Van Dyke & Brian: ORANGE CRATE ART

Summary

Jokermen Podcast: Van Dyke & Brian—ORANGE CRATE ART

Date: November 17, 2025
Hosts: Jokermen
Topic: Deep dive into Van Dyke Parks’ 1995 album Orange Crate Art (with Brian Wilson)

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Overview

In this episode, the Jokermen focus on Orange Crate Art, the idiosyncratic 1995 collaboration between Van Dyke Parks and Brian Wilson. They discuss the album’s historical context, the unique intersection of these two legendary artists, how it relates to California’s storied mythos, and why the record has been both underappreciated and essential for fans of the Beach Boys, Van Dyke Parks, and American pop history.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Album’s Origins & Context

• Van Dyke Parks’ Creative State: Parks describes finding inspiration in periods of emotional security:

  "There's a certain degree of emotional security surrounding you... That's conducive to creativity.” (00:16, Van Dyke Parks)

• Orange Crate Art is the result of Van Dyke and Brian reuniting after years apart—an attempt to reclaim a collaborative legacy interrupted after Smile:

  “Here we are with Brian working once again with Mr. Parks, his longtime collaborator, to sort of reclaim a history that was dashed from them many, many years ago. Obviously, as everyone remembers, the Smile story…” (01:37)

• The album is “more a Van Dyke album,” but is billed as a joint effort. It was Brian Wilson’s second significant release of 1995.

• The hosts reference a little-known Dutch documentary ("Van Dyke Parks: Een Obsessi Voor Muzik") which sheds light on both Parks’ life and this project.

2. Documentary Anecdotes: Friendship, Failure & Artistic Outsiderdom

• Candid banter between Van Dyke Parks, Randy Newman, Ry Cooder, and Brian Wilson:

  “We were never embraced by the public. And, you know, I wanted to be anyway.” (05:30, Interviewer)
  “I believe my best work is ahead of me, but some of it is behind me and it sure is here, which celebrates an old friendship, and it's important to me… I don't want Mike Love to write the history of Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks. Not good.” (07:39, Randy Newman)

• Parks recounts the creative spark Brian provided:

  “When we finally made it, he gave me a spark, a little spark of love, you know, to get moving... He got me writing songs, he got me going, you know. But it all begins with that spark of love.” (07:58, Van Dyke Parks)

3. California & the Myth of ‘Orange Crate Art’

• The hosts delve deep into the history of actual “orange crate art”—the colorful labels on crates of California oranges, which helped create the myth of California as an idyllic, bountiful Eden:

  “In the inventive labels pasted upon each orange crate, the selling of California... became even more explicit. So appealing in its color, the orange inspired graphic ambitions… This was very much part of the California myth.” (13:35, Host 2 quoting Kevin Starr)

• The evocative artwork is considered folk art, representing a nostalgic, sometimes lost vision of California—an idea Parks channels in his album:

  “Literally hundreds of these designs... involved an idealized California landscape... suggestive of California as a place apart, a land of fantasy and dreams...” (16:25, Host 2)

4. Smile Revisited and Narrative Redemption

• The album is cast as a spiritual revisitation of Smile—but one informed by decades of history:

  “This is kind of like a streamlined version of that, where Brian is again being cast in this case... as a kind of the narrator or the voice of this kind of concept. And it's perfect because... The Beach Boys are pretty much, like, ground zero of the modern era version of that same thing.” (21:53, Host 1)

• Van Dyke’s outspoken wish to reclaim the Parks/Wilson narrative from Mike Love:

  “I don't want Mike Love to have written the story of Van Dyke Parks and Brian Wilson.” (09:48, Host 2 referencing Van Dyke Parks)

5. Music, Arrangement, and Lyrical Specificity

• The album’s songs are “Van Dyke-ian”—densely lyrical, harmonically rich, and obsessed with specificity:

  “There's a kind of specificity that is insisted upon that is also not obvious to anyone, perhaps, but the artist making it in terms of the significance of certain odd turns of phrase or conceptual angles.” (12:14, Host 2)

• The music is considered more “streamlined” and accessible than much of Parks’ solo work—partly thanks to Brian’s involvement:

  “Maybe if ever, like, I mean, the next song or the first song, and especially Sail Away is like. It's pretty hooky and catchy... more streamlined version of Van Dyke music than we usually get.” (32:56, Host 1)

6. Song-by-Song Impressions & Analysis

"Orange Crate Art" (Title Track)

• A nostalgic invocation of California; hosts praise the lyricism and distinct vocal style.

  “What a beautiful song... That’s what you get here on this record.” (29:15, Host 2)

• Quote: “Orange crate table in a rocking chair / Barnyard gate waiting some repair / Trust in fate and sweet inspiration...” (31:24, Host 2)

"Sail Away"

• Seen as the album’s most “song” song; hosts recall Van Dyke’s knowing stage gesture referencing his fading memory.

  “He like did a little gesture like put like, oh, my. My memory. Because he like forgot something earlier.” (37:41, Host 1)

• The song’s wistfulness is underlined, with subtle reference to Randy Newman’s “Sail Away.”

  “This song kind of sounds like what you would expect a song, Sail Away, to be titled.” (39:55, Host 2)

"My Hobo Heart"

• A playful, Steinbeck-tinged number about romantic restlessness and roots.

  “It's a nice song. I think it's just a funny. I mean, hobo, again, being very much intentionally chosen word image because it ties in so seamlessly with, like, the whole picture here.” (48:35, Host 1)

• The hosts muse over the overlap of Steinbeck, Beach Boys mythology, and California themes.

"Wings of a Dove" / "Palm Tree and Moon"

• Both noted for their lush orchestration and emotional resonance, even as the conceptual focus broadens beyond California.

  “You could think of Orange Crate Art as a concept album in some sense, but these songs aren’t necessarily, like, explicitly about California... but here it sort of fleshes out the concept that he's working with on a more emotional level.” (55:03, Host 2)

"San Francisco"

• Hosts observe the song’s playful tone, and how Brian’s harmonies, arrangement, and performance add the signature touch.

  “He can just kind of come in and sing these songs. He does the vocal arrangements, too. It should be noted that that's him... it sounds fantastic.” (73:05, Host 2)

"Movies Is Magic"

• Both hosts agree this is a highlight, a sweeping ode to the myth and escapism of cinema.

  “I think this is a great, you know, one of the great songs that either one of them ever created.” (82:59, Host 2)

• Quote: “Movies is magic. Real life is tragic.” (83:19, Host 2)

Other Tracks

• The album’s closing numbers—“This Town Goes Down at Sunset” and “Lullaby”—are described as gentle evocations of simpler times, finishing the album on an elegiac note:

  “That's it. Show's over, folks. Time to go home. Time to get in bed. Time to do it all over again in the morning.” (88:36, Host 2)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Album’s Place in Their Catalogs:

  “It's a very like. As much as it is an attempt to sort of make good on the promise of Smile... This is not Smile. This is not at all what they were trying to do in 1967. It's very much a Van Dyke led project with Brian kind of in a secondary role...” (26:53, Host 2)

• On Orange Crate Art’s Underappreciated Status:

  “I don't even know that most people know about it... It's an odd little number, you know, because it is. It's here in the 90s and it's kind of like Van Dyke's second to last album.” (08:38, Host 1)

• On Nostalgia and Loss:

  “There is this kind of slight darkness underlying a lot of these songs because it's music about a period of time and places that have disappeared or are disappearing.” (42:28, Host 2)

• On Brian Wilson’s Role:

  “Brian is supposed to have asked Van Dyke... like, why do you have me here? Why am I singing these songs? And Van Dyke replies, because I can't stand the sound of my own voice.” (73:05, Host 2)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:16] Van Dyke on creativity and security
• [01:20–02:34] Album background, name debate, Smile backstory
• [07:39] Randy Newman’s reflections on the album and legacy
• [13:35–18:49] Deep dive into actual orange crate art and California myth
• [21:53–24:32] Smile, California myth’s reach to the Wilson family’s roots
• [29:15] “Orange Crate Art” discussion
• [37:36] “Sail Away” live memories, lyrics analysis
• [47:02] “Sail Away” emotional climax, timelessness
• [55:03] Concept vs. non-concept tracks, emotional landscape
• [73:05] Brian Wilson’s function in the project
• [82:59] “Movies is Magic”—the big emotional peak / summation
• [88:36] Closing with “This Town Goes Down at Sunset” and “Lullaby”

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Tone & Podcast Spirit

The episode is warm, conversational, and dense with history and personal anecdote. The hosts’ affection for these artists, the album, and the California myth shines throughout, blending deep record-nerd knowledge with a sense of nostalgia, humor, and occasional melancholy—matching the spirit of Orange Crate Art itself.

