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Post by kds on Dec 11, 2020 9:33:12 GMT -5
I’m reminded of a Queen song that one cannot dance to, has largely incomprehensible lyrics, and was a major hit single across the world. I would also add (and maybe this qualifies as a hot take) that I don’t think smile songs were so out there for the time. I mean, sgt pepper had being for the benefit of mr kite and a day in the life. I don’t think smile was incredibly far removed from those songs. I think smile was ahead of its time, but I think other 60s music was also ahead of the times. I’m not sure smile was more ahead of the times than pepper was. Some of the lyrics from The Doors were pretty out there. Break On Through was a pretty big hit in 1967. It's also worth noting that The Beach Boys had songs about surfing that managed to be pretty popular in areas that were pretty far from the nearest beach.
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Post by hankbriarstem on Dec 11, 2020 9:41:44 GMT -5
"Heroes and Villains" is an entirely straightforward narrative lyric, telling a Wild West story like roughly half of all American TV shows of the period. The thing that really stopped it being a big hit wasn't the lyrics but the music. Hit singles at the time had to be danceable, and the tempo changes in H&V are too abrupt and jarring to make it good dance music (you can dance to "Good Vibrations" quite easily). "Surf's Up" was intended as an album track, not a single. It's no different in that respect to other 1966/1967 album tracks like "Visions of Johanna" by Bob Dylan or "Daily Nightly" by the Monkees or "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" by the Beatles -- I think it's a *better* lyric than any of those, but it's still of the same kind as all of them. And this is the important thing to note -- Smile was intended *as an album*, and in late 66 and 67 the kind of songs that were on hit albums were diverging *wildly* from the kind that were hit singles. You know what lyrics genuinely *are* incomprehensible gibberish? Most of the car songs. I know what "I've been in this town so long that back in the city I've been taken for lost and gone and unknown for a long, long time" means. It literally couldn't be any more straightforward. But "My four-speed, dual-quad, positraction 409"? "She's ported and relieved and she's stroked and bored"? Not a clue. It's technical jargon that is only of interest if you're particularly interested in automotive maintenance, and is totally incomprehensible if you're not. Good points, as usual, Andrew. A small quibble: the hot rod lyrics were pretty accessible to teenagers in the car-obsessed US. Many teenage boys spent a lot of their time perusing the hot rod magazines available at the time. Perhaps the rather slow start of the Beach Boys in the UK demonstrates a bit of an issue with the teens there among who the words probably were incomprehensible. I don't know. I really don't have a problem with VDP's impressionistic lyrics. I think they fit some beautiful songs very well. I am more put off by some of the truly terrible lyrics he wrote, such as Barnyard and Great Shape. They were significantly beneath his talent, and I wonder why. Some of the word play also got a little out of hand, I think, but a bar has a room both for beer and whiskey drinkers. I think Brian Wilson came to doubt the effectiveness of some of the VDP lyrics. And I know Brian wanted a big hit record. If what he has said many times during the past few decades is a guide, the affirmation of hits is deeply important to him. He might be more consistent about that, in his way, than he is about anything.
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Post by drbeachboy (Dirk) on Dec 11, 2020 9:55:11 GMT -5
Great observation. And you know what? It's not as if those impenetrable hot rod lyrics are really much of a blockade to enjoying the music of a song, no more than the Parks lyrics are, and those Parks lyrics are far more comprehensible to the average person. Heroes and Villains has, at worst, some puns. There genuinely is not a line in that song beyond some literal surface level of understanding. It isn't Jack Rieley. Wonderful and Surf's Up are the most ambiguous he gets. Even with those, I think it's deliberately obtuse to claim the words are so mystifying that they're in conflict with the listener being able to connect with the imagery, feeling and intent of the songs... because they just aren't. Absolutely. Indeed, I think anyone can figure out exactly what's going on in "Wonderful". I certainly got it straight away when I first heard it when I was seventeen. "Surf's Up" is the only one where I think the lyrics could actually be considered truly difficult, and there they're so beautiful that it doesn't really matter. And you're right, one *doesn't* need to understand the literal meaning of every word of the song to enjoy them. Just as I haven't a clue if "positraction" is even a word at all -- I've certainly never encountered it in any other circumstance -- but I get that all the car songs say "I have a good car. Other people's cars are less good than my car, which is good". FYI, Positraction is very similar to what is used today in All Wheel Drive vehicles. It is the brains that recognizes when the rear wheels don’t spin at the same rate, like when on ice. It makes both rear wheels spin at the same rate so you don’t fishtail or spin out.
