Confusing question

[All Summer Long]

I seem to recall reading that Dennis was also going to give a stab at the vocal but I may be misremembering

I read that this was true but supposedly he only did one take and left to go surfing. 

[WillJC]

As for Rieley and the purported SU version, Steve's comments as reported by c-man in the '07 thread (which also involve a conversation with Al) strongly suggest that there was some version somewhere with a Carl vocal prior to Village Recorders. That leaves open the idea that the version from Bellagio was mined for some of the tracks on the Village tape, and that it might have gone missing (as some number of tapes have done in the BBs career). Clearly a new vocal with Jack's lyrics was put on at that time. What's the basis for such assurance that the entire Village Recorder track was recorded from scratch? There are many examples of tracks being "flown in" by this point in time, so it's a possibility unless eyewitness testimony (that I am not locating anywhere) explicitly corroborates "from scratch."

I mean, we're talking a 2007 thread here, there's been some extra clarity shed on the subject in the intervening years (if not a lot), just not necessarily all on this board. I believe the tracking session is still there, with Carl on piano, Blondie on bass and Ricky on drums - Alan was asked about this and he explicitly said they haven't found anything for a version prior to that Village Recorders session. If there was an earlier version (I'm not doubting that there could've been), it wasn't used as the foundation for the track on Holland. Ricky on recording it: "I remember Carl called’ Brian to say ‘Is this the right chord?’ and 'What kind of a groove is it?’, Brian was at home on the telephone telling us what to do with the song. He came up with this idea that Carl should play a part that was sort of like an SOS, Morse code signal ... ‘Dd-dd-dd dd-dd-dd , and Carl went out and played that and it was just right."

I haven't heard anything about reluctance to sing it either besides Dennis getting bored. This is Blondie's memory of the session: “Dennis tried it once, but he wanted to go surfing. He gave it one shot and then literally went off with his board and went surfing. Then Carl tried it, and then he looked at me and said, I think it sounds pretty good with my voice but why don’t you give it a bash?’ “So I sang it and everybody thought that was the right timbre for the song. I think I did two takes on it and I was just getting warmed up, because there’s a whole mouthful of words in that song. I was reading and singing them at the same time and I said, ‘I’ll give it another shot,’ but after the second, Carl said, ‘No, that’s fine.’"

And finally--was Jack actually in LA in November '72? Gaines reported that Jack stayed in Holland after the BBs departed. In his interview with AGD (in Stomp ~20 years ago), Jack states that he flew back to LA after the LP was initially rejected and rewrote the lyrics at that point, but Gaines also suggests that there was some tug-of-war over whether Brian would be allowed to produce the song--which, ultimately, he was not.

I don't think anyone else has corroborated this, Brian not being allowed to work on it sounds like something Gaines just made up for a good story. Here's Jack Rieley's (admittedly rose-tinted) recollection of having to fly back to LA to write the thing:

We delivered Holland to Warner Bros and I was still in Holland. Brian was in transit back to the States when David Berson from Warners said, “Jack, there’s some gorgeous music on this album but Van Dyke Parks is telling us that you’re holding back a song.” I said, “Holding back a song? I would never hold back a good song.” Van Dyke had heard an early skeletal version of what later became Sail On, Sailor and raved about it to Warners. He told Mo Ostin and David Berson that I was holding back a great song. I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about so I called Brian, and at first he didn’t have an idea either. Eventually he remembered the piano track and part of his melody for Sail On, Sailor. He played and sang it for me over the phone. Then I knew what Van Dyke was talking about: this was a gorgeous song. I jumped on a jet to LA, I was so angry. I stayed at a Holiday Inn and thought I will carry out this sentence [laughs] in this solitary room in the middle of Hollywood. The lyrics I wrote reflected how I felt “lost like as a sewer rat alone but I sail...” about having to fly out to LA. Van Dyke contributed additional lyrics.

And something else from his interview in Stomp:

AGD: Apparently Sail on Sailor had been conceived and recorded way back in 1971 - a different version with different lyrics.

JFR: No, not at all. That was probably experimentation with different ideas... there are so many songs on tape.

[Don Malcolm]

As AGD says, Jack tells great stories, and some of them are even true. 

Steve D.'s recollections of a SU-contemporaneous version of SOS (also found in that 2007 thread) are so detailed that it just doesn't seem possible that Jack's comments dismissing the idea of an earlier version are more credible than anyone else's. As he said, "there were so many songs."

Without question, however, '72 was also highly prolific in terms of people in and around the band jockeying for position. Given the capricious nature of the entire HOLLAND adventure, it seems only fitting that it would conclude with a final narrative twist. I sure wish we could go back in time to gather up the day-by-day events after the LP was rejected, specifically the three-week period between the submission of the original song lineup and the BBs going out on the road. (I recall reading somewhere that the original plan was to release the record in November, in conjunction with the American tour--does anyone have anything corroborating that?) Gaines' narrative could certainly be a "reach" in terms of Brian's situation, but there's also ample evidence by this time that he was experiencing chronic trouble completing tracks (or, at least, preferring an alter ego to do a lot of the lifting--Carl or--for the Spring LP, David Sandler).

Since Brian was definitely not on the road with the BBs in November '72, there was certainly opportunity for him to work on the track (though exactly where is a bit of a muddle, as the home studio was gone by that point, yes?). A number of sources suggest that he did do some work on it; whatever it might have been, however, the result was that he backed away from another track and, in a manner analogous to him coming downstairs to the home studio with ideas, he "phoned in" his input.

[Joel Goldenberg]

Two observations:
1. The story of the construction of this song is starting to remind me of the very involved Good Vibrations.
2. Since Brian dislikes the "gibberish" lyrics, it'd be cool if he (and perhaps Van Dyke) rewrote them.