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Conclusion

Orange Crate Art emerges as a nuanced, layered, and underappreciated album—serving both as a love letter to California’s mythic past and the complex, bruised friendship between Van Dyke Parks and Brian Wilson. Its gentle melodies, oblique wit, and yearning for lost idylls make it an essential listen for students of the Beach Boys, American pop, and sunny, bittersweet dreams of the West.

Final word:

“A beautiful record from two beautiful men… They're going to come back together again in not too long, you know, another decade down the line to really reclaim the Smile legacy explicitly. But this is a delicious, you know, sort of appetizer along the way.” (93:34, Host 2)

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Listen along with the episode for full context and song samples. For more deep dives, follow Jokermen on Patreon or social platforms.

Transcript

[Host 1]

There are periods in your life where.

[Van Dyke Parks]

You'Re not really under pressure, you know, and there's a certain degree of emotional security surrounding you. Right. So you don't have to worry too.

[Host 1]

Much about anything else but your own environment. Right.

[Van Dyke Parks]

That's conducive to creativity. Well, what happened was I got into a situation where I became very comfortable with my environment.

[Singer/Performer]

Great Art was a place to start. Orange Cradle Art was the world apart Home for two with you of Sonoma, where there's aroma and heart. Memories of her Orange Crate on.

[Host 1]

Orange.

[Singer/Performer]

Crate table and a rocket.

[Host 1]

Orange Crate Podcasts. Podcasts.

[Host 2]

Podcasts. Plural.

[Host 1]

Orange. Well, because it's Orange Crate art. I don't know.

[Host 2]

Orange Crate cast. How about that?

[Host 1]

Orange Crate Cast. This is the podcast about Orange Crate art, the Van Dyke Parks album. Featuring Brian Wilson.

[Host 2]

Featuring Brian Wilson. The Van Dyke Parks and Brian Wilson. Or is it Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks one?

[Host 1]

Isn't it? It's more a Van Dyke album, would you say?

[Host 2]

Well, it is it, certainly. But it is also billed as Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parts. You could see right there on the COVID Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks top billing.

[Host 1]

Okay.

[Host 2]

That's right. So, yeah. Yes, it's 1995. That's right. The Brian second release of 1995. Of course, we just spoke recently about I Just Wasn't Made for these Times, the great documentary from Don Juaz, and the accompanying soundtrack album. And here we are with Brian working once again with Mr. Parks, his longtime collaborator, to sort of reclaim a history that was dashed from them many, many years ago. Obviously, as everyone remembers, the Smile story. Did you watch that Van Dyke Parks documentary I sent you?

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

Yeah. So shout Out. Someone sent that to us, like in the DMs on Twitter or something months ago. And I just kind of stumbled across it the other day. So whoever that was, salute to you. I don't even remember what it was called.

[Host 1]

Well, it's a German documentary.

[Host 2]

It's Dutch. It's not even German. It's Dutch.

[Host 1]

Okay.

[Host 2]

Yes. But I mean, you would be forgiven for mistaking it. It's called Van Dyck's an obsession with music. That's at least the English, the translation. Exactly. It's probably like Van Dyke Park's Een Ibsuchen with Musik knowing the Dutch. But he talks a little bit about this album album in there towards the end, and I think offers some interesting context. That documentary, by the way, just to spend two minutes on it before we get to the subject matter at hand.

[Host 1]

Delightful.

[Host 2]

Unbelievable. It's completely unintelligible at least the Dutch part, because it's just. There's no English subtitles anywhere and it's just some Dutch guy narrating.

[Host 1]

But you can follow along. He's like. He'll just be like.

[Host 2]

The Beach Boys song cycle. Yeah, Exactly. Yeah. And 90% of the documentary is just interviews with. Yeah, I'm looking at it right now. Van Dyke Park's in Obsessi vor Musik.

[Host 1]

There we go.

[Host 2]

So we were pretty close. 90% of the documentary is just Van Dyke and other fellas from the crew just basically talking and hanging out. Some unbelievable footage of Van Dyke and Randy just like, chopping it up, busting each other's balls. I love it.

[Host 1]

Yeah, that's kind of the main event of that documentary is just kind of hanging out with Van Dyke Parks. And by extension, we also get some Randy in there.

[Randy Newman]

And this is what I liked. Away from the braggadocia, the sense of bragging and so forth. The big. The arena rock was being built and other revolting, expansive, narcissistic exercises in music, and you run into something like Randy Newman. This is a big deal.

[Interviewer]

We both wanted to be in the Rolling Stones and it made us bitter. Yeah, I've managed, you know, to contain it. And Van Dyke now has let the cat out of the bag. We were going to be in Led Zeppelin, Five Man Group, you know, they're going to be keyboard, Emerson Lake and talk.

[Randy Newman]

I have nothing to say, but I'm.

[Host 1]

Going to say it anyway. He should talk.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, that's right.

[Randy Newman]

He should talk.

[Interviewer]

You know, in my case, if I may speak of myself in your presence, I sort of consider. I mean, I was trying to sell records. I think we all were. I mean, we didn't. Weren't doing it for fun or to make the history books, you know. I mean, I consider my career sort of a failure, you know, in the major sense that I tried it, you know, I'd think, oh, this might be a hit, you know, and I. I know that Van Dyke considers himself a failure also.

[Singer/Performer]

No, no, Everybody else does. For me, that's the difference.

[Interviewer]

We were never embraced by the public. And, you know, I wanted to be anyway.

[Host 2]

We get some Randy, we get some Brian in there. Brian is maybe not as attentive as he might otherwise, as he might otherwise be. Ry Cooter is in there. Van Dyke is like, walking up and down Santa Monica Boulevard, you know, showing these Dutchmen the Troubadour and talking about how he used to hang out there with David Crosby, who asked him if he wanted to be in the Birds sitting at the Troubadour Bar.

[Host 1]

That's right.

[Host 2]

It's just a real beautiful document of some of our fellas, some of our favorite fellas in, like, 2002, I think, just like a completely random point in time.

[Host 1]

Yeah, it does have a very 2002 feeling, which is, you know, that. Was it filmed in 2002, I think.

[Host 2]

I mean, I think it was filmed in, like, 2000. 2001, and came out in 2000. It's, like very, like, early Bush. Like maybe 9, 11. Has not even happened when this is being shot, at least. You know, obviously it has happened by the time it comes out, but it's very much got that. Like, it's the 2000s, but it's still basically the long 90s.

[Host 1]

Yeah. When you're looking at it, very much so. The, like, outfits, like, you see people walking around and feel. Feel very much like that.

[Host 2]

Totally. And Van Dyke's got. Did you catch.

[Host 1]

Did you.

[Host 2]

Did you peep that necklace he's wearing for, like, half of it. It's like a big, golden, like, ankh that he's got right there in his chest. He's wearing these beautiful oxfords that are just, like, open halfway down to his navel and just a giant golden ankh. Very cool around his chest the entire time.

