Lay Down Burden

NO WAY! That's one of Brian's best solo-songs.

Thank you very much! For both the pic and the advise.

Dito. That would be like Da Vinci explaining why "Mona Lisa" smiles on the painting.

Uhm, guys, I have a picture request:




Could someone post a high-quality version of that pic? I'm creating some kind of "Best Of" for a friend, and I wanted to use that cover. Thanks!

It's probably not a coincidence that he wrote "Wonderful" with the above story in mind?

I highly doubt that. Van Dyke definately knows his stuff, as this list shows:

http://vandykeparks.com/miscfiles/smilerefs.html

I'd like to use this opportunity and post a part of an essay that "MacAndrew" once wrote. It's a stunning writing about the connections between SMiLE and Hawaii. This part is about a song, that the last queen of Hawaii (mentioned in "On A Holiday")once wrote.

...And so Queen Lili'uokalani will "sing" to us. Do we know what songs she will sing?

The rather surprising answer is: very probably. Indeed, the Queen was an uncommonly accomplished author and songwriter - she played the piano, organ, ukulele and guitar. Her book "Hawaiii's Story by Hawaiii's Queen" tells the history of her country. She composed and published the first English translation of the Kumulipo, about which she says:

"... The translation of which [the Kumulipo] pleasantly employed me while imprisoned by the present rulers of Hawaii ... being nothing less than the genealogy in remote times of the late King Kalakaua, who had it printed in the original Hawaiian language, -- and myself ... This is the very chant which was sung by Puou, the High Priest of our ancient worship, to Captain Cook ... and as it is the only record of its kind in existence it seemed to me worthy of preservation in convenient form."

Lili'uokalani's best-known musical compositions include the haunting anthem, "Aloha 'Oe" (Farewell To You), and "Pauahi 'O Kalani" (Pauahi, The Royal One), dedicated to her foster sister Pauahi. They are surely songs she would sing... and they are both roundelays.

Pauahi was of most exalted lineage, being the great-granddaughter of legendary King Kamehameha I. She got her name, meaning "finished by fire" or "destroyed by fire", after an aunt who was rescued, in childhood, from a fire. We may notice that this is a nod, in this case probably coincidental, to SMiLE's elemental theme of destructive fire and rescue from it. In the song, Pauahi is both princess and goddess, glimpsed in the seclusion of a sacred forest:

PAUAHI 'O KALANI:
Noho ana ka wahine i ke anu o Mana
Mahalo i ka nani nohea o ka nahele

(Hui:)
E ola 'o Kalani e Pauahi lani nui
A kau i ka pua 'ane'ane
E ola 'o Kalani e Pauahi lani nui
E ola loa no a kau i ka wekiu

Ua 'ike i na paia 'a'ala ho'i o Puna
Ua lei na maile o Pana'ewa ho'i
(Hui)

Ho'i ana no na'e ke aloha i na kini
I ke one hanau i ka home i ke kaona
(Hui)

In English:

PAUAHI, THE ROYAL ONE:
Our lady is there in the coolness of Mana
Admiring the beauty and the glories of the forest

Chorus:
Live, Oh Highness, Pauahi, great royal one
'Til time shall [be] no more
Live, Oh Highness, Pauahi, great royal one
Live long, in truth, supreme in excellence

She knows the fragrances of Puna's bowers
She has worn the maile from Pana'ewa
(Chorus)

Her loving thoughts return to love her kin
To her home, her birthplace, she is returning
(Chorus)

Please confront this song with "Wonderful". Notice that each of the female protagonists "knows how to gather the forest". Like the young woman of "Wonderful," who will "return in love with her liberty," Pauahi "is returning" to "her home, her birthplace." Moreover, Pauahi's "loving thoughts return to love her kin", as it can be assumed for the loving mother and father in "Wonderful".

As for "Mana", it is sometimes a branch, sometimes a fern, and - most importantly - sometimes the divine, miraculous energy which permeates the Universe and can be called upon by people of power. Here, it is most likely all three. In the last and main sense, it is a fair translation of the adjective-turned-noun "Wonderful."

So, the two songs seem to speak practically of the same sort of young goddess/archetype: a "non-believer" may bump into her, but he's blind to the "coolness of Mana"... the Wonderful.

My favourites (without order):

- All Summer Long
- Pet Sounds
- Original SMiLE
- New SMiLE
- Surf's Up
- Smiley Smile

Least favourites:

- mmh, actually most of the rest. 

