#and the concept of a LI that is an architect which is such an unexplored concept?

[thatscarletflycatcher]

If Percival and Nadine was to have a contemporary ya romance name (the typical of non-fantasy, non-myth retelling, non-spec novels, I mean), it would have to be something involving a metaphor of light.

That dark neo-noir radio drama starring David Morrissey (it IS really dark. The lengths I'll go to just hear the interpretative power of his voice. Anyways), called Don't Hold Back the Light keeps coming to mind again and again. The imagery of dawn and sunrise keeps coming to me, in part through the songs I feel fit the story in partial ways (Keane's Bend and Break, Rick Astley's Rise Up, James Blunt's Bonfire Heart, even the melody of Lionel Ritchie's Stuck on You), but also because it feels thematically pertinent.

Both find themselves in night, not only in the despair, and tiredness, and hurt and brokenness, but on the idea that they had their day in the Sun, as life is metaphorically a day, and that it is over, and yet they linger. BUT where they are at the beginning, the idea of a new day sounds scary. And exhausting. There's a sliver of hope deep, deep down, like a candle on a window in a faraway house in the middle of nowhere. But for the most part, they'd like to hold it back if they could. And yet that feels wrong to them.

[teamfortress2yaoi]

From Pet Sounds to SMiLE: The American 60s defined

Helloooooooo friends! Here’s the essay I wrote for one of my college classes this past semester that I’ve neglected to post on here. Our prompt was to analyze the 60s through looking at the work of some prominent artists, musicians, architects, writers, etc.,. of the time. We also had to examine a film from that era or about that era. I obviously chose The Beach Boys hehe

Apart from examining Pet Sounds and SMiLE (whose analyses in this essay are not as in-depth as I’d like, but I’d like to keep this unaltered version for my future reference), I also look at some of their earlier discography and provide a brief blurb about Bill Pohlad’s 2014 film, Love and Mercy. Amongst all of this Beach Boys nonsense, I insert some quips about historical events that occur within the 60s, however, it’s still not to the lengths I’d like to write about :(

Anyway, please enjoy and let me know your thoughts! The essay is under the read more :)

Highs and lows marcate great, enthralling dramas. Surrounding every great drama is reverence, nostalgia, and critical analysis. The 60s, in this regard, is a great drama, forever cemented in the American psyche as a dreamland of innovative music, free love, drugs and expansions; yet also a hellish landscape of violence, strife, and trepidation. Amongst this music sits The Beach Boys: the pioneers of popular surf rock, the American competition to The Beatles, the creators of the first concept album, and the chaotic family. The Beach Boys as “America’s band” is a title they fought for through Pet Sounds (1966) and SMiLE (unreleased, 1967), encapsulating what made the 60s into the beautifully volatile era that still reverberates within the America of today.

In the early 60s, The Beach Boys revered the sun and an almost utopian California in their music, reflecting the era’s need to escape from the uncertainty that sprawled before itself. Leisure culture was rapidly expanding-- cars were becoming more accessible, the West Coast found itself fiercely gripped by surf, the beach became a safe haven, and rock ‘n roll found a place in the hearts of many. It is here where The Beach Boys found their most commercial voice. In songs like “Fun, Fun, Fun,” The Beach Boys sing about a girl taking her car out to have some of that aforementioned fun, fun, fun. In “Little Deuce Coupe,” it’s all about talking about how cool cars are. And, in one of their most well-known songs (which is just Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen”), “Surfin’ USA,” they sing about the magical sport of surf and how it will bring together the entire United States, despite most of it having no access to a beach. These songs all reflect that same leisure culture and its greatness, yet, not all of their songs from that time just stagnate in some sort of happy, fun, and oblivious dream.

Brian Wilson, the founder, songwriter, and producer of The Beach Boys, had another message to put out into the world that echoed what he felt, and what the rest of America felt but wasn’t able to express entirely with words. Songs like “The Lonely Sea,” “In My Room,” and most remarkably, “The Warmth of the Sun,” echo a terrible loneliness and introversion that America found itself embroiled in. “The Lonely Sea” describes the sea as it constantly changes, never permanent or staying-- although it primarily focuses itself on the topic of an uncertain romance, it is the romantic narrative of America from the 50s that is changing. It reflects the rapidly changing landscape of civil rights, politics, and war that emerged in the early 60s. With “In My Room,” Brian retreats into his room, a place where he feels safe, secure, and set away from the world around him-- a topic previously unexplored in music of that time, accompanied with the lush harmonies that The Beach Boys are so fondly known by. He, and the rest of America’s teenagers retreat from the changing world around them, and in “The Warmth of the Sun,” these sentiments are turned into intense clinging to what good is left in the world-- most plainly, the warmth of the sun. The song was written in response to JFK’s assassination, and reflects the sheer panic that America was faced with-- only in clinging to the good could they prevail as conflict in Vietnam escalated into war. The Beach Boys, and the rest of America, continued to retreat further into themselves and sought respite through whatever means necessary.

As the Gulf of Tonkin resolution is passed, the 60s takes a sharp turn into the psychedelic as anxiety and fear wildly scatters itself about, reflected in The Beach Boys’s magnum opus, Pet Sounds (1966). Apart from the American invasion into Vietnam, The British Invasion has begun with the Beatles playing on the Ed Sullivan show and garnering a massive swarm of crazed fans. In 1965, they release Rubber Soul, pushing what pop music was, which Brian Wilson found himself challenged by. Following a panic attack on a plane from a live show, Brian promises to retire from touring entirely, and focuses his efforts on creating the best pop and rock album of all time.