[Host 1]

That is very cool.

[Host 2]

Incredible look. Anyways, everyone will maybe drop a link to that documentary in the notes of this episode. Go give that a spin. And certainly the last, I don't know, 15 minutes of it when they start talking about Orange Crate Art, which Van Dyke, you know, kind of contextualizes. I think there's some guy from Rolling Stone magazine also who's wearing, like, a bow tie, sort of a Poindexter type, who's talking about the album. And I think, you know, Van Dyke, at least is talking about how proud he is of this. This record and how significant it is to him, even if it hadn't necessarily been as warmly received by the public.

[Randy Newman]

I believe my best work is ahead of me, but some of it is behind me and it sure is here, which celebrates an old friendship, and it's important to me. We went public. We should celebrate that. I don't want Mike Love to write the history of Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks. Not good.

[Van Dyke Parks]

He called me one day and said, I'd like to make an album with you called Orange Cradle. And I said, well, I'd be delighted. So it took us about a half a year off and on to make it. When we finally made it, he gave Me a spark, a little spark of love, you know, to get. To get moving. He got me writing songs, he got me going, you know. But it all begins with that spark of love. You know, there's a. I call it Van Dyck spark. Because he's got the spark. Yeah, he has the spark.

[Host 1]

I don't know that it's received by the public very much, period.

[Host 2]

Well, you know, I guess I just.

[Host 1]

Don'T even know that most people know about it.

[Host 2]

It's an odd. It's an odd little number, you know, because it is. It's here in the 90s and it's kind of like Van Dyke's second to last album because he's got songs cycled coming up. But that's not for like 15 years after this. And, you know, he's done plenty of other movie, tv, you know, oddball type stuff here and there, but it. It's kind of decontextualized, I think, from what else is going on. Brian, of course, you know, is also in this. We're in this kind of fallow period for him, you know, because we got through all of the solo stuff. We got through Sweet Insanity, but like, after that, we flash forward decade. We jumped from Sweet Insanity, 1990, to. I just Wasn't Made for these Times. And now Orange Great art, which is 1995. That entire chunk of time Post Landy. He's out of the picture, Brian. He's taken steps towards returning to productivity, but he isn't really quite there, certainly in the way that he's going to be later. And I think that's what Van Dyke says a little bit in that documentary is like, I wanted to get Brian back off his ass and kind of get him back into the picture. And Brian, for his manner was like, you know, let's do it. I would love to participate. And so I think that's the story behind this album in that it sounds like a Van Dyke album. Certainly the subject matter is Van Dyke Ian. But it almost feels like something he kind of gave to Brian as a gift, you know, or as a way to sort of make up for some. Some of history. Lost time. Exactly. He mentioned something along those lines also in the documentary. He's like, I don't want Mike Love to have written the story of Van Dyke Parks and Brian Wilson.

[Host 1]

He is very outspokenly contributing to the. The legend. I think when it comes to Mike in this, like, there's no. He does say, I've completely forgiven him.

[Host 2]

Yeah, exactly. He's so spicy.

[Host 1]

He's like, I. He's like. It was very stupid of.

[Host 2]

It was a terrible mistake and I've forgiven him completely.

[Host 1]

Mike Love destroyed the enthusiasm of that project and I've completely forgiven him.

[Host 2]

He is. He's a character, our Van Dyke.

[Host 1]

He's the main character.

[Host 2]

He sure is. But I do, you know, I think that the way we've approached this now is also kind of. I like that we have Brian and Van Dyke intersecting at this moment in time. You know, because we've done all the Van Dyke episodes. I certainly have grown intensely in my appreciation for the man as a recording artist himself. As much as I loved, like, song cycle coming into all this, like, basically the rest of the Van Dyke discography has been new discoveries to me. And it's just endless delight after endless delight. Brian, of course, you know, we. We know what that story's been like. And so seeing the two of them, hearing the two of them come together at this moment in time in 1995 is. It's. It's exactly what I'm looking for. It's very satisfying. Very much part of this, like, mid-90s, sort of like, you know, the jokerman sweet spot that we've spoken about before. It's very set, the Twilight reeling, very Kamakiriad, very. 11 tracks of whack, very Mutineer, very Walking on Locusts. I think that might be the strongest counterpoint for this record.

[Host 1]

It's like, I mean, to anyone else who's just maybe tuning in for maybe the sort of first ish time the.

[Host 2]

Heads know all those.

[Host 1]

Come on, we're talking about what is the thing that unites those is kind of like nebulous at best.

[Host 2]

But on that note, you know what I'm saying?

[Host 1]

I sort of do. And I mean, I do. But we can talk about the COVID maybe to sort of as we are, want to do in this. On that note, the art of Orange Crate Art, the oddly titled album that we have here, which is, if there's something that unites those records, I would say that there's a kind of specificity that is insisted upon that is also not obvious to anyone, perhaps, but the artist making it in terms of the significance of certain odd turns of phrase or conceptual angles. Like you got, you know, like magic and loss. 11 tracks of whack, whatever. We could go on as you did. But Orange Crate Art is another one that's kind of like. It's an odd, very particular reference that basically encompasses the concept of this album. What is that about, to your understanding, Ian?

[Host 2]

Yes, well, as luck would have It I'm a bit of an orange crate art fan. Not only the album orange crate Art, but liter the medium orange grade art. I have some actual orange grade art framed in my kitchen here at home. Because it's very meaningful to me. I've got actually a little bit of information I'll quote from here in Kevin Starr's Inventing the Dream. Kevin Starr, California historian par excellence. He's written a dozen books on the history of California, and I've read four or five of them or something, but basically every element of the state's history, up and down from tip to tail, he has kind of explained. And he's got a great little passage here in his second book on California history, Inventing the Dream about Orange Crate Art, where he says, in the inventive labels pasted upon each orange crate, the selling of California, along with oranges as an image in the national imagination became even more explicit. So appealing in its color, the orange inspired graphic ambitions as early as the publication in 1888 of B.M. lelong's Citrus Treatise by the State Printing Office. Basically, California had kind of become a land of, you know, plenty for many of the early settlers here was revealed that it was prime citrus growing territory. And so orange groves sprang up all across the state. And then the invention, both of, you know, the railroad, which had happened a couple decades earlier, as well as refrigeration, where you could actually keep this shit cold and fresh, allowed California to exports all of these beautiful, delicious oranges back across the country to places that, you know, you couldn't get an orange like a fresh orange in Ohio or in Arkansas or whatever, you know, before all this shit. And so this was very much part of the California myth. That's actually the phrase that Kevin Starr uses in all of these.

[Host 1]

Hey, I've heard that phrase before.

[Host 2]

There you go. It's very much part of this, like, you know, selling of California, this nostalgic image of California, this branding of California that turns it into this larger than life, you know, you almost think of it like as its own country distinct from the United States.

[Host 1]

It kind of is. I mean, it might as well be.

[Host 2]

It is increasing me, brother.

[Host 1]

That's being like, you know, that's sort of a theme that seems to have staying power.

[Host 2]

Yes. Going just a little further on here, Max Schmidt, a San Francisco printer, got into the business of designing, printing and selling orange crate labels with the help of such staff artists as Othello Michetti, an Italian born San Franciscan, and Archie Vasquez, a Los Angeles Basque. Schmidt created a significant genre of folk art. The Orange Crate label.

[Host 1]

You don't hear that many people named Othello. Not anymore.

