Hey, everybody. A few Beach Boys questions here :
1) What's the story behind the famous "elements" from SMiLE? I know that we have Fire (or Mrs. O'leary's Cow), Water (or Love To Say Dada), but what about earth and wind? Is "Wind Chimes" supposed to be the wind one? And I read some stories saying that Vega Tables is supposed to be earth. Does anybody know for sure?
2)What happened to Brian after the 1976-1977 "comeback" (with "Big Ones" and "Love You"). He really seemed better, didn't he? I also saw the 1976 interview he had on "The Mike Douglas Show" in which he seemed SO fine and he was talking about his drug addiction so open, like he was 100% sure he won't fall into that pit again. I remember him saying something like "It's not worth it" about the cocaine use. I watched a few documentaries but my mind isn't yet clear about what really happened after 1977. I know that he went in 1982 (?) into Landy's surveillance.
I've listened lately to two Beach Boys albums from the 70's : "Carl and The Passions - So Tough" and "Love You". I like them both pretty much. I like the first one's sound, the soul/blues added to the Beach Boys sound fits perfectly in my opinion. I've never heard before of Blondie Chaplin or Ricky Fataar, but they both sound good here and seem to be a good addition to the band. "Love You", I think it's one of those albums that you have to know it's background to love it. Brian is back and he is allowed to do whatever he wants here. As Joost said a few pages ago on this thread when I asked his opinion on the album, the instrumentation is not very inspired and it's kind of annoying at times, though there is some good keyboard playing ("I'll Bet He's Nice). The lyrics are funny and I have no problem with them ("If Mars had live on it, I might find my wife on it"), how can you not love them. "The Night Was So Young" is gorgeous and "Good Time" is such a joyful piece of music and a very special song because it is showing Brian's voice as it was back then in 1970. Those two tracks are the stand-outs on "Love You" for me. All in all, both albums are good.
Oh, and here's my Beach Boys song of the moment :