'Song Cycle' by Van Dyke Parks: the Poll

Not trying to be a gadfly here, but this is one album I waited forever to get hold of--first read about it in Lilian Roxon's book when I was in grade school--and when I finally did, 30 years later (via Soulseek--I found a used copy of a reissue just last year), I drew a complete blank. Maybe this thread will help me understand what other people hear in it.

yeah it's one of those albums i keep in my collection and go back to every few years but it's never really connected

it seems like all the worst excesses of Smile without the inherently pop songwriting and the inherently pleasant Beach Boys harmonies

bonkers as fuck tho so i kinda respect the fact that he got this one past the gatekeepers

i dunno, i think it's pretty much complete magic from start to finish, a puzzle I never want to complete. not sure exactly how to make the argument, but it's as deeply southern Californian as anything the Beach Boys ever did.

it hits a spot deep inside me and sets my brain on fire - but almost every time i play it for someone, they either hate it, say it's good and not much else, or say nothing at all. i can't remember the first time it all clicked for me, but i remember immediately liking and being intrigued by The All Golden and its bizarre internal musical logic. listening to it on drugs helps, but I'm pretty much always in the mood for some song cycle.

Whole record for the win, "Donovan's Colours" works great in any context, but I'm voting "Palm Desert" bc it's got a great lyric too

this is pretty great:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-J0JrExgh8

yup! a lil sad to see/hear how hard he is on himself, he looks p upset at being short of breath on a few parts...

here's a great 48min long radio interview from 1984 mostly about song cycle, some smile stuff, and his latest at the time, 'Jump!' most revelatory part is his explanation for the extended break in between discover america and yankee reaper - after abusing speed weed and LSD, he was on tranquilizers for five years and had his stomach pumped three times. such a fucking shame!! i really think drugs were the biggest thing that kept VDP from ever doing anything close to song cycle again...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8a7EjakxeCc

thanks for that interview! yeah it is weird that he was so drugged out for a while, he doesn't really seem like the type (at least not now!). i guess he hung out with some serious dudes in the 70s tho.

Strike up the band, brother.
Hand me another bowl of your soul.

the thought of you! divided thus!
it just may be due, to discuss in cold turkey mourning
in the willows...

Man the 60s were a fucking golden age.

Had to go with The All Golden, 2.44 into it is one of my favourite bits in music ever.

an even better poll would be moments or movements on song cycle...

I think you have to have an appreciation for musical theater to get Song Cycle. The songwriting is brilliant, but they're not really pop songs.

not sure exactly how to make the argument, but it's as deeply southern Californian as anything the Beach Boys ever did.

I feels pretty American in general to me and southern more specifically. Lots of Stephen Foster, Charles Ives and Aaron Copland in Song Cycle imo.

the way VDP's voice is filtered/doubled in 'The Attic' on the line "your age will most probably carry away the letters enveloped in carrion" and "may your son's progenitorship at the state haphazardly help him to carry on" is stunning

Torn between The All Golden, Palm Desert, Widow's Walk, or Donovan's Colours. I love the detail in this album, like on Colours how the weird clicky machine (not percussion, something called a Musee Mechanique?) is clicking on the beat in the initial section or those lovely slide guitars panning across the field on Palm Desert. So much good stuff here, once it clicks it really clicks.

BTW, the 2012 remaster sounds incredible. Apparently they're re-releasing the mono mix for Record Store Day - can't imagine it in mono....

damn i had no idea that reissue was a remaster too! for some reason it's been really hard to find- i thought bella union didn't even come thru with it.

yeah this album is just one of the most gorgeous things ever.

holy shit i need that remaster

xp to wk it's musical theater but it's also schizophrenia

maybe, but I can see how people who like Smile, Skip Spence, Syd Barrett, etc. might not be able to get into Song Cycle because the weirdness isn't anchored by really catchy pop songs. it's more like sondheim or something.

song sycle smile skip spence syd stephen sondheim

i don't know - smile for sure, but skip spence is so much weirder and dare i say non-melodic - something like widow's walk is fairly pop no?

no, not really! there's no chorus and barely any repetition. nothing that's easy to sing along to and no lyrics that jump out at you and stick in your head. most of Oar has pretty catchy country/blues tunes apart from grey/afro and the time he has come.

yeah, I mean the first 11 tracks of oar are mostly beautiful pop ballads, soulful country stuff, and a couple of goofy, kind of syd-esque things like margaret-tiger rug and lawrence of euphoria. if the performance and production were tightened up about 10% (it was meant to just be a demo after all) there would be nothing particularly crazy about it. song cycle is much more stream-of-consciousness and almost through-composed in places.

listening again, it's so hard to pick a favorite. tossup between palm desert, widow's walk, the all golden, and public domain. I think I might go for palm desert just because "dreams are still born (stillborn) in hollywood" is one of my favorite lines ever.

I never thought of it before but The All Golden kind of reminds me of one of the songs on White Noise - An Electric Storm. can't remember which one offhand but maybe it's just the general vibe.

**ctrl+f "overrated"**

No results found.

Hrm.

I can see how people who like Smile, Skip Spence, Syd Barrett, etc. might not be able to get into Song Cycle because the weirdness isn't anchored by really catchy pop songs. it's more like sondheim or something.

― wk, Saturday, April 13, 2013 12:01 AM

That's it--that's the disconnect for me. Something like "All Come to See Her" from Oar is a catchy pop song rendered in a weird, echoey way. Song Cycle felt more like, yes, Broadway or art-song to me.