[Host 2]

Maybe that should come back. Produced through a process called zincography, the Orange Crate labels issuing from Schmidt lithograph glowed with colors later made famous by Maxfield Parrish. Colors that went beyond nature and spoke directly to fantasy. Apricot purple, cobalt blue, sea green, cinnamon, cinnabar, mauve, yellow, orange. Sending a force of salesmen into the citrus groves of Southern California, Schmidt encouraged each grower to collaborate in the creation of an individualized label. Evolving as a genre through the Art Deco era, Orange gray labels reached a special intensity of perfection in the teens and 20s, when they were also conveying their most explicit images. Image of California. Literally hundreds of these designs, seen daily by millions in the grocery stores of America, involved an idealized California landscape. An even larger number involved one or another allegorical or symbolic image suggestive of California as a place apart, a land of fantasy and dreams. One such label. Two luxuriant peacocks lazing in a grove near a fairy tale castle. Their expanded tail feathers, radiant with color, bore the explicit title California Dream. But the dream was everywhere else as well. It was the dream of Spanish California in such labels as La Paloma, a Spanish dancer against a backdrop of cactus. Wheeler's Choice. Ramona, feeding doves beneath an orange tree. We'll come back to Ramona.

[Host 1]

Ramona, that's right.

[Host 2]

Mission Bridge, A bridge in the Spanish style soaring across a blue river, joining an orange grove with a modern roadway. Paisano, a Spanish guitarist or Orange Queen, A Spanish woman holding a basket of oranges. Many labels depicted the Californian lifestyle in images intended to speak directly to middle class America's desire for a home and a happy marriage and healthy children. Including Suburban, which depicted a snug bungalow in Orange Grove. In Seaside, a happy family enjoys a day at the beach In Nightcap. These are all brands. Seaside, suburban, Nightcap. These are orange brands. A suburban California couple have it.

[Host 1]

I'm just going to have a quick orange before bed.

[Host 2]

That's literally what. In Nightcap, a suburban California couple enjoys orange juice before retiring. And in Windermere, a similar pair drive in an open air roadster through a sunny orange grove.

[Host 1]

That is a fantasy. That's. That's completely made up. Orange juice before bed.

[Host 2]

Health, especially healthy children and sport, especially tennis, as in Ventura. Vital, that's another brand which depicted a female tennis player were frequently motifs, as were days at the beach Garden imagery or in the 1930s, imagery relating to Hollywood, including WC Fields face on It's a gift brand inspired by the film in which an Easterner played by Fields inherits an orange grove. It's impossible, obviously, to gauge the influence of these orange crate labels with any precision. Yet these highly stylized images, with their message of California as an outremer, that's some sort of foreign word of vibrancy, color, helpfulness and lush repose verging on the fantastic seen by millions of Americans over a 20 year period in moments of uncensored perception. Strolling down a grocery store aisle, coming in from a bleak farm to a country store, must have contributed in part to California's image of itself and the nation's collective image of California.

[Host 1]

It sure must have. I mean, this is. I feel like it's all coming together. I mean, the Two Jakes is even coming back right now.

[Host 2]

That's right. Well, I mean, if you remember in Chinatown itself, you know, the original, there's that whole scene when Jack, he's driving through the orange groves and on what is ultimately revealed to be the land of what's his name, the other Jake will later.

[Host 1]

The very land. In the sequel, the Two Jakes, they will revisit.

[Host 2]

That's right, exactly. So those are the orange groves and.

[Host 1]

They'Re gonna build bungalows on it. In the Two Jakes, they're actually like, we're better. But this former orange grove and olives and I think something else to build the bungalows symbolic of this idyllic suburban lifestyle.

[Host 2]

I mean, that's where we grew up, basically. Maybe not quite so much the Conejo Valley, but the San Fernando Valley, certainly that was orange groves as far as the eye could see for years and years. And at a certain point someone decided, hey, we're gonna make a lot more money if we just chop all these big farms up into small subdivisions and sell them as single family homes. But like, that's. That's the legend of our own, you know, yours and my personal childhood in many ways. So it's very meaningful to me to have this much attention and appreciation and just sort of mythology, I think, relating to place, you know, places that we come from, especially places that kind of feel, you know, when you're growing up in Calabasas Agora area, they feel a little bit culturally denuded, you know, like, you know, what's going on here. I can't wait to get. This is just a bunch of phony suburban bullshit. But kind of getting in touch, I think, with the history behind the place, that's been very important to me. And so this record that Van Dyke makes, where he's in tune with a lot of these same historical currents, has a very special place in my heart for that reason.

[Host 1]

Well, it's also a very meaningful confluence of his decision to include Brian on this. We said making up for lost time, but it basically is like a spiritual, if not success, or revisitation of Smile. Like the idea of embracing that mythological California in this more rococo and experimental way that they did, that that Smile was attempting to do. This is kind of like a streamlined version of that where Brian is again being cast in this case. Yeah, cast by Van Dyke as a kind of the narrator or the. The voice of this kind of concept. And it's perfect because obviously that was natural to Brian. Like his instincts and their instincts together back then were to do, basically, on paper, exactly what we've already said this album is. And to just take that, you know, a step further, which is also just sort of obvious. But Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys being the. The voice of such a project is obviously rich with import. Like, we're talking about the original definition of the California myth and dream. And the Beach Boys are pretty much like ground zero of the modern era version of that same thing.

[Host 2]

Yeah, I think in the same way that orange crate art is selling this vision of a California Myth in the 1910s, the 1920s, as this land of plenty, this Eden on earth, the Beach Boys themselves and surf music and Gidget and all of that other shit that was going on in the 60s, like, that's selling an updated version of that very same.

[Host 1]

An expanded version. And the original myth, the first phase of that, which this album and Smile is about, but especially this album, it was the thing that led the Wilson family to even go there in the first place. It was like the Ur text, like the original sort of, kind of just an outgrowth of like pioneer mentality. I mean, weren't they literally like pioneer people, like his family?

[Host 2]

I think it was. It was Murray's dad, I believe, that brought them out. Were they Dutch Wilson? Maybe? I don't know about that. I guess if you go back far enough, I'm sure they were. But there are stories I remember of Murray and the Wilson clan, like, camping on the beaches in California when they arrived, because they don't even have a home, like they can't afford a house or anything, but they come out and they camp on the beach as a family in a big tent, which is richly symbolic for its own reason.

[Host 1]

I think that's the same kind of deal as when. Yeah, with the Gidget Story. Frederick Kohner, Gidget's father was. They also were just out doing that in Malibu, Santa Monica era, in the early in the 30s and 20s, I guess.

[Host 2]

Yeah. Even earlier. Yeah. Well, you know, bringing Brian into the project, as Van Dyke does here, like we've said, this is very much him trying to right some of the historical wrongs. Reclaim the narrative from the vile Michael Love in many ways. And I think that also sort of explains why this record was received the way that it was. And why it kind of has the reputation that it does. Which, you know, it doesn't have much of a reputation. It's sort of undersung, I think, in both of their catalogs. Because it's a very like. As much as it is an attempt to sort of, you know, make good on the promise of Smile and all that stuff. This is not Smile, you know, this is not at all what they were trying to do in 1967. It's very much a Van Dyck led project with Brian kind of in a secondary role as opposed to Smile, which I think of as more of a Brian led project with Van Dyke in a secondary role and as big picture and kind of shoot for the stars and mind bending and revelatory as a lot of the Smile music was. This is not that, really. It's sort of smaller, quieter, simpler and a little more. I don't know, it's not shooting for the stars, you know, the same way that Smile did. And so I think when people got wind at the time in 1995 especially, you know, this has been seven years since Brian Wilson has put out an album, you know, the Brian Wilson 88 album. And so people are thinking like, oh, shit, is this gonna be Smile? You know, are we gonna really get it this time? It's Brian Wilson, he's really back. It's Van Dyke Parks. We're gonna make good on 30 years of bad memories. And then it comes out and it doesn't sound anything like that. I think that that sort of is part of the reason that it was maybe passed over to the extent that it was back in 1995.

[Host 1]

What do you think about the album cover?

[Host 2]

I think it's beautiful. You know, it's a very quiet. It looks like a piece of Orange grade art. I think that it might have.

[Host 1]

Been.

