Pray For Surf • the “Quote/Unquote” Interview
Philip Lambert, editor of
“Good Vibrations: Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys in Critical Perspective … explores the band’s legacy and place in American culture … bring(ing) together scholars of diverse specialties, hailing from four countries over three continents. The essays … take on the full fifty year range of The Beach Boys’ music, from the perspectives of music, historians, music theorists, and cultural critics.”
Phil @ Pray For Surf ~ Why should the average Beach Boys fan/listener be interested in the perspective of authors who take an analytical approach? If we enjoy the music, what additional benefit is there to exploring the cultural context or assessing musical styles or themes?
Philip Lambert ~ “Enjoy the music” means different things to different listeners. In many cases, enjoyment is expressed in a physical way, anything from a tapping foot to a full body gyration. This is why concerts of Beach Boys music are so much fun. But my books and articles adopt the premise that there are fans out there with inquisitive natures who are interested in exploring and understanding their response to this music. These are the fans who ask questions such as “Why is this music so infectious?” and “Where did Brian get that musical idea?” and “How does Beach Boys music reflect and contribute to American culture?”
Chapter 1 ~ “Brian Comes Alive”
Celebrity, Performance, and the Limitations of Biography in Lyric Reading
“Familiar music can gain meaning in surprising ways outside the auteur aesthetic. Exploring these usages allows us to appreciate just what breadth of beauty, love and pleasure a Brian Wilson / Beach Boys song can add to our day.”
Kirk Curnutt
Phil @ Pray For Surf ~ How will listening to Kirk’s perspective enable us to hear a Brian Wilson song differently?
Philip Lambert ~ Kirk is a distinguished scholar who has written on subjects ranging from Brian Wilson to Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. He has also written novels, which I commend to your attention! The perspective he brings to Brian’s music is broad and insightful, and I believe his essay has a little something for everyone, from the experienced musician to the casual listener who enjoys immersion in the rich diversity of American culture. Listeners with questions about a song’s emotional impact or cultural context will find a lot to think about in Kirk’s essay.
Chapter 2 ~ Pet Sound Effects
“I want this chapter to demonstrate a mutuality of the ‘song’ and the nonsong’ sounds … With Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys, there is no sound that cannot be a pet sound.”
Daniel Harrison
Phil @ Pray For Surf ~ Daniel’s insights into Brian’s use of speech, silence, story, scenery, were ear-opening to me. How can these categories enhance our understanding and sonic enjoyment?
Philip Lambert ~ I must again celebrate the eminence of this contributor. Dan is a leading figure in music scholarship. He holds the prestigious Allen Forte Professorship at Yale University, and he has written award-winning, enormously influential books and articles on a range of topics. Only Dan could find meaning and resonance in an aspect of Beach Boys songs that is easily overlooked: sound effects and spoken words. Readers of this blog probably know the whole Beach Boys song catalogue inside and out, and yet may not have thought much about such things. One thing I like about Dan’s essay is that it gives us an opportunity for a new listening experience, even for songs we’ve heard a million times.
Chapter 3 ~ Brian Wilson’s Harmonic Language
“A collection of Brian Wilson songs earns distinction from its diverse appeals to individuals tastes, from the variety of its musical imprints. His skills as a harmonist, melodist, arranger, and producer are equally refined.”
Philip Lambert
Phil @ Pray For Surf ~ Thanks to Derek Taylor, everyone thinks Brian Wilson is a genius. In this chapter, are you helping us understand why?
Philip Lambert ~ I hope so! In my first book about Brian’s music, I tried to provide a chronological overview while also exploring song structures and connections. I wrote that book for thoughtful listeners with a minimum of musical training. This essay is aimed at listeners who have a bit more familiarity with the technical language of songwriting and producing. It’s for Brian Wilson fans who want to explore the inner workings of his musical mind. It demonstrates one way of probing a basic question that has always occurred to me and, I hope, to other inquisitive fans: Why does a Brian Wilson song sound like a Brian Wilson song?