It has absolutely nothing in common with Syd Barrett or Skip Spence, why were they even mentioned?

Lots of Stephen Foster, Charles Ives and Aaron Copland in Song Cycle imo.

This is what I've always thought. Don't know enough about Sondheim 'cos his music's never seemed that interesting to me.

I took wk's point to mean that, in a general sense, they're all considered weird, offbeat singer-songwriters, but two are making recognizable (I won't say conventional) pop music weirdly produced and delivered, while Song Cycle's weirdness is something else. Which seems like a reasonable explanation to me as to why I have no trouble connecting to Oar but can't do the same with Song Cycle.

Maybe, but early Randy Newman and Harry Nilsson is obv. more pertinent

Wonder if the 2012 US release is the same mastering as this Japanese mini-LP-sleeve version I got me a couple years back. The Ryko release was poor and needed re-doing, that I can tell you.

It has absolutely nothing in common with Syd Barrett or Skip Spence, why were they even mentioned?

because Matt P said "it's musical theater but it's also schizophrenia". I don't think that's a good explanation for Song Cycle's strangeness because there are famous albums made by actual schizophrenics that are a lot more accessible. Those albums also all have childlike elements and sing-songy parts, almost as if those guys were trying to find something comforting as an escape from mental illness. I think Song Cycle is a lot more unrelentingly unsettling. I guess it has some good old timey americana bits, but the creepiness seeps in pretty quickly and that "tripping at the county fair" aspect is always present.

Don't know enough about Sondheim 'cos his music's never seemed that interesting to me.

thought about FPing u for this

I don't know Sondheim's work that well so the comparison may be off. But they both strike me as being known for witty and literate lyrics and I think they both write pretty "out" melodies. Also that through-composed feeling is common to both I think.

anyone read the 33 1/3 book on this? apparently VDP himself had good things to say about it...
anyway, the "southern california" aspect of this i mentioned had more to do w/ lyrics then music.

The book is great - strongly recommended!

The Ryko release was poor and needed re-doing, that I can tell you.

Perhaps with some of his earlier singles added.

Still can't make my mind up what to vote for here. I know it isn't pop music as such but I find (most of) the songs on this album incredibly catchy.

This might be an expected response, but I loooooove the way every little motif on this record is repurposed, inverted, transformed. The foreshadowing of "what's up Laurel Canyon" part that recurs in full song-length format later on. "The All Golden" has, just after "Off the record..." a reprise of the fanfare from the "Hollywood" line in "Palm Desert". Those are the two most obvious examples, and every time I listen closely to this record I hear more and more overlapping of themes and ideas in this gorgeous Gordian spaghetti heap.

Also I've said this elsewhere but afaic the biggest inspiration for this record is not "Mississippi" or "L.A." or drugs or Beach Boys but

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10pqluMwgXQ

I know it isn't pop music as such but I find (most of) the songs on this album incredibly catchy.

Agreeing with myself here, but I played it for the first time in ages yesterday and found myself singing along with every track. Torn between "The All Golden", which seems to be a favourite here, and "The Attic" but then every second of "Donovan's Colours" is perfect.

I'm another person who's never been able to "get" this album, and i love Discover America

Love this album. Like a surreal vaudeville play set underwater, although I have difficulty separating the tracks from each other. It's very much a set piece.

Which is the song that starts 'That's a tape/That we made/But I'm sad that we would never make the grade/That was me/Third guitar/I wonder where the others are' - cos that's a great little verse.

That's "Vine Street", the opener written by Randy Newman. I believe Nilsson also covered it on his "Nilsson sings Newman" album.

I've tried and tried and cannot get my head around "Song cycle". It just seems to be too much happening at once for me. I will persist and probably one day it will click and everything will make sense, but until then it's like a puzzle I can't do but I'm intrigued enough to carry on with.

Incidentally, "Song cycle" fans should check out "High coin" by Harpers Bizarre, written and arranged and produced by VDP it's like a trial run for the album. Also didn't know until the other day that Van Dyke's brother Carson wrote "Somethinl stupid".

That should be "Somethin' stupid", damn shift key.

aha, so that's not even Parks's own song? He had a habit of opening with covers (and often wholesale samples) of other peoples' songs didn't he?

I believe Nilsson also covered it on his "Nilsson sings Newman" album.

Opening track... again!

yeah i've sort of wondered about those two versions (with the different opening fake outs, both great). no fake out on the newman demo though...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH5shyFIpl0

I think I'm right in saying the VDP version has extra lyrics too, compared to the Nilsson version that is

I thought that opening bit was just what the lyrics say, an old demo he made with a band he was in.

This is my favorite Van Dyke Parks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UvwaB6Bx60

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQqH3fgh7Cw

surprised no one here has mentioned By the People yet...so many awesome moments and a great way to close out the record.....the circular fiddle/viola? part at the end! the bass balalaikas in the choral breaks in the beginning......aaaaaaagaassha!

pedal steel in palm desert is so nice

your age will most probably carry away the letters enveloped in carrion

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Why didn't I notice this poll? Such a great album, would probably have voted "Vine Street"...

By the People: 0 ?

That first video upthread, he looks so much like my dad it seems intentional

It is!

Blimey!

on the second day god made song cycle

i was just thinking about the logistics of a halloween cover band or something doing Song Cycle and like.......would that band fit in any room. you would need like 50 instruments. some of which only appear for a couple bars

the percussion section alone may take up the whole stage

"dreams are still born (stillborn) in hollywood" is one of my favorite lines ever.

me too