[Host 2]

Painted by someone, you know, contemporarily. I forget. I don't know exactly off top my head who did it. But this pastoral, you know, quiet kind of image of a California farmstead. It looks honestly like the hills of Calabasas did you know, 20 or 30 years before you and I were born? But, like, this is. This is just. You could. This could be right off Lost Virgins Road, as far as I know.

[Host 1]

Yeah. That little farm is Erewhon today, right?

[Host 2]

Yeah, exactly. I think it's beautiful and it's touching. And I love the kind of like, homespun little, like, cursive writing that they have Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks written in. Up top.

[Host 1]

Yeah. Yeah. With like, a shadow behind it. It's kind of. Yeah, that kind of dates, I guess, to the 90s, just the way the text looks. But, yeah, it's very. It's very nice. It's a sweet, quiet image.

[Host 2]

It's nice. That's right. But, you know, compared to the Smile cover, which is this sort of pop art, you know, sort of like, almost like sickly grotesque image of this, like, shop with the big smiles and stuff, and the big kind of colorful, childlike renderings, you know, drawings and stuff. And this is like. This is not that. This is quiet and reserved and realistic and not as. Bah. You know, big, you know, kind of making a statement. And I think you see that reflected in a lot of the music, which doesn't leap off the page, out of the speakers. The way that heroes and villains are good at vibrations does, necessarily. But that, to Myers, is just as satisfying in many ways. Should we talk about it?

[Host 1]

Yes.

[Host 2]

All right. Title track. Orange Crate Art was a place to start.

[Host 1]

It is. It was where we must start.

[Host 2]

That's right. What a beautiful song.

[Host 1]

I saw him play this.

[Host 2]

Did he play it at the concert?

[Host 1]

I think he played Orange Crate Art and Sail Away.

[Host 2]

Oh, man, that's great. The more time passes and the more we get, you know, the deeper we get into the Van Dyke park shit, the more I'm just like, why didn't I fly down for that concert? If there's another one of those, you know, because he's only ever going to play concerts, apparently in Tokyo or the San Fernando Valley. I'm going to come down for the next one.

[Host 1]

Yeah, it was great. And it's. Yeah, it's a great song.

[Host 2]

Orange Crate Art was a place to start Orange Crate Art was a world apart Home for two With a view of Sonoma Where I'm headed today. That's why we're taping so early. Thank you for getting up. But, I mean, that's part of what I love about this record also is, like, you know, I grew up as a. As a lad there in Southern California, first 25 years of my life. And I was a bit of a Los Angeles supremacist. You know, fuck San Diego. Fuck San Francisco. It's all about Los Angeles. And, you know, I do still have a very warm place in my heart for Southern California. But as I've grown older and certainly now that I live here in the Bay Area and I spend time in wine country and Central California coast, Big Sur, Carmel area, just my appreciation for the state in general, you know, from Eureka down to Tijuana and everything in between is just like, this is my land, this is my home. And I feel like Van Dyke kind of has that same feeling. And that comes through very clearly in a lot of these songs.

[Host 1]

Yes, yes. I am increasingly feeling similarly. I'm going up there soon enough to visit, and you'll be here and you'll.

[Host 2]

Be down in Big Sur, and that's right. Enjoying the bounty of northern Central California.

[Host 1]

Going up there for my birthday. So that's how much I am enjoying the other parts of the state these days. I would go there for my birthday even.

[Host 2]

Orange crate table in a rocking chair Barnyard gate waiting some repair Trust in fate and sweet inspiration you could go bust to replace just what is here by the case. You know, very Van Dyke type of lyricism here. You know, this rich, kind of verbose, rhythmic type of singing. There's someone who. Do you remember in the documentary? There's some guy, he's like, making records with some guitar player or something who I'd never heard of, but he's. The guitar player is sitting there, and Van Dyke is in the background, and he's like. The guitar player's like, if this were a normal song, you know, it would sound like this. And he just strums a couple chords and then he's like, but if it were a Van Dyke park song, Van.

[Host 1]

Dyke will almost never just sort of do this. You know, how many songs sort of do this? If Van Dyke wrote this song, it would be like.

[Randy Newman]

And then.

[Host 2]

Then I would go.

[Host 1]

Yeah, then it would go.

[Host 2]

Whatever. And Van Dyke is back there, you know, grinning and nodding and like, that's. That's what you get here on this record. And I think I remember reading a review or two of this album. Like, you know, it's. It's hard to remember some of the melodies or the tunes, and they're not particularly catchy in the way that, like, Beach Boy's songs are. And it's like, yeah, maybe, but, like, that's also not what he's trying to do.

[Host 1]

But it's Also the most accessible I think he's been in a long time. If maybe if ever, like, I mean, the next song or the first song, and especially Sail Away is like. It's pretty hooky and catchy. Like, I. I feel like there's actually an argument to be made that this is a more streamlined version of Van Dyke music than we usually get.

[Host 2]

Oh, yeah, no, I think more streamlined is absolutely the word. Certainly compared to something like Jump or.

[Host 1]

Tokyo Rose, those ones, like. Yeah, compared to Tokyo Rose, this is like. This is like the Ramones.

[Host 2]

That's right. Although even that, you know, certainly some of the subject matter, like remember Manzanar, for instance? You know, the song about like the Japanese internment camp there in central California. Like, that could absolutely fit on this record. Just in terms of subject matter, its fascination with this kind of interesting moment in California history. This is a much more sort of optimistic, kind of bright eyed look at California history. Nostalgic, positive, forward looking. So a song about the internment of Japanese people during World War II maybe wouldn't fit in thematically, but I think that I see how he gets from Manzanar to this over the span of six years.

[Host 1]

Yeah, well, I guess I would be more accurate to say Jump is the one that is like more dense than. Yeah, it's like Jump and song cycle are like probably the high points of like, complexity and this esotericism. Yeah, there's stuff that's on. Yeah. On Tokyo Rose that is actually like extremely similar to this and like kind of more balanced. Like you get the feeling, the flavor, that Van Dyke feeling, but you don't have. Yeah. Maybe like the. As much to kind of untangle to. To enjoy the music. There's stuff on here that feels very Tokyo Rose, like Palm Tree and Moon. Like there's actually some, like some instrumentation that has an eastern flair.

[Host 2]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Host 1]

Also San Francisco has a little.

[Host 2]

We'll get to all that. I can't wait to get to those too. But to quote. Yeah. Darian, when he was on the pod a couple weeks ago, Brian might say that song's got a little Chinese in it.

[Host 1]

Yes. I mean, this is literally true of San Francisco, as it should be, in terms of.

[Host 2]

Lord knows this city's got a little Chinese in it.

[Host 1]

Sure does.

[Host 2]

Yeah. You know, it's. It's kind of got the flip, you know, when like a brand, like a high fashion brand does like a collab with Uniqlo. Let's say, like, like last year capsule collection. Yeah. There was like a Lemaire Uniqlo there's.

[Host 1]

Always a La Mer Uniqlo on.

[Host 2]

Yeah. Like J.W.

[Host 1]

Anderson.

[Host 2]

Right. That's kind of what this is like Van Dyke is that kind of like esoteric high fashion, high cost, obviously brand that brings with it all of this kind of artistic bona fides and cultural cachet. And Brian is kind of Uniqlo in this case. And together they're going to sort of meet in the middle and bring the best of that more esoteric style to a wider audience. And it might end up dissatisfying fans of like both of them, you know, because like your typical mall goer isn't necessarily gonna try to buy, you know, like a Lemaire belted jean or something. And a Lemaire fan is not gonna buy a Uniqloak T shirt or whatever. But like, I think that's kind of the same spirit behind it.

[Host 1]

Yeah. Yeah. I feel like this album just needs to be introduce to people more. I guess that's what we're doing.

