven't seen The Byrds perform The Bells Of Rhymney on Where The Action Is.

Depends how you listen. I honestly never tap my foot, so I listen to everything on a purely intellectual level. My pleasure (and it's great pleasure( is derived from analysing music. I do respond emotionally, but only in the way a mathematician will cry over a beautiful equation. The moment you start listening with your body, you lose that.
Listen to Art Of Fugue and tell me music has no intellectual merit in and of itself. It's based on the arrangement of patterns. If you think composers sit there in a state of bliss as they work, really feeling it, then your way off. 99% of it is number crunching. So for the composer, it's an intellectual exercise. I agree with you on quite a bit Ian, but not this.

When you say "arrangement of patterns" and "number crunching", that strengthens what I am saying. If the art of creating music is a mechanical one that can be learnt by anyone, then why not say that any mechanical exercise, done well, has intellectual merit? It is all based on mental faculty, right? So making a damn great sheet of cookies or being able to stack a thousand beer cans has intellectual merit.
Yeah, there is such a thing as craftsmanship, and that comes into play, of course. And one learns how to play an instrument. But after that, the genesis of a musical idea comes from a purely inspirational place, something the "intellect" cannot exactly pinpoint. The mind and fingers simply must go a certain place, in certain "patterns". This impulse to make music, has a direct correlation with the "magic" impulse and inspiration to let the body move and respond to the music.
And if one can ascribe purely intellectual motivation to the mechanics of music-making, why not ascribe same to someone who is an expert dancer? Why not watch The TAMI Show, check how James Brown knows exactly what his body is capable of doing, at the perfectly timed moment in the music, and proclaim him to be as much of a genius in his own way as George Gershwin. The perfect movement is, to the dancer, as the equation is to the mathematician. Not many modern musicians, aside from maybe Rush, would rather be compared to the latter rather than the former.
You said "listening with your body" as if that was a negative thing, when it is a perfect summation of the original purpose of music, and what music thankfully got back to in the jazz age. Yeah, there are times to sit there and ponder, in intellectual fashion, on the merits of Leonard Cohen, and to write a seriously motivated piece of "art music". But when I throw a party, A Collection Of 16 Original Motown Big Hits Vol. 7 or Endless Summer goes on the turntable and I expect to see movin' and GROOVIN' out there. And when I play a show, I don't want people sitting there soberly, considering my intellectual motivation (until I tell them it is time to do that).

[the captain]

I fall between the two of you on this, I think, because I think there are intellectual and physical or emotional aspects to music, and at different times one or the other is more rewarding. I.'d Like to Teach... (nice new name, btw.), it seems you say as much in your last few sentences--maybe contradicting yourself a little bit there? After having said there is no intellectual merit to music, that there are times to listen or write in that context?

The other thing I'd question is:

the genesis of a musical idea comes from a purely inspirational place

Sometimes I think that's true; others, not. I'm thinking of Lou Reed--an inspired creator if ever there was one--and his often stated position (based on Warhol's insistence) that sometimes you just write. If you're working for Pickwick, or you're churning out 10 songs a day lest Andy call you lazy, I don't think those are all inspired. I think the genesis of some musical ideas is not inspiration, but from craftsmanship and labor. In one or two of the ten, halfway through its creation, some seed of inspiration may sprout and produce something better, but that isn't the same as having had its genesis in inspiration, is it?

As I'm typing this, I'm listening to Wilson Pickett's The Exciting... ... on a wholly intellectual level, of course.