I don't know if it's gonna be good or bad (how could I?), but I think it's certainly gonna be interesting. The combination of "Amadeus" and "A Beautiful Mind" comes to my mind. And yes, they almost have to focus on certain time periods. It's simply impossible to compress 50 years into 2 hours. Let's just hope that the beards are real...

@smile-holland:

Thank you sooo much for these interview-clips. That combination of "Surf's Up" and the old surf-footage gives me chills every time I see it. Thank you for bringing it back!

I thought they gave it to Justin Timberlake. I remember that he was embarresed and apologized for "stealing" this award from Cash. He really won my respect with that.

It's in a movie called (I think) "Head Above Water", played during the opening credits.  Pretty sure it was a straight-to-video from the 90's.  Cameron Diaz was in it.

Yeah, that's the one. But it was a cover-version, if I remember correctly. Anyway, the movie is actually really good.

Nice, but it's of course not the REAL sandbox.

Or half of the BB-catalog 

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Mark, one thing confuses me a lot about BWPS: were the tool-sounds on "Workshop" newly recorded, or were they taken from the old sessions in the 60s? I always thought they were the only old recording on BWPS. But yesterday I re-watched the bonus-stuff on the DVD about the studio-recording and noticed that Brian says something like "Now Workshop...you all got your toys?". So, are they old or new?

P.S. If they are old, why didn't you re-record it like the rest of the album?

"Stromberg" is the best thing on German TV since Loriot. I really mean it! It's THAT great. Christoph Maria Herbst was born to play this character.

One or two years ago, Melinda posted on the Blueboard that they were thinking about buying a private jet for trips to Hawaii. So I guess he has ENOUGH.

On my DVD-A, near the centre, it is printed which side is which.

Yeah, I discovered that by now. Thanks!

I find the pukka DVD-A side to be distinctly superior. Of course you need a machine capable of playing DVD-A discs...a regular DVD player will not play the super high resolution recording.

Sorry, but what does "pukka" mean? And btw, I have a DVD-A player.

There was once an interview, where the speaker of Spongebob mentioned that Brian was an influence on the character. He then sang a bit of "Wind Chimes" with his Spongebob-voice. 

while we're on the subject, what movie has BW 88 playing in the background through part of it?

"Orange County" has both "Love And Mercy" and "Lay Down Burden" in it. Btw, it's a great movie, one of the better teen-comedys.

"Grief Never Grows Old" is a typical charity-song. I mean, how can it not suck, if like 47 singer have to sing a 3 or 4-minute song? Everyone gets three words to sing, then passes over to the next. It HAS to suck.

P.S. after all that I listened a little bit to the "Sgt. Pepper"-CD. We all can't thank Mark Linett enough for what he has done with the BB-records. 

Ok, so I got my DVD-A of Pet Sounds and finally found some time to check it out. First of all, I have to say that this is my first DVD-A, so I obviously can't compare it to others. Here are some thoughts (if anyone is interested):


The first thing I noticed is that the handling is a pain in the ass. There are two sides withoug explanation on which is which; you need the TV to control it; it doesn't start with the title-menu etc...

The documentary is certainly nice, but contains nothing new or special. I laughed my head off when Mike imitated Macca ("tears in me eyes"  ), and Brian is dead on when he says that PS should be heard with headphones in the dark.

The high-resolution-surround-mix sounds very good, even if my system isn't exactly HighEnd. I guess, you can impress some friends with it, who only listen to mp3. But I have to say that I find surround too distracting from the music itself. I guess, more than anything else, it's a matter of taste. I prefer good old stereo, and most of the time I listen with headphones. That's were we come the interesting stuff (at least to me):

I did some serious comparing between the DVD-A stereo and the HDCD-stereo from the 2001-CD. The first thing I noticed is that the DVD-A is way louder. I'm not talking about loudness, the volume is just higher. Once I got the volumes on the same level, I noticed that there actually isn't much of a difference. The DVD-A is slightly ahead in terms of the bass (it's louder in the mix, "fuller"), but any other difference is almost unnoticeable on my system (and ears).


In the end, I'm gonna keep the DVD-A. The documentary and the bonus-tracks are nice additions, the 5.1-mix is an interesting alternative listen and the stereo-version is a little bit better.

Yep. "Special Guest" is just another expression for "Opening Act". But it sounds a little bit better.

After watching DL a couple of times I can say that it seriously KICKS ASS. It's one of these songs that will stick in your for days and in this case, it's a GREAT thing. Brian really seems to enjoy this performance. His "I can feel it!" at the beginning of the bridge is fantastic.

Delirious Love (live):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5V-P5udAAh8


Grief Never Grows Old:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX-l9XEHNm8