[Host 2]

But that's the idea here. Exactly. On Jokerman Palm, it does only have what, like, what are the streams looking like? 30,000, 40,000, 50,000 plays on most of these songs.

[Host 1]

Yeah. Not a lot.

[Singer/Performer]

From the vine of a vintage crew Comes the wine of this rendezvous Room for two in view of Sonoma Back when Ramona had heart Memories of her.

[Host 2]

Orange Crate art.

[Host 1]

I sail away for the next song on. On the album. It's probably the most song. Yeah, it's like the. It's. It's great. I. I remember when he played this, like the line where he says, a toast to what's left of my memory. He like did a little gesture like put like, oh, my. My memory. Because he like forgot something earlier. He had a little moment of like having fun with that senior moment.

[Host 2]

We've all had him.

[Host 1]

I. Yeah, sure. I feel like this is. Was this a single? Were there singles?

[Host 2]

Because, boy, I maybe. I don't know.

[Host 1]

Kind of doesn't seem like.

[Host 2]

It doesn't really seem like a single forward album. I mean, if there were a single.

[Host 1]

I would say this would be it, for my money.

[Host 2]

Yeah. I mean, in terms of like a catchy element, I think this would probably make the most sense. Orange Crate Art. The song itself would probably also maybe be the single just in that it were, you know, it is the. The title. It doesn't look like there was a single, for what it's worth, at least according to Wikipedia, so I'm not shocked.

[Host 1]

Yeah, it's great. It's. It's just so. It. I love like the thing at the end that just kind of has like, a. Where it gets, like, a little bit dramatic, like reinterprets that main theme refrain. Yeah.

[Host 2]

And it's beautiful instrumentation, too. And, you know, you get a lot of the. You know, there's steel drum on here, there's accordion on here, there's strings on here. It's got all of these flavors that, you know. Nautical.

[Host 1]

Well, it's kind of coastal. Nautical.

[Host 2]

Coastal, yeah. Sort of good vibes, you know, easy, easy breezy type of thing. This occurred to me when I was watching that documentary. How much do you think he was, like, referencing Sail Away, like, Randy Sail Away with this. Do you think it's just totally a coincidence or.

[Host 1]

Well, it does have a lot of lines about when my ship will come in.

[Host 2]

Ship come?

[Host 1]

Yeah, I mean, it's ship coming in. But I don't think that it's referencing Randy's Sail Away in anything but, like, a subtle nod, maybe just that the actual word is in there.

[Host 2]

But it's almost like, you know, because the great thing about Sail Away, the Randy Sail Away, is that, like, there's an irony to that title. Like, you think of a song called Sail Away and you expect it to be this beautiful, adventurous, exciting, you know, happy type song. And then, of course, the song Sail Away, Randy Newman Sail Away is what it is. This song kind of sounds like what you would expect a song, Sail Away, to be titled.

[Host 1]

Yeah. Yeah. It's wistful. I like that. This song is kind of not so. Just straight up happy, though. And that's something that. In that documentary, someone is. I forget who very accurately expresses that. Like, the strength of Van Dyke Parks is that there's a kind of acknowledgment of. Of sadness and. And unsatisfactoriness of. Of life within the music. But that, like, the happiness or, like, free romance of it is. Is poignant because you always feel like he understands the other side of that, even if the song doesn't directly make reference to it. Where that kind of thing exists in Randy Newman's music, too. But it. He is much more, you know, pointed and straightforward about it.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Or he can't. You know, he was a very. He. He can just kind of go beast mode and. And do stuff where it's like that irony or that dichotomy is, like, weaponized almost. But, yeah, Van Dyke has more of, like a. A subtle flair for that, which. Yeah, this is like, a great example of.

[Host 2]

Yeah, there's a quote, you know, about sort of his inspiration behind this album. Just, you know, there's not much information on the Wikipedia page, but I think this quote from. From him is. Is relevant to this topic where he says, probably my first impression. Van Dyck is saying this. My first impression of California was an orange at Christmas time or something. Once upon a time. That was a very special thing to have an orange because it came by train. That's what we were just talking about earlier. It was to extol the propagandist art that brought California a sense of reality. It made real estate, or, excuse me, a sense of realty. It made real estate saleable with the idea that California offered a Garden of Eden, a perpetual breadbasket and a virtual cornucopia. It pretends to be somnambulistic.

[Host 1]

Cornucope.

[Host 2]

Cornucope. Listen, he said it, not me. It pretends to be somnambulistic. This is classic Van Dyck. But it really is an urging to think about California on those terms of lost love, of things disappearing, and the potential of the human spirit. In other words, there is this. And I think you hear this in Sail Away and several of these other songs. There is this kind of slight darkness underlying a lot of these songs because it's music about a period of time and places that have disappeared or are disappearing and are no longer going to be with us. And so you can't help but have this. Even as some of these songs sound sort of light and happy and fresh. There is this sense of. Not tragedy, necessarily, but sort of melancholy to a lot of this music.

[Host 1]

But, yeah, it's. It's actually a perfect title. Orange Crate Art. For that reason that it's like. It's. I mean, we've kind of already said it, but that. That particular thing of it being something that is ephemeral, like, it is just, you know, in the. In those days. Just literally like something to put on a box that, like, nobody's considering this as, like, worthy of framing back in the day. It's just around. It's just kind of this effort put in to prop up the notion that there is some. Some ideal connected to this place and that you're part of it by buying it to. To revisit that with a feeling of like, no, that was actually very beautiful and it was worthy of framing even if no one. You know. Now there's maybe people who recognize that, like, all. It's all too late. But it's the point of a record like this to emphasize that. To be like, no, that ideal is a deeper. Is a more important Kind of. Kind of thing than just like a way to sell oranges or a way to sell soap, as Bob Dylan said.

[Host 2]

Yeah, absolutely. It's not the same way that, that, you know, Surfing USA and Surfing Safari and 400 like those, that all meant more than just like teeny bopper surf music and cartoon.

[Host 1]

Yeah. But it meant less then than it does like in terms of actual content. Like real like emotional and historical import. Like that stuff was just kind of empty pleasantry, just pure, just fun. And now it's like. It's not just fun, it's also. Yeah. The, you know, the. The essence of something which maybe never really existed, never really did.

[Host 2]

But I mean, you see this also in. And we'll get to this hell at the end of this record on a particular song which, you know, I think is one of both of our favorites. But like, you know, a Buster Keaton movie or a Charlie Chaplin, like these guys didn't think they were making or they didn't set out to make these movies as like, you know, objects of high art necessarily. You know, like lifelong achievements in the medium of cinema.

[Host 1]

They just wanted to do a good job.

[Host 2]

A good job, exactly. And Lord knows they did. And they were successful as hell back in time. But over time they've also taken on, you know, they have become these landmark achievements of high art. Basically, I think the same kind of process. Yeah, you see with orange crate labels, with Beach Boys music, it's sort of a. I don't know, it's something that kind of tends to happen or has happened certainly in this kind of commercialized kind of 20th century of pop culture and art and saleable type of mediums that maybe didn't exist quite so much back in the past. I think that there is something about this sense of these artistic efforts that are initially being made to sell something. And so the artistic element of them is there, but it's sort of sublimated. But over time, you know, the artistic element, that's what lasts.

[Host 1]

Yeah, exactly.

[Host 2]

Salable element, that's whatever. That's just a one time transaction. It's the art itself. That's what comes to matter.

[Singer/Performer]

When I desire company I leave my footprints on the sand By a reckless sea Hoping you come to me.

[Interviewer]

And.

[Singer/Performer]

We'Ll explore what might have been and leave the shore and give this tired old world a spin when my ship will come in sun up we'll sail away the day that my ship comes.

[Interviewer]

In.

[Singer/Performer]

Fast as the highest mast can take us to any old where but here One captain's paradise for Two sky in a sea that's twice as blue.

