Carry Me Home

[Peadar 'Big Dinner' O'Driscoll]

So Ive been listening to as many versions of "Ive got a friend" as possible to try and work out the lyrics and here is what Ive got. Feel free to chip in with any corrections.

Sometimes you feel, you're alone
but im not alone
Ive got a friend

sometimes i wonder whats its all about
then you come along
I've got a friend

my friend, my friend, my friend, my friend

sometimes, im lost and cant find my way
then you come to stay
I know a friend

when i walk, i feel the wind
upon my face
then i know, i know a friend

my friend, my friend, my friend, my friend

Ive got a friend
makes you giggle if your feeling down
just like the wind blows
that's how our friendship goes

reach out, you can touch my life, you can touch my soul

you make me feel warm
when i know its really cold
you took me by surprise
you really opened up my eyes

i know, now i see, yes i know

you've got a friend
Ive got a friend
we've got a friend

[Mikie]

Looks good, Wood.  Close enough for government work.....

[Disney Boy (1985)]

Jon Stebbins said, quite rightly, that 'if River Song had had a Brian Wilson writing credit people's teeth would've fallen out in amazement'.

Same applies with Carry Me Home. It is an exceptional song, and to me it is mind-bogglingly ridiculous that a song of this emotional power and sheer quality could be left to gather dust in the vaults. No other band would ever leave a song of such obvious brilliance unreleased - the politics of this band are seriously infuriating - and i think it'd be a travesty if this song were once again passed up for official release. So it's a downer? As Mojo magazine said when discussing the song, and the reasons for it's exclusion from Holland: 'down can mean deep, boys'. It's Dennis' 'Til I Die'.

WIBNTLA and Carry Me Home should both be on the box - let's show Denny some respect.

[Jay]

Good job, Woody! I was just listening to a few recordings of IGAF and trying to figure out the  lyrics  myself.

To be honest, I can understand why Carry Me Home has never been released. It's unfinished, and it shows. The "life, was made to live" section, and up to the end of the song, is oddly disjointed, and almost sounds disconnected from the first half of the song. It's also not one of Dennis's best vocals.

[Disney Boy (1985)]

Good job, Woody! I was just listening to a few recordings of IGAF and trying to figure out the  lyrics  myself.

To be honest, I can understand why Carry Me Home has never been released. It's unfinished, and it shows. The "life, was made to live" section, and up to the end of the song, is oddly disjointed, and almost sounds disconnected from the first half of the song. It's also not one of Dennis's best vocals.

I've never noticed or thought any of the things you've just mentioned re Carry Me Home - completely disagree. It's a heartbreakingly broken vocal from Dennis. And i personally love the way the song stops, starts, and unexpectedly changes from one section to the next. To me, these aren't negatives. And it sure seems pretty complete to me. What's missing exactly, other than decent sound quality?

[Jay]

Don't get me wrong, it is a great song. It could just use a few more takes. It sounds to me like a rehearsal to me. Or a very early take. As I said, the different parts of the song make it seem disjointed. Similar to how a Smile track would have different parts to be edited and assembled.

[Smilin Ed H]

Blondie sings lead.

Anyhow, I agree - one of Dennis' best songs and it would've been on of the BB's best 70s songs. I'd love to hear a cleaned up version  on the box. There has to be some reason for me to buy it. Normally, I'm pretty loyal, but it's got to the point where sme of the recent comps, with some different mixes or maybe one 'new' song have been pretty much ripping off loyal fans. I want this box to be special.

[BergenWhitesMoustache]

It could just use a few more takes.

Nah...it's all there, all good, it's just a very unflattering monitor mix. With the smile stuff, even when it's unmixed, it's pretty easy to tell what they were going for, because there were like, three tracks with multiple instruments on each. What they were basically going for was a live capture of musicians playing in a room. On sessions like these, with more tracks and opportunity for overdubbing, only a finished, final mix would really reveal what the track was meant to sound like. They could have totally dropped the lap steel, added masses of tape delay to the 'oohs', there could be synth parts that are buried in this rough.

I mean, sure, they may have added some bits and pieces before getting to a final version- none of us could know now, but certainly, it'd be possible to make a finished mix *just* with the bits we've heard.

