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Friday, June 13, 2008
CELEBRATE THE NEWS
The Beach Boys
1969
Available on : Friends/20/20 [Extra Tracks]
Capitol : 1990
[Buy It]
I went to an event for a friend recently, a party. I don't need to be so vague but I don't need to be so specific either. This friend had finished a project that had taken up quite a bit of time, and the party was a celebration of that project, and I went to show support and to participate in the celebration. While I was there, I felt proud. Not proud of myself for going--that would be stupid--but proud of my friend for doing the thing that occasioned the celebration. I felt happiness, but there was something else, too, something that started as a little circle at the base of the throat and moved up, warmly, before moving back down again. I wanted my friend to be inspired by herself and her achievement, to feel that inspiration as a palpable presence, without needing the approval of others or cash on the barrelhead or anything else tangible or crass or temporary or illusory or false: without needing anything else at all. Are you allowed to be proud of someone? Are you allowed to want that person to experience, for a little while, the same swell of pride, that same sense of having set the world right--and to want that feeling to last at least until reality descends on the achievement like a pack of birds, pecking and picking? Maybe you're allowed, but I wasn't sure. I worried that if I said anything, it would seem presumptuous, or paternalistic, or cloying, or that she'd say "of course I'm proud" and turn and walk away and I'd feel foolish. Instead, I said that it was a fun party, which was both true and untrue. It was fun enough, but only because it was celebrating something that someone I believe in believed in, if that's not too knotty. It's hard to explain, maybe because it's so easy to understand, and whenever that happens I tend to let songs do the talking.
The song that's talking today is the Beach Boys' "Celebrate The News." Dennis Wilson had begun to assert himself on the 20/20 album, which was recorded in the fall of 1968, but when he headed back into the studio at the beginning of 1969, he was unusually fertile. He produced a handful of songs, some of which ended up on the Sunflower album in 1970 ("Got to Know the Woman," "Forever"). "Celebrate the News" didn't make the album--it was released as the B-side to the Brian Wilson-penned "Break Away," which was the last single the band did for Capitol before moving to Warner Bros. Despite the fact that it was somewhat buried, "Celebrate the News" is one of the finest late-sixties Beach Boys compositions, not to mention one of the oddest, which is really saying something. It starts with a friendly, spoken "hello" and then moves into a very abstract self-directed pep talk that's appropriate for a Friday the 13th posting.My luck was so bad
I thought I used up all the luck I had
Every time I thought I'd get it on
Someone put me on
There's been a change
Beautiful and strange
My life's gone through a change
Somehow I know
Bad luck's in the past
All good things here at last It's not that his luck has turned, necessarily, only that his belief about his luck has. You wouldn't think that he could hold on to that belief, but he does. The title only appears briefly in the lyrics, and what passes for the chorus is performed as a kind of round, with two refrains ("I've got news for you" and "bad luck no more") rising out of the swirling harmonies and chasing each other until neither is exhausted. Then the song lifts off into about a minute of layered repetition:Come on (come on), come on (come on)
Come on (come on), come on (come on)
Come on (come on), come on (come on)
Come on (come on), come on (come on)
Come on (come on), come on (come on)
Come on (come on), come on (come on)
Come on (come on), come on (come on)
Come on (come on), come on (come on) It's hippie philosophy, but it's genuinely felt and performed, which makes it highly affecting, not to mention strangely effective. Whenever I listen to "Celebrate the News," I want to go find some news to celebrate. This time, I celebrated my friend's news, her completed project and what it brought to her. Every silver lining has a cloud nearby, of course: a few years after "Celebrate the News," Dennis Wilson's optimism would wash away and darker tones would dominate, particularly on his ruined, beautiful solo album Pacific Ocean Blue. ("Farewell, My Friend," from that record, is one of the scariest songs you'll ever hear. Wilson described it as "happy." It's not.) By the early eighties, Wilson was floundering in drink and drugs, and then he drowned. "Celebrate The News," buoyant and airy, could have kept him afloat, at least for a little while.Labels: beach boys, ben
posted by Ben
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