[Host 1]

My hobo heart this is like. Yeah, this, like, heart of mine. Or well, maybe not this hobo heart of mine. My hobo heart. You know, this. This is my. Yeah, my. It's like. It's like I'm the kind of guy who will never settle down.

[Host 2]

Yeah, exactly the way Dennis. Dennis would have done a great job on this one.

[Host 1]

It's a little bit more. Yeah, he would. Me and my hobo hut. It's a. It's a nice song. I think it's just a funny. I mean, hobo, again, being very much intentionally chosen word image because it ties in so seamlessly with, like, the. The whole picture here. The train hopper.

[Host 2]

That's right. You know, the guy who would be, like, roasting a boot over a fire.

[Host 1]

Roasting a weenie over a fire.

[Host 2]

Oh, yeah. I guess you fish up a boot.

[Host 1]

Fishing up a boot by mistake. Yeah. Yeah.

[Host 2]

Thank you for correcting me.

[Host 1]

The. The images here are also, like, you think about Steinbeck. It's all very Steinbecky. And the COVID kind of also could be like the COVID of any of his books that take place in.

[Host 2]

I think Grace of Wrath even is mentioned in one of these songs, if memory serves.

[Host 1]

Yeah, I think so. But, yeah, all those characters. Almost all of his most famous stories take place in. In Salinas and the surrounding environs.

[Host 2]

If you're going down to Big Sur from here in San Francisco, you'll basically drive through Salinas or certainly Monterey. You know, you should take a stop if you never spend too much time there.

[Host 1]

Yeah, well, I want to go to the aquarium.

[Host 2]

The aquarium, that's right.

[Host 1]

I really like quite a place. What's your favorite Steinbeck? I like Cannery Row.

[Host 2]

I don't think I've ever read any Steinbeck, to be honest.

[Host 1]

What? Yeah, you should read Travels with Charlie and Search.

[Host 2]

I know you mentioned that before. I would like to read Cannery Row as well. Anytime we drive down to, like, the Carmel area, we drive. There's a big sign that says, like, you know, Monterey, Cannery Row. Get off at this exit.

[Host 1]

Yeah, my. Actually, my. Like, the sleeper hit of Steinbeck is the Log from the Sea of Cortez. That one's really good. That's like. It's just like a kind of docu fiction. It's not even fiction, really. It's just kind of like, about him going out with this group of marine biologists in, like, the 40s around the Gulf of Mexico and California. The Gulf of Mexico.

[Host 2]

That's Right. That's what it's called. I'll put it on my list. Lot to read.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

My Hobo Heart. It's very fun. You know, it's about a hobo who believes that he has a hobo heart, but it turns out that he's got a sweetie baby and she's claimed his hobo heart.

[Host 1]

Well, it's not necessarily about a hobo, is it? It's about a man. His heart. His heart is a hobo. His heart is a roving wanderer he.

[Host 2]

Wants to keep on the road Keep moving from town to town. What does he say? I had a love in every town I swore I would sooner die than ever settle down Me and my hobo heart But Lord knows once you find the one now my traveling days are through and riding horses in the sand or walking with you hand in hand Will do Me and my hobo heart.

[Host 1]

Not to go back to it, but to go back to it a little bit. I just remembered the whole Big Sur saga, the Beach Boys thing, which is like, they actually do mention Travels with Charlie, the Steinbeck.

[Host 2]

I think that's where we had that conversation.

[Host 1]

Mentioned it before.

[Host 2]

Yeah, that's in what? That's in California, I think. And that's obviously after the Robinson Jeffers, you know, Beaks of Eagles section. It's.

[Host 1]

Yeah, it's like. It's. We could. You could make a whole playlist of just like, the California. The great California, this type of California myth stuff from Van Dyke and the Beach Boys and Brian.

[Host 2]

Right. And that's what's funny is that, like, that was there in the Beach Boys initially. That was in 1973. And, you know, they. They. You know, shortly thereafter, you know, Endless Summer comes out, and they just kind of eject that element from all of their shit going forward for the most part.

[Host 1]

But that's like the ground, which, like, it's. It's interesting that that was. That's. You can't really divorce that song from Mike, you know, that is like a Mike showcase.

[Host 2]

Sure. Mike love. Great artist.

[Host 1]

It's also like, if you want to throw Mike a bone, you know, why might you forgive him? It's part Mike Globe. Great artist. It's like that. It's like a way of meeting him halfway. That's, like, pretty obvious that, like, they maybe, you know, to give him some more credits. Like, he was maybe not down to do purely abstracted versions of this, but make it literally about something that is, you know, that, like, this record is honestly, like, Mike could have. Mike probably wouldn't have had a problem with this kind of material. So much had it been presented to him in the Beach Boys days, like, if. If for. If somehow just imagining that they were doing more stuff, like the stuff on this record, I think Mike would have been able to be convinced, you know. Sure. Rather than the Smile stuff, which is, like, just, frankly, this on acid. So, like, throw a couple songs about girls in there. I could see him singing Hobo Heart, for example. Like, and. And just literalize that, and you still get great music. It's just, you know, interesting to think about. Like, there's. There's a case to be made that there maybe a bridge could have been forged that, you know, that was never to be.

[Host 2]

But, yeah, at one point, such a thing could have been possible. But of course, way back then, when Mike was a little bit more out there, Van Dyke was even way more out there, you know. And only 20 years after the fact does this record come out. And, like, it would have been potentially something that would have been more appealing, you know, to Mike 20 years in the past. You know, it's sort of like a ships in the night type thing. Although, as we've seen, Van Dyke is playing accordion on Summer in Paradise and Kokomo and shit. So, like, there is still some sort of, you know, connection. It might be purely financial at this point, but there is still some sort of, you know, inextricable bond between him and Mike and Beach Boys even into the 1990s.

[Host 1]

What do we have next? It's.

[Host 2]

What do we have next? It's Wings of a Dove.

[Host 1]

Oh, yeah. Wings of a Dove. Yeah.

[Host 2]

Yes, man. What a great song. Wings of a Dove. I just love listening to all of these songs.

[Host 1]

Yeah, yeah.

[Host 2]

That'S right. That's right. I mean, what. What starts to emerge by this point? You know, we've had Sail Away My Hobo Heart, Wings of a Dub, and we'll get this in a couple more. Like. These aren't necessarily. You know, you could think of Orange Crate Art as a concept album in. In some sense, but these songs aren't necessarily, like, explicitly about California or specific places in California or things that at a point in time. There are other songs certainly that are and that kind of give this record its structure, but several of these songs, and I think these three songs in a row in particular, Sail Away, My Hoboheart and Wings of a Dove, like, kind of fit in thematically with what's going on. They kind of give you an emotional sense of what. What Van Dyke might be imagining. But, like, this shit doesn't have to necessarily be set in California of the nineteen teens. This could work anywhere else. This could work on any other record. But here it sort of fleshes out the concept that he's working with on a more emotional level.

[Host 1]

This one's got a little bit of Nintendo feeling. I could imagine this, you know, turned into Mario music pretty easily.

[Host 2]

Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo.

[Host 1]

Doo doo doo doo doo.

[Host 2]

It's got a little bit of. It's got a little bit of Toy Story to it also. And that might just mean, hey, 95. Well, exactly. It might be me thinking of it, because Toy Story comes out this year, and obviously this documentary where Van Dyke and Randy are hanging, they even ask Randy a little bit about, like, whether he's doing what he wants to do with his music. And he talks about, like, within the film world. I can do what I want to do within the parameters of the film.

[Host 1]

Which is, I would say Toy Story, which we never did a Toy Story episode is, you know, Toy Story is probably like, a great. Maybe the best example of, like, Randy writing songs for. At least, you know, for sensible children's movies, where it's like, you listen to, like, something like, Strange things are happening to me or the. Or I will go sailing no more. Speaking of sailing. Yeah. He's, like, fully writing proper songs, proper Randy Newman songs for that movie anyway.

