A diamond necklace played the pawn
Hand in handsome drummed along[1]Like many a ’90s child born to Baby Boomers, I was a massive Beatles fan in High School. Hence, when I learned from some Top 100 Albums List that the Beach Boys had purportedly also transcended … Continue reading, oh
To a handsome man and baton[2]Although SMiLE was never finished–and didn’t even see a proper release till 2004 (as a Brian Wilson solo album) and 2011 (as a Beach Boys compilation album)–individual tracks still … Continue reading
A blind class aristocracy[3]A useful contrast is being established here between a materialistic aristocracy in the first movement and the religious reverence of the lone surfer in the second movement of the song; the track … Continue reading
Back through the opera glass you see
The pit and the pendulum[4]Edgar Allan Poe allusion–specifically, his classic story of psychological and physical torture amidst the religious extremism of the Spanish Inquisition, providing a useful contrast against the … Continue reading drawn
Columinated ruins domino
Canvass the town and brush the backdrop
Are you sleeping?
Hung velvet overtaken me
Dim chandelier awaken me
To a song dissolved in the dawn
The music hall a costly bow
The music all is lost for now[5]“If ye have experienced a change of heart, and if ye have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can ye feel so now?” -Alma 5:26
To a muted trumpeter swan
Columinated ruins domino
Canvass the town and brush the backdrop
Are you sleeping, Brother John?[6]English translation of the French nursery rhyme “Frère Jacque”; in this context, perhaps alluding to the sleep of religion, awaiting re-awakening–or restoration
Dove nested towers the hour was
Strike the street quicksilver moon
Carriage across the fog
Two-Step to lamp lights cellar tune
The laughs come hard in Auld Lang Syne[7]From the Robert Burns poem, famously sung across the Anglosphere every New Years–also symbolic of renewal and re-awakening
The glass was raised, the fired rose
The fullness of the wine, the dim last toasting
While at port adieu[8]Jacob 7:27 or die
A choke of grief heart hardened I
Beyond belief a broken man too tough to cry
Surf’s up[9]Double-meaning here: there’s both the literal, colloquial “surf’s up,” meaning the waves are good for surfing today, but also “surf’s up,” as in, the surfing … Continue reading
Aboard a tidal wave[10]In contrast to the Weezer and Piebald tracks I cited earlier, Brian Wilson here is not entirely idealizing the beach-bum lifestyle (at least, not the way the Beach Boys did in their earliest hits); … Continue reading
Come about hard and join
The young and often spring you gave
I heard the word[11]2 Timothy 4:2
Wonderful thing
A children’s song[12]“And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” -Matt. 18:3
Child, child, child, child, child
A child is the father of the man[13]How indeed can the child be the father of the man? Such was a question posited by the Savior himself:
41 While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them,
42 Saying, What … Continue reading
Child, child, child, child, child
A child is the father of the man[14]“For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man … Continue reading
A children’s song
Have you listened as they played
Their song is love[15]1 John 4:16
And the children know the way[16]“The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.” … Continue reading
That’s why the child is the father to the man
Child, child, child, child, child
Child, child, child, child, child
Na na na na na na na na[17]An allusion to the childlike “bom-bom-boms” and “na-na-nas” of the Beach Boys earlier teeny-bopper hits–not repudiating them exactly, but almost more endorsing them, as … Continue reading
Child, child, child, child, child
That’s why the child is the father to the man
Child, child, child, child, child
References
| ↑1 | Like many a ’90s child born to Baby Boomers, I was a massive Beatles fan in High School. Hence, when I learned from some Top 100 Albums List that the Beach Boys had purportedly also transcended their “boy band” origins to make high-art–that in fact their seminal 1966 LP Pet Sounds had even inspired the Beatles to up their game and record the landmark Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band—I rushed out to buy a copy for myself, sight unseen (oh, the perils of the pre-streaming age…). Probably the hype got the best of me; when I gave Pet Sounds a listen, the best I could muster at the time was, “well yeah, it’s pretty I suppose, but it’s still no Beatles.”