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nater
Kahuna
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Post by nater on Dec 11, 2020 10:15:45 GMT -5
Hot takes? Ok.
Bruce is a criminally underrated bassist.
SIP, KTSA, TWGMTR, S&S, and Still Cruisin' are all thoroughly enjoyable albums to me. Do they achieve the same heights or innovation as Pet Sounds or Today? No, but I get a lot of joy out of listening to them. Spring Vacation, Lahaina Aloha, Goin On, Endless Harmony, Stange World, Strange Things Happen, Beaches In Mind, WOTS w/ Willie Nelson, are all classics to me.
I love the guy, but onstage, David Marks' guitar playing can sound a little unfocused and out of tune to my ears. I've heard Al play the early surf solos with more accuracy to the record.
John Cowsill is my favorite live BBs drummer.
Totten is my favorite guitarist of all time.
Barbara Ann is sonic gold and I 100% understand why it was a hit, and why its still loved so much.
It would have been very interesting to see more late 60's-early 70's BB/J&D collaborations. A time when both groups could have used the support.
I absolutely love Mike's recent solo work. UTL, Reaason and , 12 Sides are just as good as most of Brian and Al's solo output to me.
Keith Hubacher is an unsung hero of the current touring band- he's a great bassist.
I personally wouldn't have an issue if Brian sang less leads and just played piano in his concerts, if that was a preference at this point.
I don't think Mike & Bruce are evil for their recent quasi-safe concerts... I'm a professional musician and I'm chomping at the bit to get back out there as well. It's the only thing we know. It's how we pay our bills.
For the most part, The BBs have sounded better as a live unit 2010-2020 than 1990-2000.
I would welcome a Live Album from Mike's band. I would be fine with it being released as The BBs or Mike Love & ....
Bruce is one of the greatest talents of the rock and roll era, and deserves to be regarded as such. Between his production, arranging, writing, and performing, he is a seriously impressive catalog. Beach Boys, Rip Chords, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Bruce & Terry, Captain & Tenille, etc...
It's a shonda that Carl Wilson didn't make the list of Rolling Stone's best guitarists. What the hell?
If Al is doing more solo tours, he should reunite the Endless Summer Band, with Ed Carter, Billie Hinsche, his sons, etc...
Bruce should do a tour similar to Al's postcards with just himself and a piano. And a mic stand to adjust
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Post by filledeplage on Dec 11, 2020 11:10:21 GMT -5
Absolutely. Indeed, I think anyone can figure out exactly what's going on in "Wonderful". I certainly got it straight away when I first heard it when I was seventeen. "Surf's Up" is the only one where I think the lyrics could actually be considered truly difficult, and there they're so beautiful that it doesn't really matter. And you're right, one *doesn't* need to understand the literal meaning of every word of the song to enjoy them. Just as I haven't a clue if "positraction" is even a word at all -- I've certainly never encountered it in any other circumstance -- but I get that all the car songs say "I have a good car. Other people's cars are less good than my car, which is good". FYI, Positraction is very similar to what is used today in All Wheel Drive vehicles. It is the brains that recognizes when the rear wheels don’t spin at the same rate, like when on ice. It makes both rear wheels spin at the same rate so you don’t fishtail or spin out. And, contemporaneous to the car song releases, older teens were getting their first cars - maybe not a surfboard, in non-coastal US. The first cars were more likely than not, second-hand used cars, that they worked on themselves, learning to change oil, fill the tank, change the tires. The car keys were symbols of independence, on the way to adulthood. Driving yourself to school. A rite-of-passage. The band and lyrics tapped into another whole population who were included in the BB experience. Those kids knew that lexicon.