Chapter 4 ~ Summer of ’64
“Whereas the Beatles lyrics circa 1964 tended to dwell, to the exclusion of almost all other topics, on love and romance, the Beach Boys’ lyrics included far more sociological detail about everyday life.
Keir Keightley
Phil @ Pray For Surf ~ Keir takes a deep dive into the shifting sociological context of 1964 when “All Summer Long” was released. Do we risk diminishing the sonic experience by exegeting the cultural ideas and issues of that time?
Philip Lambert ~ I feel so lucky to have included Keir among the contributors to this collection. He is an esteemed cultural commentator and professor of media studies. I like to think of his essay as a participant in a kind of dialogue with some of the other contributions, such as my essay in the preceding chapter, offering valuable contrasting takes on some important musical moments of an important era in our history. For me, the insights of Keir’s essay only enhance the listening experience; the more I know about the music, the more meaningful it becomes.
Chapter 5 ~ When I Grow Up: The Beach Boys Early Music
“This chapter views the early development of the Beach Boys through the lens of the A-G-A model [Apprentices, then Craftsmen, finally Artists] focusing on three musical aspects: song structures, lyrical themes, and vocal harmonies.”
Jadey O’Regan
Phil @ Pray For Surf ~ Jadey lectures in popular music and performance, with a doctoral dissertation on the early music of the Beach Boys and the constructions of the groups unique sound. How does this chapter help someone (like me!) who loves music but has not studied music theory?
Philip Lambert ~ The last thirty years or so have seen an explosion of interest in popular music among academic scholars. We are starting to see more and more dissertations on all aspects of popular music and culture. So, when I learned about Jadey’s penetrating study of the early Beach Boys albums, I knew that I wanted to include her voice in the collection. Like my investigation of Brian Wilson’s harmony in chapter 3, Jadey’s essay offers specific details about Beach Boys songs that can guide the listening experience in profound ways. I like to imagine readers who respond to her observations about a certain song with comments like “Wow, I never thought of it that way!” and who are rewarded with a transformed perspective the next time they hear that song.
Chapter 6 ~ Into the Mystic? The Undergrounding of Brian Wilson, 1964-1967
Between 1965 and 1967 … a wave of ambitious artists [author refers to Dylan, the Beatles] created innovative commercially successful work. No homogeneous American group experienced or advanced these transformations more than the Beach Boys. In the space of two to three years, Wilson-with his fellow group members holding on in varying states of anxiety to his seemingly runaway creative train-helped to transform the nature, ambition, and standing of popular music”
Dale Carter
Phil @ Pray For Surf ~ Dale seems to place Brian’s emotional breakdown as the beginning of a new journey for him, the group, and eventually the music world. Then discontinuation of touring was more than an impact (and far from a set-back) that changed how Brian related to the Beach Boys; it was catalytic in his entry into the emerging counter-culture of the day. With both brilliant and bizarre results. Agree/Disagree?
Philip Lambert ~ Agree! Dale’s essay gives detail and context to a momentous, transformative period in the history of the Beach Boys and in the Brian Wilson biography. It’s the kind of thing listeners would notice, even if they haven’t read anything about the music, just by paying close attention to the sonic evolution from the early albums up through the Smile period. Dale helps us understand how it all happened; reading his essay, I feel like I’m there, like a fly on the wall at Western Studios in 1966. I hope readers of Dale’s essay will also be inspired to check out some of his other writings on Beach Boys music, on Brian Wilson, and on Van Dyke Parks. Dale is a prolific scholar and lends a valuable European perspective to the book.
Chapter 7 ~ Good Reverberations
“The song [‘Good Vibrations’] seems to invite rehearings and reinterpretations, like a masterful painting that yields new secrets upon repeated viewings. It set off tremors across the cultural landscape when it was first released and it has continued to reverberate ever since.”
