Do you like “Do You Like Worms?”?
Let’s try an experiment: I’d like readers who have not really heard the Beach Boys’ SMiLE, their ambitious 60s album only recently “released” in a Brian Wilson-approved form, to listen to two of the most popular songs from it, and then let us know what they think in the comments section.
So, listen to “Worms,” and then to “Heroes and Villains.”
Someone, I’m guessing Capitol Records, commissioned a You Tube “video-contest” for the latter song, and so if you want, you can also listen it to accompanied by a Peter Max-like cartoon. (Of course, my general advice with exploring music on You Tube is to set aside the video and just concentrate on the song itself for the first couple listens.)
I’ll chime in once I get your reactions. My purpose in having us consider these songs is to be able to better judge the larger phenomenon of the mid-60s “Pop Art” style, explored at length in the last Songbook post. I’m not showing my own hand much nor stating a controversial opinion by sharing in advance that I regard SMiLE as a lesser achievement than Pet Sounds. For more info on the 2011 SMiLE release and to see Brian Wilson in one of his few meet-ups with his most dedicated (and often musically intimidating!) fans, go here.
May 25th, 2012 | 1:22 am
Wonderful their ambitious 60s album! I think The Beach Boys – “Do You Like Worms’’ is a great Rock song. I love the noble and this song is perfect and sweet and it maybe makes him very happy that we listen to these songs instead of other kinds. I appreciate their latest production. Thanks so much.
May 25th, 2012 | 8:33 am
Mr.Scott,
How does one take in these songs without listening to, at least, the full suite which these two songs are apart?
I have not heard the most recent incarnation of SMILE but I am familiar with the countless bootlegs and the 2004 version Brian Wilson and the Wondermints created; and to me, SMILE is better than Sgt.Peppers since it lives up to its pretentiousness. However, there is something off….
There is something pernicious about this first suite and in it’s attempt to criticize the some of the darker aspects of white and Christian American expansion from east coast (Roll Plymouth Rock/Do You Like Worms) to west coast (Heroes and Villains) it betrays the Americana it is built on.
It’s not for nothing that the first suite starts with “Our Prayer” and Gee, a 50s doo wop song; and then those critical interludes in Heroes and Villains and Roll Plymouth Rock recall “our prayer.”
“Bicycle Rider, just see what you’ve done (done) to the Church of the American Indian”
The whole concept of the songs and suites seems to be that we should abandon how we pray and the “old way of doing things” because that is apart of the “evil” of American history. We must embrace the more pantheistic vibrations that emanate all things if we are to be who we truly are and Heroes and Villains are those categories bourgeoisie Christians impose on us and should be ignored. If only simply embrace the elements (or the elemental suite) we can receive our good vibrations.
May 25th, 2012 | 9:24 am
MPB, I generally agree with you about the message of lyrics, while nonetheless remembering that such reflections were not so stale at the time, and to some extent had been earned by most Americans’ prior unwillingness to really look at their history with respect to Native Americans.
And I am not a fan of the manner of lyrical treatment here: Wilson hired a follower of beatnik poetry, one Van Dyke Parks, to co-write the lyrics with him. I have not studied up on them big-time, but the general impression is: way too complicated, and not even packing the surrealistic at-least-works-as-word-poetry punch of Dylan’s weirdest lyrics.
But as for the music? Well, what say you, everyone?
May 25th, 2012 | 10:18 am
The music of Do You Like Worms and Heroes and Villians reminds a lot of the music of Harry Nielsen – another songwriter like Brian Wilson who worked in the LA studios of the 1960′s. They broke out of it by experimenting with form and content, but also by taking a lot of drugs. LSD is evident in most of these songs. Unlike St. Pepper which is pretty pretentious and does not hold up as well as Pet Sounds, Smile is an attempt to expand the pop song into something new and original. My favorite song on this album is Heroes & Villians – still very modern, pop and surreal – like a barbershop quartet on acid. Vocally, the Beach Boys never miss a note. The harmonies are as rich as ever but most of the lyrics by Van Dyke Parks are hit and miss. The musical suites remind of Kurt Weill and Brecht from A Three Penny Opera. Brian Wilson is a musical treasure.
P.S. The version of Good Vibrations on Smile is not as good as the original single. Supposedly there is an even longer version in stereo that no one can find. But I’ll stick with the original single in mono. It is one of the best pop songs ever written.
May 25th, 2012 | 2:39 pm
I dunno Mr.Scott, I think Van Dyke Park’s lyrics fit perfectly with the album. They are clear and concise and have the flair you’d expect from someone with his education. It’s acid alliteration that works. And they set about, in these two songs in particular, by lyrically and musically evoking a portrait of America from east to west coast that is certainly compelling.
Roll Plymouth Rock, has such a relaxed but purposeful (maybe a pragmatic sense of) optimism, you feel like you are landing in a new world ready to conquer after suffering from melancholia of being displaced. Heroes and Villains possesses an enthusiastic cowboy bawdiness that almost hides how fleshed out and full how the song portrays how the wild is domesticated.
And it’s fighting against that domestication is what these songs are about. The baroque which runs through both songs, is an imposition to that free noble savage spirit. It’s cold and self-important and off putting. And the songs as a whole are something that are anti-rock&roll avant garde and as brilliant as Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks may be, it just doesn’t sit right.
May 25th, 2012 | 4:47 pm
I’d heard for a long time about “SMILE” the great lost beach boys album. I also knew that at some point in the 2000s they had released all or most of it.
But I had never heard any of it before until I just clicked on these links just now. Here’s my initial free-association impression: – Ugh.. Meandering and dull. The time changes are random. There isn’t a memorable riff, rhythm, harmony or melodic line. When the tempo slows down it gets tedious. Heroes and Villains starts out ok, but as soon as the “psychedelic” elements come in, it sounds like background music to a cheap hippie movie. This is why psychedelia got a bad name. Van Dyke Parks seems to have taken over.
There’s nothing on Sgt. Peppers this diffuse.It sounds to me like cutting room pieces left as is instead of being structured into a song, and then being presented as “artistic” for that reason. I’m not one of those people who thinks rock should just stick to 3-minute love songs, but in this case, my first reaction was something along those lines…
May 27th, 2012 | 2:31 am
It’s unfair to say that an unfinished album is a lesser achievement than a finished one. Smile was never finished, and Pet Sounds was. So unless you’re trying to rewrite history (like Mike Love), I recommend dropping the subject or changing the parameters.
May 27th, 2012 | 5:39 pm
Totally hypnotic,captivating,eclipsing anything from its time,this clearly was the way forward.Park’s complicated lyrics merely added to the beauty of smile,read into them what you will,but it has to be said Brian made us sit up and listen with these astonishing sounds,so complex and beautiful they are in realms never achieved before or after.
June 5th, 2012 | 8:39 am
The new Album comes out in a month and i think it will do so much better than their last effort, Summer in Paradise.They are on tour at the moment in the USA and tickets are available at ticketexecutive.com .. They sound really really good for a band where all the members are around 70 years old.
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