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Post by jds on Dec 11, 2020 13:25:43 GMT -5
"Heroes and Villains" is an entirely straightforward narrative lyric, telling a Wild West story like roughly half of all American TV shows of the period. This is a strange counterfactual. "El Paso" and "Come a Little Bit Closer" are entirely straightforward pop Westerns. H&V is sort of an overwrought tableau when it doesn't surrender entire lines to wordplay.
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Tilt Araiza
Dude/Dudette
Dominated Ruins Columbo
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Post by Tilt Araiza on Dec 12, 2020 12:13:33 GMT -5
The problem I have with the released version of Heroes is that it's a story with no middle, just as the Cantina version doesn't have a proper end. But what it's about is clear. A man talks about the town he's living and where he fell in love, he reminisces about what it was like way back when and concludes that, after raising a family and reaching the age of 65, he still belongs there.
It's a shame we don't have all of this performance, as Parks has shuffled the order of the lyrics, presumably in service of the story.
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Post by andrewhickey on Dec 12, 2020 16:19:57 GMT -5
The problem I have with the released version of Heroes is that it's a story with no middle, just as the Cantina version doesn't have a proper end. But what it's about is clear. A man talks about the town he's living and where he fell in love, he reminisces about what it was like way back when and concludes that, after raising a family and reaching the age of 65, he still belongs there.
It's a shame we don't have all of this performance, as Parks has shuffled the order of the lyrics, presumably in service of the story.
Absolutely. I can't even imagine what jds has been listening to that's "sort of an overwrought tableau when it doesn't surrender entire lines to wordplay", but it's not "Heroes and Villains". It's an entirely reasonable story. Man moves away from the city and goes to live in a town. There was a dance (in a cantina, in the long version) where he saw the woman he fell in love with. There was a gunfight at the dance, and the woman got hit. The one minor bit of ambiguity -- either she was killed and her ghost still dances, she still dances in his memory, or she was hit and got better and continues dancing. That's open to interpretation, but all three interpretations are perfectly straightforward. He has kids, and while at the time it seemed like they were only growing up slowly, looking back it seems like they grew up very quickly. They're adults now and doing well. He's sixty-five now, and he knows however long he lives, he's going to stay in that town, where it's quiet now. It is *genuinely*, *honestly*, no more incomprehensible than "El Paso" or "Come a Little Bit Closer" (though "Come a Little Bit Closer" isn't necessarily a Western -- that's basically Boyce, Hart, and Farrell playing one song to the tune of another with "Smokey Joe's Cafe" and "La Bamba", and could easily be read as contemporary). Indeed, it's basically an alternate-history take on "El Paso" -- what happens if the narrator of "El Paso" shoots the girl instead of the handsome stranger, and it's the stranger telling the story. I find the lyrics of "Heroes and Villains" completely comprehensible -- what I find incomprehensible is that anyone who speaks English relatively fluently could find them anything other than straightforward. (And even Mike, who has not exactly been quiet about his feelings about some of the other lyrics for Smile, has always said that he likes those ones).
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Tilt Araiza
Dude/Dudette
Dominated Ruins Columbo
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Post by Tilt Araiza on Dec 12, 2020 16:42:59 GMT -5
I wonder if there are any Mississippi terms involved. Like how Losing My Religion by REM refers to a Georgia expression for "losing my temper" rather than loss of faith.
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Post by Will/P.P. on Dec 12, 2020 17:41:42 GMT -5
Van Dyke Parks is a national treasure. I own most everything he has done. And do it well
he does. He should record his own version of SMiLE. Here's a complete version, live:
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Post by #JusticeForDonGoldberg on Dec 12, 2020 17:47:06 GMT -5
The chorus of long promised road forgives the terrible verse lyrics, and the production of fFeel Flows forgives its terrible lyrics. On A completely unrelated note, in my opinion, Brian’s 2005 version of The Man With All the Toys is better than the original Beach Boys version.
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Post by Autotune on Dec 12, 2020 18:55:22 GMT -5
Brian should have kept his I’m Goin’ Home gruff for an entire album or two.
I feel embarrassed to listen to A Friend Like You in front of other people.
