composed by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks
Despite it being the most famous album never finished, let alone released within four decades of its making, I have nonetheless managed to hear about half a dozen different versions of The Beach Boys’ Smile, not including the behemoth box set version which I may never hear, unless of course I already have. Brian Wilson’s 2004 reconstruction made the opus that ruined his life sound remarkably sane and concise, although more than one close friend has asked me to turn it off, probably because it remains redolent of someone losing control of his gifts. Much of Smile is gorgeous and unlike anything else, while some of the refrains – even in their later shortened versions - can sound like the maddeningly repetitive dreams you have when your fever gets way up there. This song is of a piece with all of that but its sound is its own, and it contains some of the most sublime music Wilson ever wrote. Formed from two discrete halves (in different keys), it is a window of ruminative longing and sadness within a sensibility trying to be a sensibility again and knowing full well what would happen if it got there and could stay there forever.
Note: 25 secular essays (each one exactly 200 words long) about 25 songs, to appear one per day during Advent (or so) from Nov. 27 through Dec. 21.
No comments:
Post a Comment