In 1966, when Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys was released, it wasn’t exactly greeted with open arms by the public or critics. Brian Wilson used the recording studio as an instrument and embraced the idea that not all music is for dancing. Introspective lyrics about feelings and concepts deeper than cars and surfing weren’t exactly what people were turning to The Beach Boys for. In the long run, the album had a profound effect and became one of the most influential musical works of its time.
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Wilson went into the studio to begin work on the follow-up, SMiLE. He had recently met Van Dyke Parks, a 23-year-old songwriter/musician who would become heavily involved with the project as a lyricist. Unfortunately, the album was doomed to go unreleased due to legal entanglements with Capitol Records, Wilson’s drug use and mental health, and the eventual withdrawal of Parks from the project. Some of the songs were salvaged as they were rerecorded and included on the album Smiley Smile. Let’s take a look at the story behind one of those songs, “Heroes and Villains” by The Beach Boys.
I’ve been in this town so long that back in the city
I’ve been taken for lost and gone
And unknown for a long, long time
One Sitting
Both Wilson and Parks claimed that the other had made up the title. They both agree the bulk of the song was composed in one sitting. Parks told BBC Radio 1, “Brian always made a melody, and the words were slapped on that melody. I had no input whatsoever in the music. I was a total lyricist and sometimes an instrumentalist. … I had no idea if it was day or night. Probably both. But we had the whole thing, apart from one section, in one sitting. That was the enthusiasm.”
Fell in love years ago
With an innocent girl
From the Spanish and Indian home
Home of the heroes and villains
Better than “Good Vibrations”
In 1977, Wilson told KHJ radio in Los Angeles, “I said to my dad, ‘I’m going to make a record that’s better than “Good Vibrations,” something that you could never do.’ I don’t know why in hell I said that. He goes, ‘What are you talking about? What the hell do you mean I couldn’t do it? Shut up!’ And he started whacking me, and we got into a fight. And then he started crying and goes, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, son. I’m sorry. I didn’t understand.’ I was just in a playful mood. I get that way. Just before I go in and do something great, I get a little egotistical. I pump it up.”
Once at night, cotillion squared the fight
And she was right in the rain of the bullets
That eventually brought her down
But she’s still dancing in the night
Unafraid of what a dude’ll do
In a town full of heroes and villains
Lyrical Genius
Wilson wrote about SMiLE in his 2016 memoir I Am Brian Wilson, “I was trying to put my arms around everything that music could do, which was everything. ‘Heroes and Villains’ is probably the best song in the whole project and one of the best songs we ever made. There’s such a genius in Van Dyke’s lyrics, especially Heroes and villains / Just see what you’ve done. It has such perfect rhythm in the words. It pushes itself forward. That’s my favorite song from that set most of the time, but there are other great ones, too.”
Heroes and villains
Just see what you’ve done
Heroes and villains
Just see what you’ve done
The Recording
The song is undoubtedly the most complex recording of The Beach Boys’ entire career. Months of experimentation pushed the studio bill to over $40,000. Wilson and Parks recorded, arranged, assembled, then rearranged different segments and experimented with multiple parts until it was finally scrapped and rerecorded in just three days for the version released on Smiley Smile. The song’s relative failure was a major factor in Wilson’s psychological decline.
Stand or fall
I know there shall be peace in the valley
And it’s all an affair
Of my life with the heroes and villains
Heading West
As Wilson played the song for Parks, it conjured images of the Old West. Parks was reminded of “El Paso” by Marty Robbins. He said, “I’d just come off this personal Everest and was trying to make reason of my own life. We were panning for good information, and it all felt very California and very frontier. The whole state of California felt like a frontier to us. And the whole record seemed like a real effort toward figuring out what Manifest Destiny was all about. We’d come as far as we could, as far as Horace Greeley (‘Go West, young man’) told us to go. And so we looked back and tried to make sense of that great odyssey.”
My children were raised
You know they suddenly rise
They started slow, long ago
Head to toe, healthy, wealthy, and wise
Parks Was Really a Poet
Parks recalled his first meeting with Wilson, “We spoke about what Brian was doing because I had been with him in the studio, and he was working on this Pet Sounds thing but hadn’t had much talk … and that was the first time we had a conversation together—a real, direct conversation with no bulls–t, nobody hustling any business or anything, and he said he was looking for a lyricist, which surprised me. He asked me if I did that, and I lied and said, ‘Yes, I can be a lyricist.'”
I’ve been in this town so long
So long to the city
I’m fit with the stuff
To ride in the rough
And sunny down snuff, I’m alright
By the heroes and
Eventual Release
Over the years, session recordings began circulating among collectors, and a different version of “Heroes and Villains” was included in the 1993 Good Vibrations Box Set. In 2004, Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE was released, including the entire album.
Heroes and villains
Just see what you’ve done
Heroes and villains
Just see what you’ve done
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Photo by Don Paulsen/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