On the other hand, You’ve Touched Me is a GREAT song, among Brian’s best solo stuff, shamelessly ruined by a sharp vocal in the third verse that could have benefited from an extra take or some good ol’ autotune.
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Post by Mikie on Dec 12, 2020 19:05:52 GMT -5
On the topic of Smile lyrics being bad because they're incomprehensible or nonsensical... surely some of Jack Rieley's lyrics are much worse in that regard? Feel Flows and Long Promised Road are probably the worst offenders. I'll take "columnated ruins domino" over "unfolding enveloping missiles of soul recall senses sadly" any day Not much difference. They both had meanings according to their authors. Both creatively avante garde and artsy fartsy. Much is open for interpretation. Brian and Carl both bought off on the words, so blame them. The words weren't explained until after the fact - Rieley's MUCH later. One author's is neither better or worse as far as I can see, though Vans set of lyrics portrayed a somewhat consistent theme intended for one album and a single.
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Post by Mikie on Dec 12, 2020 22:33:40 GMT -5
I know what you mean. Long Promised Road (the first Carl solo and Rieley's first colab with Carl) was so bad that Carl insisted that it be released as a single twice, that it be included on the Beach Boys Concert album, and that it be included in the setlists of his 1981 and 1983 solo tours. And didn't they name a Beach Boys documentary after it? The song sucks!
Feel Flows - the lyrics are hip, maybe don't make much sense, and possibly cryptic. Modern and progressive for its time, the lyrics fit Carl's music beautifully. But the song sucks so bad that they used it in an early 70's surfing documentary, it was played in a movie called Almost Famous, Brian included it in his 2019 solo tour setlist, and they named a Beach Boys boxed set after it.
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Post by drbeachboy (Dirk) on Dec 12, 2020 22:43:14 GMT -5
I know what you mean. Long Promised Road (the first Carl solo and Rieley's first colab with Carl) was so bad that Carl insisted that it be released as a single twice, that it be included on the Beach Boys Concert album, and that it be included in the setlists of his 1981 and 1983 solo tours. And didn't they name a Beach Boys documentary after it? The song sucks! Feel Flows - the lyrics are hip, maybe don't make much sense, and possibly cryptic. Modern and progressive for its time, the lyrics fit Carl's music beautifully. But the song sucks so bad that they used it in an early 70's surfing documentary, it was played in a movie called Almost Famous, Brian included it in his 2019 solo tour setlist, and they named a Beach Boys boxed set after it. I guess, like the Brian and Kacey Musgraves song, I “Guess You Had To Be There” in 1971 to fully appreciate the lyrics.
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Post by #JusticeForDonGoldberg on Dec 13, 2020 3:44:45 GMT -5
I know what you mean. Long Promised Road (the first Carl solo and Rieley's first colab with Carl) was so bad that Carl insisted that it be released as a single twice, that it be included on the Beach Boys Concert album, and that it be included in the setlists of his 1981 and 1983 solo tours. And didn't they name a Beach Boys documentary after it? The song sucks! Feel Flows - the lyrics are hip, maybe don't make much sense, and possibly cryptic. Modern and progressive for its time, the lyrics fit Carl's music beautifully. But the song sucks so bad that they used it in an early 70's surfing documentary, it was played in a movie called Almost Famous, Brian included it in his 2019 solo tour setlist, and they named a Beach Boys boxed set after it. It wasn’t on the concert Album
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Post by E on Dec 13, 2020 4:37:36 GMT -5
I feel embarrassed to listen to A Friend Like You in front of other people. I feel embarrassed to listen to it alone!
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Post by AGD on Dec 13, 2020 4:50:22 GMT -5
I know what you mean. Long Promised Road (the first Carl solo and Rieley's first colab with Carl) was so bad that Carl insisted that it be released as a single twice, that it be included on the Beach Boys Concert album, and that it be included in the setlists of his 1981 and 1983 solo tours. And didn't they name a Beach Boys documentary after it? The song sucks! Feel Flows - the lyrics are hip, maybe don't make much sense, and possibly cryptic. Modern and progressive for its time, the lyrics fit Carl's music beautifully. But the song sucks so bad that they used it in an early 70's surfing documentary, it was played in a movie called Almost Famous, Brian included it in his 2019 solo tour setlist, and they named a Beach Boys boxed set after it. It wasn’t on the concert Album I think Mikie is thinking of its inclusion on the Endless Harmony soundtrack as a live version.