Philip Lambert
Phil @ Pray For Surf ~ You analyze “Good Vibrations” chronologically which leads you to identify several categories to explain the “new secrets” revealed through recorded live performance and a a very diverse range of cover versions. You even examine the various stages of recording that produce varied versions of the song. “Good Vibrations” is a penned song, a product of the studio, a produced single, a performed concert anthem. Am I understanding your thesis? And if so, can this analysis be done with any song or recording, or is “Good Vibrations” truly unique?
Philip Lambert ~ Great questions! Any well-known song is likely to inspire a variety of cover versions. But “Good Vibrations” is not just any well-known song. It is unique: it is a stylistic hodgepodge, a mosaic of grooves and colors (Brian’s “feels”). As a result, cover artists have been able to focus on particular aspects of its diversity and explore and develop them. I wonder if any other hit song has triggered such a variety of covers! As I hope is evident to readers of this essay, I learned a lot about “Good Vibrations” while studying all those covers. I came to recognize little elements and details that I had previously overlooked. I feel like many of the cover artists must have gone through similar experiences.
Chapter 8 ~ Fandom and Ontology in Smile
“It is a complicating factor that much of what we know about Smile derives from the work of devotees who were reluctant to write themselves into the story.”
Andrew Flory
Phil @ Pray For Surf ~ Andrew pieces together, much like I did with unreleased and then officially released “SMiLE” tracks, the unfolding story of the most famous bootlegged album in rock history. Why is this story significant and what role did the “bootleg community” play in the eventual release of an official version of “SMiLE?”
Philip Lambert ~ Andy is a major voice in popular music scholarship. So when I was planning this book, I recalled hearing him speak about Smile at a professional conference in 2005, and was delighted when he agreed to expand his lecture for the collection. I’m thankful for his essay because it provides a solid historical record of the years many of us recall very well, when Smile was a big mystery and emerged in different forms from different compilers. Indeed, as Andy points out, some of those same compilers and tape-traders played vital roles in bringing about the reconstructed Smile by the Brian Wilson band in 2004. For those of us who believe that Brian Wilson reached the peak of his songwriting abilities in 1967, this essay provides crucial context and perspective.
Chapter 9 ~ A Listener’s Smile
“If ‘Brian Wilson Presents Smile’ appeared at the time of its release to offer the closest thing to an answer that we were likely to get, the released in 2011 of ‘Smile Sessions’ reopened the magic Smile box once again, and threw everything unto glorious disarray.”
Larry Starr
Phil @ Pray For Surf ~ Agree or Disagree? The 40 plus years of unreleased status for SMiLE may have done more for the popularity and credibility of the Beach Boys in the long run, than had it been released in 1967.
Philip Lambert ~ Once again, I must celebrate the participation of a scholar of such eminence! Larry wrote an authoritative textbook on popular music and has published and taught on a wide variety of topics in twentieth-century American music. His concluding essay not only helps place Smile in perspective but also provides fresh, new insights into one of the albums that somehow drew inspiration from Smile, the Surf’s Up LP of 1971.
But you raise an interesting question that the essays by both Andy Flory and Larry Starr can help answer. Certainly, Smile gained notoriety from its nonexistence, and the mystique grew with the bootlegs and compilations of each passing decade. The “complete” version of 2004, plus the release of the session recordings in 2011, give the story some sort of ending, even if we can’t assume that we now know exactly what Smile would have sounded like in 1967. The story may not have a definitive ending, but it’s the best ending we’re going to get. In any case, it is a compelling story, one that helps establish the significance of the Beach Boys in rock history.
Phil @ Pray For Surf ~ Philip, I, for one, am truly grateful for your efforts at presenting a scholarly work of thought leaders’ perspectives on the music and meaning of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys. Any additional comments or . . .?
Philip Lambert ~ Right back atcha! Thank you for your questions and for your interest in my book. As you have no doubt noticed from my responses, I am honored to be associated with the other authors in this collection. I hope the book will inspire other students and researchers to investigate other aspects of the Beach Boys’ music and history.
{ Rare Beach Boys videos @ www.YouTube.com/BB45s }
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