More stuff about Smile

[cosmolinguist]

I.

I really like "Vegetables".

I like vegetables too, but here I am saying that I like the song called "Vegetables".

It was the first bit of Smile that made an impression on me. Perhaps not coincidentally, it was also the first bit whose lyrics I could discern. That made it more memorable, or at leat more obviously "about something" than, say, "Cabinessence" (which I also noticed at first, but whose words I still don't know, really). I don't really think lyrics are the essential element to understanding a song. (In fact, it's often easy not to be too bothered by the lyrics of Brian Wilson's songs, because he's often not that great at writing them (there are obvious exceptions to this, but melodies are his strong point), and often he's working with another lyricist anyway.) But they must be part of it, or they wouldn't be there in the first place, right?

But one of the things I like so much about "Vegetables"—a thing I've always liked about it, I think, though I haven't always noticed it consciously—is that the lyrics sound so much like him. Things like "If you brought a big brown bag of them home / I'd jump up and down and hope you'd toss me a carrot" and "I tried to kick the ball but my tenny flew right off / I'm red as a beet 'cause I'm so embarrassed" and "I threw away my candy bar and I ate the wrapper / and when they told me what I did I burst into laughter".

One time, after hearing that last line, Andrew commented, "That sounds like something Brian Wilson would actually do." I laughed and agreed. That's what I like about it ... but that's not all.

A good artist makes you think He expresses what's in his soul. It's touching. A great one will make you think He expresses what's in my soul. It's moving. Brian Wilson makes you think He's writing about himself ... and he is me! That's sublime. *

I know it may be dumb of me to say such lofty things about a lyric involving candy bars. I've never thrown away a candy bar and ate the wrapper, so how can I say this has anything to do with me? I can't explain the appeal, even though it's obvious to me. I wouldn't be surprised if this made sense to roughly no one who reads it, but that's all right.

II.
Andrew didn't like Smile much before it was finished. This is apparently somewhat unusual among Beach Boys fans, but it makes sense to me. Much of it used to be just changes between two chords, and the tone can best be described by the words "plinky-plink."

He was a bigger fan of Smiley Smile, the album mostly made of what was salvaged from Smile and released instead. It's very quiet, and very odd. I think I would've found it more fun if I hadn't heard it after I heard Smile, which sort of wrecked it for me, because I hear all kinds of things that belong in those songs now, but which no one expected then. I still like Smiley Smile, but I can't help that Smile is more interesting.

The one exception is "Wind Chimes". The Smile version is nice enough, but lacks the beautiful, haunting simplicity of the Smiley Smile one, which is done so gently: the vocals are whispered, the instrumention (an organ, I think; I've only heard the song once or twice myself) is sparse and quiet. I realise that, once again, the song I'm describing here doesn't sound that exceptional. In fact, it sounds more like no song at all. I know it can be explained better than I'm doing it, but you'll just have to trust me: it's good.

The song starts "Hangin' down from my window, those are my wind chimes". Then a line I don't remember. Then "Though it's hard I try not to look at my wind chimes".

I just love that line. Like the song itself, it's very simple yet very interesting. I'm not really sure why I like it so much, except that it made sense to me immediately when I first heard it. But then I wondered why it should do that, and I'm not really sure. Simultaneously seeming obvious and inexplicable is definitely at least part of the reason I like it so much. This is what I mean by sublime. (I think it is, anyway.)

Why try not to look at the wind chimes? Why is it hard not to?

III.
I started out to say two small things here, and got carried away.

I'm not a Smile geek, by any means. I know I wrote a lot about it a few days ago, and am doing so again now, but that's still nothing compared to the possible geekery. I've written a lot here about just two lines of lyric, really; think how much there would be to say about a 45-minute suite of this music. And that's not even mentioning that some people have been waiting 37 years to hear it. Whereas it's just a phase I'm going through. I'll shut up about it now.

Probably.

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* I stole this paragraph from at least one thing I've read—I can't remember what; it seems such a generic sentiment—except for the part about Brian Wilson, which I lifted from stealthmunchkin.

Comments

[cosmolinguist]

Yeah, I saw that's how it was written on the studio release, which I suppose I should consider to be the one that knows what it's doing. I suppose it's written that way to illustrate how it's so often pronounced in the song but, looking at that, I also thought of furniture from space.

It does beat Syd Barrett. :-) And Paul McCartney.