Now, "I'm going your way" sounds unfinished...there clearly would have been more parts added to that- probably along the lines of 'it's about time', and it's an obvious scratch vocal. I bet Dennis's vocal on Carry Me Home was intended to sound like that- super fragile. It's a perfect fit for the song.

[BergenWhitesMoustache]

Blondie sings lead.

It's a co-lead.

[Disney Boy (1985)]

Blondie sings lead.

Anyhow, I agree - one of Dennis' best songs and it would've been on of the BB's best 70s songs. I'd love to hear a cleaned up version  on the box. There has to be some reason for me to buy it. Normally, I'm pretty loyal, but it's got to the point where sme of the recent comps, with some different mixes or maybe one 'new' song have been pretty much ripping off loyal fans. I want this box to be special.

Agreed. I'm not remotely interested anymore by alternate mixes of familiar songs (which, incidentally, never sound better than the original versions) and i'm even more bored of this song in mono or that song in stereo etc. Seriously, i couldn't care less. Give me unreleased/unheard songs/material every single time. That's what i'm expecting from this box set. I dont want to be shelling out £100+ to hear some vaguely different mix of California Girls or similar.

[Nicko1234]

Agreed. I'm not remotely interested anymore by alternate mixes of familiar songs (which, incidentally, never sound better than the original versions) and i'm even more bored of this song in mono or that song in stereo etc. Seriously, i couldn't care less. Give me unreleased/unheard songs/material every single time. That's what i'm expecting from this box set. I dont want to be shelling out £100+ to hear some vaguely different mix of California Girls or similar.

Agreed.

[Paulos]

It could just use a few more takes.

Nah...it's all there, all good, it's just a very unflattering monitor mix. With the smile stuff, even when it's unmixed, it's pretty easy to tell what they were going for, because there were like, three tracks with multiple instruments on each. What they were basically going for was a live capture of musicians playing in a room. On sessions like these, with more tracks and opportunity for overdubbing, only a finished, final mix would really reveal what the track was meant to sound like. They could have totally dropped the lap steel, added masses of tape delay to the 'oohs', there could be synth parts that are buried in this rough.

I mean, sure, they may have added some bits and pieces before getting to a final version- none of us could know now, but certainly, it'd be possible to make a finished mix *just* with the bits we've heard.

Now, "I'm going your way" sounds unfinished...there clearly would have been more parts added to that- probably along the lines of 'it's about time', and it's an obvious scratch vocal. I bet Dennis's vocal on Carry Me Home was intended to sound like that- super fragile. It's a perfect fit for the song.

I think you're right to say that Carry Me Home can be cleaned up to have a nice mix, a good example would be how awful the mixes of the booted Bambu material sound compared to the POB re-release.

[Mikie]

Well, obviously Paulos, that all depends on the availability of the master or safety copy tape. The one that's made the rounds for years sounds like it was recorded off of a speaker with a microphone. Or at least 2nd or 3rd generation from the master. Not very good quality, unfortunately. There's just so much you can do to clean it up.

[Paulos]

Well, obviously Paulos, that all depends on the availability of the master or safety copy tape. The one that's made the rounds for years sounds like it was recorded off of a speaker with a microphone. Or at least 2nd or 3rd generation from the master. Not very good quality, unfortunately. There's just so much you can do to clean it up.

Very true, hopefully there is a good quality master in the vaults somewhere.

[Bill M]

The boot of Carry Me Home, along with some other booted songs, such as the Shortnin' Bread track, the Good Timin' track, Battle Hymn of the Republic, & a few others, sound to me like they were Dolby encoded (possibly with Dolby SR) & then transferred from a 1/4 inch machine without Dolby decoding.  Perhaps the booters forgot to flip a switch before transferring this stuff, or had no Dolby noise reduction units available.  Anyway, here's hoping we'll get to hear Carry Me Home in decent fidelity for MIC.  Something tells me we won't get both Carry Me Home AND WIBNTLA.  Probably one or the other & the one would likely be WIBNTLA.  Just my thoughts.

[BergenWhitesMoustache]

There's just so much you can do to clean it up.

I think we all know that...the phrase 'cleaned up' was being used in the context of posting about a better mix being made, from the most likely still existing multitrack.

