The Beach Boys are, to most, an oldies band - long consigned to oldies radio and greatest hits cd's full of songs about surfing, cars, the beach, and girls.
Heroes and Villains had nothing to do with any of these things. It marks for The Beach Boys, and especially group leader and genius Brian Wilson, the creative peak for the band. The song was conceived as part of the ambitious SMiLE album, one of the rock era's first and only true "concept albums," and often referred to as "the greatest album never made". The full story is too lengthy and involved to recount here, but some history is essential.
By the mid sixties Brian Wilson had long since grown tired of "the formula", cranking out hits, which he was capable of without much effort. By 1965 he had also stopped touring with the band after suffering a nervous breakdown on board an airplane bound for a live show.
While the band continued to tour without him, Brian was in the studio creating music. Pet Sounds was the first full album of music in this new direction. This album is consistently in the top five on most "100 greatest albums of all time" lists. A beautiful and heartbreaking meditation on a relationship - the album goes from the first rush of excitement to the final painful soul searching question:
Where did your long hair go? Where is the girl I used to know? You said you'd never change but that's not true. Oh Caroline, you - break my heart, I just want to go and cry It's so sad to watch a sweet thing die. Oh Caroline, why?
Though not a commercial success Pet Sounds was hailed by critics and Brian continued to push the musical limits with the band's next single, Good Vibrations.
Today, Good Vibrations is just another overplayed radio staple, but in 1966 it was groundbreaking stuff. Originally begun during Pet Sounds, Good Vibrations was recorded in segments over six months. Brian compiled the final mix from hours of studio sessions, leaving several musical and vocal sections unused. Upon its release it was called a "pocket symphony."
It was now Brian's ambition to record an entire album with this new "modular approach". With the Beach Boys touring over seas in Great Britain, Brian formed a collaboration with a young lyricist and session musician, Van Dyke Parks.
In the late 1960's, "hip" was anything anti-establishment. The counter culture decried the traditions of their parents, resisted the mainstream, and resented the government. However, for Brian and Van Dyke, if being patriotic was particularly unpopular, then it was - by definition - the hippest thing of all. It was at this time the two decided they would make a decidedly American album. In an era fraut with protest and teenage angst, the tentative SMiLE was a stiff breeze of hope and optimism.
SMiLE was to be a travelogue of sorts, taking the listener from the eastern most United States to the most western, from the pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock to the Sandwich Isles (or Hawaii) all from the point of view of a European settler (or "bicycle rider.")
Heroes and Villains is a song about the good guys and bad guys of the wild west. There were also songs about life on a farm, and the building of the transcontinental railroad. It was not a white-wash of history either, revealing warts and all by acknowledging the plight of Native Americans and the Chinese laborers' contributions to the railroad.
Many of the musical statements in Heroes and Villains can be found through out the whole of SMiLE.
There were two other movements on the album, one about childhood and loss of innocence, and the other - a suite inspired by the four ancient elements: earth, wind, fire, and water. Both movements, like the first, were close to completion when, in May of 1967, Brian shelved the project and walked away.
The reasons why he did this are as varied as why The Beatles broke up.
Upon returning from their tour the other Beach Boys were shocked to hear Brian's new sounds. No one was as vocally critical as band mate Mike Love, who took serious issue with Van Dyke Parks elliptical, oblique, poetic lyrics. Love's blunt challenging of the lyrics served to sour Van Dyke's experience and resulted in his leaving the project. Without his biggest supporter and creative collaborator, Brian - emotionally beaten up - lost his confidence. He became overwhelmed with the task of sequencing his musical segments, which changed everyday. Mounting pressure form Capitol Records to finish the album was stressful. Brian also suffered from mental problems which were amplified and agitated by his drug use.
During the recording for the fire portion of the "Elements suite" Brian had all the musicians wear toy fire hats. He brought a big drum of burning wood into the studio. The violins screeched like fire engine sirens and the drums crashed like a falling wall. That day a building near the studio burned down, and Brian feared his music had caused it. He grew increasingly paranoid that people were bugging his home.SMiLE was heavily anticipated during its eight months of production. Album cover art was produced and 400,000 album sleeves were printed awaiting vinyl, print ads appeared in magazines, countless magazine articles were written, and Brian appeared on a CBS special: Inside Pop - The Rock Revolution; hosted by Leonard Bernstien. Despite all this, he scrapped it, and the project remained untouched and unavailable for decades, except for bootlegs.
With the shelving of SMiLE the Beatles were crowned winners of the production race by default with the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in June of 67.
Eventually the band released Smiley Smile, a re-recorded, trimmed down, sparse, truncated version of the album which featured some interesting vocal exercises, but minus SMiLE's most outstanding tracks, like the fire tapes. It was a flop and a disappointment. Band member Carl Wilson called it a "bunt instead of a home run." As a result The Beach Boys pulled out as head liners at the famous Monterey Pop Festival, their glow was dulled almost over night, and their reign at the top of the charts ended.
In 1993 a five disc box set of the Beach Boys music was released called Thirty Years of Good Vibrations. It contained some 30 minutes of unreleased material from the SMiLE sessions. In 2004 Brian Wilson - minus the Beach Boys, but plus a really good backing group - faithfully re-recorded and re-created the music of SMiLE for a live tour and subsequent studio album. After being joined by Van Dyke Parks, who wrote some new lyrics for the unfinished portion of the album, Wilson sequenced the songs (something he had always struggled with) and SMiLE was finished. An album nearly forty years in the making. The new release does not have the same quality of sound or aura the original does, but like a book and the movie inspired by it, they should each be taken on their own merit. In that regard, the 2004 release is a fine, brilliant album.
If you've made it through this "brief history"...thanks for reading.
Song: Heroes And Villains (from original 1966 sessions)
Music and Lyrics: Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks
Year: 1966
Album: SMiLE
Artist: The Beach Boys
Lyrics:
I've been in this town so long
that back in the city,
I've been taken for a lost and gone
and unknown for a long, long time.
Fell in love, years ago
with an innocent girl
from the Spanish and Indian home-
home of the heroes and villains.
Once at night,
catillion squared the fight
and she was right in the rain of the bullets
that eventually brought her down
But she's still danicng
in the night, unafraid
of what a dude'll do
in a town full of heroes and villains
Heroes and villains
just see what you've done.
(Repeat 2x)
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.
Doo doo do doo...
In the cantina
Margarittas keep the spirits high
there I watched her
she spun around and walked in the warmth
her body fanned the flame of the dance
Margaritta, don't you know that I love you-
Woooo, wooooo, wooooo, woooooooooo
You're under arrest!
My children were raised.
You know they suddenly rise.
They started slow, long ago,
head to toe - healthy, wealthy and wise.
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 villains
just see what you've done.
(Repeat 2x)
Here are some other cuts from the '66 sessions, compiled and "polished up" by the YouTube source:
Mr's O' Leary's Cow (Fire)
Roll Plymouth Rock (originally titled Do You Like Worms)
Cabin Essence
Good Vibrations
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