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Post by Mikie on Dec 13, 2020 12:16:04 GMT -5
It wasn’t on the concert Album I think Mikie is thinking of its inclusion on the Endless Harmony soundtrack as a live version. Yes. Sorry I wasn't clear. They played it live a few times in concert in 1972 and 1973. And didn't Billy Hinsche release a DVD titled "Long Promised Road"? Helluva song.
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Post by jds on Dec 13, 2020 19:55:52 GMT -5
Van Dyke is, strictly speaking, the best writer of the Beach Boys lyricists, but the Smile lyrics are too overeager and writerly to truly be in service of the tunes. Few artists can be both great writers and great lyricists right out of the gate -- Morrissey comes to mind -- and threading the needle is a very particular discipline. Jack Reiley's an interesting counterexample in that his loosey-goosey metaphor cheats read terribly, but I think they serve the songs better than VD's historical reference rollercoasters and fidgety wordplay compulsions.
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Post by #JusticeForDonGoldberg on Dec 13, 2020 21:09:34 GMT -5
The M.I.U. version of Hey, Little Tomboy is more creepy than the Adult Child version. Yeah, the “shaving legs” and “make up” commentary is quite a bit awkward, but it’s not as threatening sounding as that childrens toy keyboard melody it was replaced with. That keyboard melody sounds like something straight out of a horror film.
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Post by #JusticeForDonGoldberg on Dec 18, 2020 3:03:00 GMT -5
Speaking of Tomboy, Dennis’s School Girl is much, much creepier, given the fact that Dennis was * allegedly* actually involved with some under aged companions in the late 70s. Brian may have composed some strange lyrics, but I can forgive them if what’s being described isn’t actually, you know... real? But Dennis isn’t getting off the hook
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Departed
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Post by Deleted on Dec 18, 2020 7:06:24 GMT -5
Maybe a hot take- I think it’s a shame Bruce and Dennis never truly collaborated on songs together. I think Dennis benefited from Bruce’s musical acumen, and Bruce could have benefited from Dennis’ avoidance of fluff/shmaltz. A true 50-50 collab might have yielded some excellent results.
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Post by filledeplage on Dec 18, 2020 9:30:57 GMT -5
Maybe a hot take- I think it’s a shame Bruce and Dennis never truly collaborated on songs together. I think Dennis benefited from Bruce’s musical acumen, and Bruce could have benefited from Dennis’ avoidance of fluff/shmaltz. A true 50-50 collab might have yielded some excellent results. And the two BB surfers; never thought of that. But Dennis did good work with Mike as well. Only With You is brilliant. Dennis could have used a little schmaltz to dial back some of the painful rawness in his lyrics that are sometimes hard to listen to and, if you look at the back of Dennis' POB - he has a very nice note to Bruce, so perhaps he was more under-the-radar than getting credit for.
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Post by andrewhickey on Dec 19, 2020 16:26:05 GMT -5
Maybe a hot take- I think it’s a shame Bruce and Dennis never truly collaborated on songs together. I think Dennis benefited from Bruce’s musical acumen, and Bruce could have benefited from Dennis’ avoidance of fluff/shmaltz. A true 50-50 collab might have yielded some excellent results. That actually could have worked -- and I think there's an argument that could be made that those two were in some ways the most compatible members of the group. You can get some idea of what difference that could have made by comparing the Knebworth version of "You Are So Beautiful", with Bruce on keyboards playing those very Bruce-ish chords, to the ones from 76 before Bruce rejoined the band. (That's another hot take of mine, BTW -- Bruce is the only instrumentalist in the band who was truly musically distinctive as a player. You don't hear a guitar part and instantly think "That's Al Jardine!" or anything like that, but hear a bar of Bruce playing piano and you know it's him.)
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