Brian looks deeply into himself to find what he, and the rest of America yearns for-- good times in the face of the violently bad; a return to romance. Yet, he could not ignore what else was brewing within him and America as well-- turmoil, fear, terror, and resignment. He did not achieve this through introspection alone-- with the help of psychedelic and hallucinogenic drugs that took the youth of America by storm, he was able to expand his mind and the scope of what music was. He turned his feelings into grandiose instrumentation, and took those instruments into a studio, and in turn, made the studio into an instrument as he produced and wrote the entirety of Pet Sounds by himself. Brian Wilson, at 23 years old, created the first ever concept album-- an album for only listening. A narrative of a love that falls apart that is littered with self-doubt, worry, desperation, and a keen sense of pure innocence. A work of art.

The album’s opener is The Beach Boys’s most popular song, “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” a relatively cheerful song about running away with your love from a society that refuses to accept that same love-- a feeling that hit home for the slowly growing LGBT community in the 60s, but also for the America that wants to escape. In “I Know There’s An Answer,” Brian (following an acid trip) sings about people who are close-minded and yearns to know exactly why they’re the way that they are-- echoing the counterculture’s questioning of the status quo through its exploration of sexuality, spirituality, and mainly drugs. Through “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times,” he speaks of how he doesn’t feel like he has a place in the world, isolated, confused, and almost defeated-- again, previously unexplored topics in music before its release. In the album’s closing track, “Caroline, No,” the unnamed, hypothetical girl that Brian Wilson sings about (and to) through the album’s run is described to have changed so much that he cannot even recognize her, and he questions whether or not things may ever return to normal-- these sentiments are sent off with a train whirring past as dogs bark amongst the cacophony. 

These ideas bleed throughout the 60s and its constant evolution back then and today-- will things ever return back to normal? Although the counterculture that The Beach Boys are attempting to embrace is pushing what that normal is-- will that constant change ever cease? Will there ever be a time where The Beach Boys, and effectively, America, feel safe?

In the creation of the unreleased 1967 album SMiLE, The Beach Boys attempted to define what America is in order to preserve whatever of it they could save, and its collapse echoed the collapse of the 60s’ beloved fervor and wild personality. The 60s’ ideals of peace, love, and connection are kicking into high gear in the escalation of the conflict in Vietnam. 

These great ambitions are shared by Brian Wilson, who aspires to meet the outrageous expectations that came with the release of Pet Sounds, and he clamors to put together material for the album-- his “teenage symphony to God.” He smokes weed and drops acid time and time again. He competes with himself and his band. He comes to the realization that he can tell the story of America with music.

Emboldened, Brian heads to the recording studio and records, records, records. He creates bits and fragments of instrumentation that, when eventually combined, are to create “mini-symphonies” that each carry their own distinctly American narratives-- like reaching Plymouth Rock (“Do You Like Worms?”), the genocide of the Native Americans at the hands of colonists (“Heroes and Villains”), the building of the transcontinental railroad (“Cabinessence”), and the Chicago fire’s blazen destruction (“Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow”). Amongst those narratives lies themes of innocence, wellness, and unfettered energy.

The aforementioned themes come together in pop music’s greatest and most expensive song ever created: “Good Vibrations,” the last No.1 hit from The Beach Boys that was supposed to be SMiLE’s greatest hit. It’s an electrifying single that features the innovative use of a theremin, wildly piercing triplets on the cello, genuine musical movements, the voices of The Boys in sheer celebration, and one of two songs that shows Brian’s fully realized talent.

“Surf’s Up,” in that regard, is the other display of Brian’s fully realized talent. It is a dramatic and evocative symphony that recounts a spiritual awakening, resignment, and an unanswered hope for innocence’s return.

If “Good Vibrations” is the 60s the America remembers through rose-tinted glasses-- an era of love, passion, peace, celebration, and innovation-- then “Surf’s Up,” the soul of SMiLE, is the 60s America sees without those glasses-- an era where a collective aspiration was to cling onto a form that was rapidly deteriorating before the eyes of the public. 

SMiLE’s collapse, following tensions regarding management, excessive drug consumption, Carl Wilson’s (the youngest Wilson brother) draft evasion, and heavy expectations, is a representation of that 60s aspiration’s collapse. It is from Pet Sounds where the 60s expresses its uncertainty and fear, and it is through the absence of SMiLE where the 60s falls apart and leaves America wondering if it will ever return.

In the 2014 biopic Love and Mercy (dir. Bill Pohlad), this saga is explored through a younger Brian Wilson (played by Paul Dano) who represents The Beach Boys in the 60s, and an older Brian Wilson (played by John Cusack) who represents The Beach Boys beyond the 60s. Dano is energetic, troubled, creative, and impulsive. Cusack, on the other hand, is a shell, weathered, depressed, and traumatized-- it is a drama of Brian’s psyche that echoes the drama of two differing accounts of the 60s that makes The Beach Boys’s story, and in turn, the 60s so palatable, compelling, and relevant to this day.

Brian Wilson, with SMiLE, you aspired to define America. Yet, it is with your Pet Sounds and SMiLE that The Beach Boys became “America’s band”, and that 60s America is defined as a dreamland and hellscape; a drama. A drama that lingers, ghosting about, crafting America into a world forever changed by the 60s that dared to see the country’s innocence protected and preserved.