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- [00:00]
Host 1
It's competing visions for what the Beach Boys are, what they stand for, what they should sound like and what they should try to do on a record. And without that central figure to say, this is the vision without Brian Wilson there, right, you're inevitably going to get some parts of Visions of the Beach Boys of what they are on. Surf's up are ecstatic. Unbelievable. We talked about several of them already. Long Promise Road, Disney Girls. And every once in a while you're gonna get the one vision that is a vision that you don't necessarily want to see. And that is. That is certainly this song. To their credit. The rest of the band fucking hated this song. Dennis was, quote, thoroughly disgusted with it and Brian thought the song was, quote, too intense, which is intense. Very Brian Wilson way of commenting on this song.
- [00:47]
Host 2
That's great.
- [00:49]
Host 1
But that's probably enough about student demonstration time because we can just flip the record, go to side B and starts off with maybe not quite as ecstatic, a high as Long Promise Road, but another just knockout tune from our boy Carl Feel Flows.
- [01:03]
Host 2
So this is a Carl number?
- [01:06]
Host 1
Sure is.
- [01:08]
Host 2
What was Carl up to? I mean, Cool Carl. That's something we need to talk about. Forget Cool Mike. Well, yeah, Cool Carl is taking the lead on this record.
- [01:16]
Host 1
He's going out there, man.
- [01:18]
Host 2
Cool Mike has taken a demerit with the last track. But between Long Promise Road and Feel Flows, we've got Carl, like, tapping into some. Some heady stu.
- [01:33]
Guest 1
Unfolding enveloping missiles of soul Great call senses sadly mirage like softer like lanterns below to light the way gladly when the whistling heaven's clouds disappear when the wind withers memory where the whiteness whisks our shadows away Feel the whistle we flow.
- [02:18]
Host 1
Yeah, I mean, I don't think we've mentioned it on the show yet, but Carl was like. He, I think got sent to jail briefly for refusing to be drafted in 1968, I want to say. And it was kind of, you know, downplayed the band, you know, management did what they could to cover it up and hush it up in the press because this was not something you wanted to advertise for your clean cut Beach Boys image to the American public at that moment. But Carl had something. There's poetry in him. To quote another conversation that we just had recently. And I think Phil Flows is another great example of that.
- [02:51]
Guest 2
Phil Flows to me sounds kind of psychedelic without being heavy handed about being psychedelic. It doesn't sound like the kind of late 60s version of psychedelia. It feels more. I don't Know whether it's like a druggie song or what. But it feels kind of like you. You get lost in the atmosphere and the texture of all of the layers of sound in that song. It's so dreamlike as well. Is it?
- [03:24]
Host 2
Yeah, it's a very sincere version of. It's psychedelic in the sense that it's like someone who's just taken mushrooms for the first time and really like trying to write down their thoughts and feelings about it. Rather than like the Jefferson Airplane type shit where it's like this is like Alice in Wonderland.
- [03:46]
Guest 2
Yeah.
- [03:46]
Host 2
It's so trippy, man.
- [03:47]
Host 1
It's a good light trip. It's like just, you know, just eating a couple caps and stems instead of like taking three tabs of acid, you know, you're like. You're kind of mellow and cool and calm and collected in your trip as opposed to, you know, rending space time, you know, before your very eyes.
- [04:05]
Host 2
Yeah, but he's digging into his like some deep feelings, some spiritual ideals.
- [04:12]
Host 1
Sure is. And he's doing more of his, you know, his Carl poetics, which I know we said were mostly successful on Long Promise Road. Unbending never ending tablets of time Record all the yearning unfearing all appearing message divine eases the burning. You know, this isn't necessarily poetry you want to read, just as a poem, you know, words on a page. But I think in the context of the song, especially the way it's delivered by Carl, I think it totally comes off. It sounds great.
- [04:43]
Host 2
Yeah. I love that image. The unbending tablets of time. It's very.
- [04:48]
Host 1
Never ending tablets of time.
- [04:49]
Host 2
That's serious. That's like Terence McKenna type stuff. But it's also a little bit like Tambourine Man.
- [04:55]
Host 1
Totally. Yeah. Tambourine Man. Very much so.
- [04:57]
Host 2
I think also a song about acid as far as I've always thought that.
- [05:02]
Host 1
About it, you know, Skipping reels of rhy Never ending tablets of time.
- [05:06]
Host 2
You know, Smoke rings of my mind.
- [05:08]
Host 1
That's right.
- [05:08]
Host 2
It's really got some of that quality which. Yeah, I have a real soft spot for it.
- [05:13]
Guest 2
It's also got this title feel Flows, which is such a kind of good title for the song in terms of it being emblematic of the sound of what he's describing. That kind of trip that he's on. It feels like that phrase, the sounds, the vowel sounds and the sort of softness of feel flows and the. And the alliteration. I suppose not to get too much like a kind of six form student here, but it feels like it's deliberately on a matterpeak or it's kind of like, you know, the sound of the song title is like the sound of the music you're listening to.
- [05:53]
Host 2
Totally.
- [05:54]
Guest 2
It's all like this kind of softness and being embedded in something and also just trying to understand what. What journey he's on. The phrase he's come up with feel flows is probably just like, you know, in. In his head while he's. While he's tripping or whatever. It's kind of describing what is around him.