[Mikie]

"Cleaned up" is a general term. Finding the master (or first generation copy) is the number one task. Finding the multi's to the song would be a bonus. At this point, all we've heard is an unfinished product in poor condition (or more than likely a demo). AB would know if/what tape(s) exist of this song.

I think Blondie or Steve Moffitt or maybe even Daryl Dragon might remember the song. I think Desper was gone by this time.

[SurfRiderHawaii]

The boot of Carry Me Home, along with some other booted songs, such as the Shortnin' Bread track, the Good Timin' track, Battle Hymn of the Republic, & a few others, sound to me like they were Dolby encoded (possibly with Dolby SR) & then transferred from a 1/4 inch machine without Dolby decoding.  Perhaps the booters forgot to flip a switch before transferring this stuff, or had no Dolby noise reduction units available.  Anyway, here's hoping we'll get to hear Carry Me Home in decent fidelity for MIC.  Something tells me we won't get both Carry Me Home AND WIBNTLA.  Probably one or the other & the one would likely be WIBNTLA.  Just my thoughts.

6 CDs and we can't get two unreleased Dennis songs? That would truly suck!

[monicker]

Jon Stebbins said, quite rightly, that 'if River Song had had a Brian Wilson writing credit people's teeth would've fallen out in amazement'.

Yeah, no. That's a biased generalization and it sounds like pure rhetoric. Some people just genuinely don't like Dennis' aesthetic/style, songwriting/arranging approach, vocal delivery, lyrics, etc. And that's fine. He's not for everyone. Just like the different eras of the band and even The Beach Boys as a whole aren't for everyone.

[Mikie]

Anybody else here admit to not liking Dennis Wilson's music?

Anybody else here admit to not liking Dennis Wilson's music but still post negative comments on threads about his music anyway?

[Nicko1234]

Jon Stebbins said, quite rightly, that 'if River Song had had a Brian Wilson writing credit people's teeth would've fallen out in amazement'.

Nah. Dennis' stuff gets a lot of praise and now I don't think anybody could seriously claim it is underrated.

[monicker]

Anybody else here admit to not liking Dennis Wilson's music?

Anybody else here admit to not liking Dennis Wilson's music but still post negative comments on threads about his music anyway?

I couldn’t give you names, but i’ve seen some people on the board who aren’t into Dennis. Granted, it's not many, but there are a few. I only responded to that comment because i find it tiring to often hear this sentiment coming from the Dennis cognoscenti that implies that if you're not into his music you're somehow in the wrong, or you’re just unfairly comparing him to Brian, or you’re not giving him a proper chance because he’s so underrated, or you’d like the music if it had Brian's name on it (what does that even mean?), or you must be devoid of any emotion, etc. To me, very little of Dennis’ music (the most notable exception being Little Bird--which has Brian's fingerprint all over it) represents what i love about The Beach Boys sound/style/songwriting/etc. And it’s not because it’s not Brian or because of an unfair comparison or whatever. It's just simply because i don’t like the music (it doesn’t help that his is my least favorite voice/singer in the group). I wanted to defend this position, and clarify that not all Dennis detractors are being disingenuous about their reasons. That’s why i commented. That's all.

[Andrew G. Doe]

The boot of Carry Me Home, along with some other booted songs, such as the Shortnin' Bread track, the Good Timin' track, Battle Hymn of the Republic, & a few others, sound to me like they were Dolby encoded (possibly with Dolby SR) & then transferred from a 1/4 inch machine without Dolby decoding.  Perhaps the booters forgot to flip a switch before transferring this stuff, or had no Dolby noise reduction units available.  Anyway, here's hoping we'll get to hear Carry Me Home in decent fidelity for MIC.  Something tells me we won't get both Carry Me Home AND WIBNTLA.  Probably one or the other & the one would likely be WIBNTLA.  Just my thoughts.

6 CDs and we can't get two unreleased Dennis songs? That would truly suck!

I would think the liklihood of having just one, single previously unreleased DW track on the box is vanishingly small.

[Nicko1234]

I would think the likelihood of having just one, single previously unreleased DW track on the box is vanishingly small.

How so?

[AndrewHickey]

I would think the likelihood of having just one, single previously unreleased DW track on the box is vanishingly small.

How so?

Because there are multiple good previously unreleased Dennis songs, and because the people putting the box together aren't imbeciles.