It wasn’t till years later in college that a friend of mine told me that, no, Pet Sounds wasn’t their true high-water mark, but SMiLE, their never-finished 1967 album abandoned after Brian Wilson suffered a nervous breakdown. My friend burned me a bootleg copy (it was the 2000s) he found online. In contrast to Pet Sounds, I was immediately swept away by the magic and beauty of the album from the very first listen–yes, even on just a CD-R–and finally understood why so many people credibly claim that the Beach Boys were even better than the Fab Four. |
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| ↑2 | Although SMiLE was never finished–and didn’t even see a proper release till 2004 (as a Brian Wilson solo album) and 2011 (as a Beach Boys compilation album)–individual tracks still turned up in other forms, viz: “Good Vibrations” became a number one hit single, “Heroes and Villains” featured on the truncated Smiley Smile, while “Surf’s Up” became the closing track to a 1971 album of the same name. |
| ↑3 | A useful contrast is being established here between a materialistic aristocracy in the first movement and the religious reverence of the lone surfer in the second movement of the song; the track arguably expresses the same ethos that Weezer would later deploy on 1994’s “Surf Wax America,” wherein they tell the hustling businessman “You take your car to work, I’ll take my board/And when you’re out of fuel, I’m still afloat”–as well as Piebald, wherein they tell the second-person story of an office worker abandoning his job for the beach on 1999’s “Still We Let It Choke Us.” Since we, too, are supposed to “lay aside the things of this world and seek for the things of a better”–that we are to follow no more after “Mammon” (the Hebrew word for wealth) and filthy lucre, perhaps it is high time we stop dismissing this surfer wisdom as a bunch of half-baked hippie nonsense and treat it as real divine mandates. |
| ↑4 | Edgar Allan Poe allusion–specifically, his classic story of psychological and physical torture amidst the religious extremism of the Spanish Inquisition, providing a useful contrast against the more calm and spiritual religious feelings invoked by the second half of this song. |
| ↑5 | “If ye have experienced a change of heart, and if ye have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can ye feel so now?” -Alma 5:26 |
| ↑6 | English translation of the French nursery rhyme “Frère Jacque”; in this context, perhaps alluding to the sleep of religion, awaiting re-awakening–or restoration |
| ↑7 | From the Robert Burns poem, famously sung across the Anglosphere every New Years–also symbolic of renewal and re-awakening |
| ↑8 | Jacob 7:27 |
| ↑9 | Double-meaning here: there’s both the literal, colloquial “surf’s up,” meaning the waves are good for surfing today, but also “surf’s up,” as in, the surfing is over now–especially with the tidal wave bearing down. |
| ↑10 | In contrast to the Weezer and Piebald tracks I cited earlier, Brian Wilson here is not entirely idealizing the beach-bum lifestyle (at least, not the way the Beach Boys did in their earliest hits); surfing can be a religious experience, yes, but like a tidal wave, religious experience can also over-awe and destroy you. Here the Edgar Allan Poe reference from earlier also becomes relevant; like the rest of the 19th-centry Romantic movement, Poe was obsessed with the “sublime moment,” or the moment when you mind sublimates (in chemistry, the term for when a solid passes into a gaseous state without first passing through a liquid state)–or, in modern day parlance, when something “blows your mind.” Yet as Poe was also keenly aware, the ultimate sublime moment is the one you don’t recover from–that is, the moment of death. That is the moment Brian Wilson is evoking here as one surfs the tidal wave.
We are not used to talking about the sublime in the LDS faith; we are much more apt to discuss the still, small voice, or “peace as a river.” And those are good things as well! But given how often God Himself is described as “a consuming fire,” or how the Last Day that our Church’s name references is described as “Great and Terrible,” or how the first words out of every angel’s mouth is of necessity “Fear not,” maybe we should be thinking more about the sublime and destructive awe of religious experience more than we presently do. (Certainly such a religious feeling of overwhelming awe might attract and retain more people–or at least enliven our church meetings a little more). |
| ↑11 | 2 Timothy 4:2 |
| ↑12 | “And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” -Matt. 18:3 |
| ↑13 | How indeed can the child be the father of the man? Such was a question posited by the Savior himself:
41 While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, 42 Saying, What think ye of Christ? whose son is he? They say unto him, The son of David. 43 He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, 44 The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool? 45 If David then call him Lord, how is he his son? 46 And no man was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions. -Matt. 22:41-46 |
| ↑14 | “For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.” -Mosiah 3:19 |
| ↑15 | 1 John 4:16 |
| ↑16 | “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.” -Isaiah 11:6; 2 Nephi 21:6 |
| ↑17 | An allusion to the childlike “bom-bom-boms” and “na-na-nas” of the Beach Boys earlier teeny-bopper hits–not repudiating them exactly, but almost more endorsing them, as being more religious in feeling than we often give them credit for. |