Love & Mercy

[scawsby steve]

Course it's a personal thing. It's everybody to their own.

There's just something about Warmth of the Sun that transcends pop music and encapsulates Wilson's genius. I wish I knew enough about music theory to know what it is, but to me it's like classical music distilled into a 3 minute pop song. It has all the depth and sophistication of Bach or Beethoven yet it sounds so simple.

I agree about God Only Knows too. Mrs S-T and I had that for our first dance at our wedding reception. It was either that or Tanz Mit by Laibach and she lost the toss up.

SS. What do you think of this version by the way?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LK6dQTS8VwM

Willie Nelson. Another musical phenomenon.

[i_ateallthepies]

Willie Nelson, thought that was a wrestling move.

[idler]

Willie Nelson, thought that was a wrestling move.

Not half. As Alan Freeman might say.😉

[BillyStubbsTears]

I was standing in a bar

And watching all the people there

All the loneliness in this world

Well it's just not fair

Love and mercy, that's what you need tonight

So love and mercy to you and your friends tonight

Love and mercy tonight

The sheer genius of Brian Wilson. I watched the film "Love & Mercy" on BBC2 last night. It's all about Wilson, the Beach Boys, and Wilson's terrible battle against mental illness.

It's a great movie, featuring John Cusack, and is well worth watching. You can get it on catch-up.

Right you, you t**t SS.

I'm sat in my study, intending to prepare for a 9am Skype call tomorrow.  And instead, I've looked up this film on iPlayer. And  I've just lost the last hour.

[BillyStubbsTears]

OK, so even though I can't play a note, I found last night a piece by a musical critic in The Warmth of the Sun.

He starts by saying:
"One feels the urge to remove one's shoes before daring to write about this song, for this is holy ground we are treading on."

Amen.

Apparently the revolutionary chord structure is this one.

C Am Eb Cm.

The standard pop chord progression at the time was

C Am F G

The switch to Eb is the revolutionary bit. Apparently it was so bizarre it had never been used in pop music before.

Any of you who can play, give it a go.

If you listen to the song, it's the chord in the first verse between "Dawn" and "That". It sounds so natural if you just listen passively because of how Wilson resolved it, but it's is breathtaking when you sit and listen hard.

[IDM]

I remember watching a documentary not too long ago on bbc4 or sky arts maybe, about how music, especially pop music is written.  It analysed the “time”, key and key changes, and chord groupings etc.

But what I got from the programme wasn’t that the songs were written by applying the musical theory deliberately by trained musicians, more that things just happened by chance.  The composers played what they thought sounded good, and the analysis to explain it comes later.

How many of the musical innovators from the 1960s (say) were in any way trained.?

That such beautiful music comes from chance, from inspiration, is one of the reasons why it is so special.

Even more so when the tunes and lyrics were often written in hours or even minutes.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Actually, even for people like me who can't play a note, you can listen to the chord progression here.

https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/tab/the-beach-boys/warmth-of-the-sun-chords-16801

That Eb sends shivers down my spine.

[IDM]

I’m no musician either, but I do know that flats and minor chords are used to convey melancholy..

[BillyStubbsTears]

I’m no musician either, but I do know that flats and minor chords are used to convey melancholy..

The genius of The Warmth of the Sun to me is that it somehow melds together a melancholic and uplifting feeling all at once. The way a less gifted writer would do it is "Here's the sad bit. Here;s the happy bit." What Wilson does is just genius - he conveys both emotions simultaneously. Seeing it in the context of him writing that in 30 mins the night that Kennedy was killed is just awe inspiring. Like he was touched by the hand of God and told to write something to sum up the feeling of the world.

[scawsby steve]

I was standing in a bar

And watching all the people there

All the loneliness in this world

Well it's just not fair

Love and mercy, that's what you need tonight

So love and mercy to you and your friends tonight

Love and mercy tonight

The sheer genius of Brian Wilson. I watched the film "Love & Mercy" on BBC2 last night. It's all about Wilson, the Beach Boys, and Wilson's terrible battle against mental illness.

It's a great movie, featuring John Cusack, and is well worth watching. You can get it on catch-up.

Right you, you t**t SS.

I'm sat in my study, intending to prepare for a 9am Skype call tomorrow.  And instead, I've looked up this film on iPlayer. And  I've just lost the last hour.

Was it worth it though?

[BillyStubbsTears]

What I've seen so far was

[scawsby steve]

What I've seen so far was

I've misunderstood BST. I thought you meant you'd lost an hour from your work preparation. If you've lost an hour from the download, that's even worse than the 4 minutes I lost from mine.

As I'm a technophobe, I can't advise you how to rectify it. I hope you can, so you'll be able to watch the whole film.

I'm genuinely interested in your opinion of it.

[BillyStubbsTears]

No SS. You were fright first time. I stopped myself watching so I could work.

[scawsby steve]

No SS. You were fright first time. I stopped myself watching so I could work.

Let me know when you finish it then.

By the way, what a crooked f*cking psychopath that Dr Eugene Landy was.