[Host 2]

Right. And it's not just the songs also. It's, you know, it's the score, the orchestral arrangement. And, like, this has got. Several of these songs, I think, have that kind of timeless, optimistic, sort of suburban, green hills, blue skies, golden sunshine type of feeling. I don't know. It's hard for me to put it into more specific terms than that. If I were that guy, you know, that nerdlinger from the Brian Wilson documentary, I might be able to explain what chord changes are in here that are making me feel that way. But I just. Listening to a song like this, I can just imagine Woody and Buzz going on some sort of adventure in the backyard or something.

[Host 1]

Palm tree and moon. This one is the one that sounds very Oriental, for lack of a better word.

[Host 2]

We got a little Chinese here. Put it in a letter, Put it in a let.

[Host 1]

It's just short of that.

[Host 2]

But, you know, I think it comes from the right place.

[Host 1]

Well, it's like, of course. I mean, it's. When it comes to that type of thing, it's like, were you gonna tell me that Chinese music doesn't sound like that sometimes? It sure does. Like, what are we. It's. Is It. I don't think we're gonna get into that thing of, like.

[Host 2]

What I'm saying is, who has the.

[Host 1]

Right to tell the story of Chinese?

[Host 2]

Well, yeah, I mean, what I'm saying is that it's not. This isn't a turning Japanese situation.

[Host 1]

No, that I think is a. That song is vulgar. You know, it's. This is more like thinking about being Japanese, pondering, contemplating such a thing. And I'm not also saying that Japanese and Chinese are interchangeable here, different at all. Okay. But we would be crazy to imagine that there aren't both, I think, significant and important Japanese and Chinese influences, respectively, upon California. And you know what? You're going to tell me that's not true?

[Host 2]

Absolutely.

[Host 1]

Of course there are.

[Host 2]

And I think that's why that he has those little motifs appearing in this song. I mean, it starts with that line, this is so far from China. The starlight like to blind you A lover's way of saying come home soon Put it in a letter. You know, it's. It's. Lord knows that this. This great state was built on the back of, you know, Chinese and Japanese immigrants in exploitative and unfair working relationships in many cases. And I think, as we saw on Tokyo Rose, for instance, Van Dyke is sensitive to these things, aware of them, and wants to honor them to the extent that he can, even as he is. Is, you know, coming at this topic from the point of view of an American who's interested in Americana. As he describes it, this is part of Americana, you know, it has become part of Americana by virtue of this great nation's willingness to open its arms to immigrants from all across the world throughout its history. Lord knows we hope that such attitudes continue. It's a beautiful little song. What's he getting at here? I put it in a letter how could I love you better? Dropped it in a bottle in the sea Put it in a letter I don't know where it went so I sent to Sacramento Said you were meant for me Sort of a lost love type of thing, seems.

[Host 1]

Yeah, yeah. I gotta be honest, I don't really know exactly what's going on in this.

[Host 2]

Song, but When a comet comes out to fall why on earth do we feel so small? Must be heaven that we hear call and in this natural planet I feel like catching your hand out under our palm tree and moon I think it's. It's, you know, speaking to some classic California imagery. What is more Californian than the palm tree, which is, of course, an imported, you know, immigrant plant that has come to define the image of this great state, even as it didn't have anything to do with the actual territory here.

[Host 1]

Yeah, I'm seeing all kinds of palm trees out my window right now. Right now I'm literally looking at the Hollywood sign and palm trees in front of it.

[Host 2]

Beautiful. I think a lot of the palm trees in Los Angeles are.

[Host 1]

They're all supposed to die at the same time.

[Host 2]

Yeah. Because they all got planted like 100 years ago and they're all gonna die around now.

[Host 1]

Yeah. From what I understand, there is an effort or an initiative to I guess, replace them with some other more appropriate native trees. But I think for the areas that are really crucially like palm tree areas, they're not gonna let like the. The Sunset Boulevards, like the Rodeo Drive. They're not gonna like, you know, it's. It's kind of like any other thing in the city about, like the rich areas and trees where it's like if you're in a high rent zone, you don't have to worry about the trees going away so much.

[Host 2]

Right. Yeah. That sounds like just a mess waiting to happen.

[Host 1]

I mean, the most whack thing about trees in this city is just like there are entire large swaths of Los Angeles where, from what I understand, it's like basically been like. Like trees have been like. Yeah. Intentionally. Because it's not as easy for cops to see from helicopters. If there's trees in certain areas, which they want to keep helicopters around for, like, just literally like getting people. Yeah.

[Host 2]

I mean, try walking up and down, like Western, for instance, and like, woof.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

Count the number of blocks it takes before you see one tree that provides.

[Host 1]

Like a little shade.

[Host 2]

Sliver of shade to people waiting for the bus.

[Host 1]

Palm trees don't provide any shade also. It's just like, they don't. They don't.

[Host 2]

More of a. More vibe type tree than a functional.

[Host 1]

Type tree, which is just as important if we're gonna. Especially if we're talking about the logic of this album. There's no palm trees in. In Monterey, though. That's. That's the. That's the other side of the coin. There's.

[Host 2]

Well, just wait till you get up there.

[Host 1]

Are there palm trees over there? There?

[Host 2]

Yeah, there's palm trees all up and down this. I've got. There's a palm tree literally right outside my front door here in San Francisco.

[Host 1]

Well, they're all over Monterey. So beautiful a place. As I said, Cannery Rose, like, probably the best thing about, like, piece of fiction about Monterey. I. I Think it's sad. What's kind of become of it, that it's sort of a. You know, it's. It's just. It's kind of like just what you see in what's that show, Big Little Lies. It's now just kind of like the province of like a wealthier.

[Host 2]

There are parts of it that are like that, certainly, but there are also parts of it that are still. You know, there's so. There's so much great, like hiking and like state parks and stuff in that area. You should go. If you're going there. You would love this place called the Sardine Factory.

[Host 1]

Sounds great. I'm in.

[Host 2]

Which. Yeah, it's exactly what it sounds like. But Clint Eastwood actually. Have you ever seen Play Misty for me, the movie.

[Host 1]

I haven't. I haven't seen that one.

[Host 2]

See that one? It's fantastic. It's set there in like Carmel, Monterey area, of course, where Clint Eastwood lives and has made his legend. But he goes to the Sardine Factory, which is this. It's basically just this old little dinghy boat that's been set up on a hill and then has been turned into like an old school steakhouse type truck. And he has a drink there at like one in the morning and he meets Jessica Walter there. And that's where the whole, you know, kind of action in the film kicks off, but exactly like it did in 1971.

[Host 1]

I see them sitting there. It's. Yeah, yeah. Or they're sitting at some table with the water next to it, though, so maybe that's not. Anyway, yeah, the way it's depicted in Steinbeck is very much like. Like Cannery Row is all about like these like, layabouts and. And bums and kind of like people who just kind of. Yeah. Like straight up, a lot of it is just about this. These. This gaggle of. Of loafing buns that kind of live up there. And then like, there's the. The marine biologist character who's also like. Who's actually this guy Ed Ricketts, who is like the. Also the subject of the Sea of Cortez thing. It's just all very romantic. And like, the place he's describing is much more democratic in terms of like the variety and types of people who live there. It's a very idyllic representation of that, which is basically what you're getting on. This is. He's remembering. Van Dyke. Remembering anyway, like the. Yeah. Childhood summers in Monterey.

[Host 2]

Summer in Monterey, that's right. Yeah. You know, this point in time when it was A little life was a little slower paced and fabulous wealth had not crept its way up and down the coastline. Certainly to the extent that it has at this point. There's this sense of like, it doesn't even seem clear that this family or these kids or whatever that are the ostensible subject of this song.

[Host 1]

They're not rich. Do anything.

[Host 2]

Yeah, exactly. I guess it says it wasn't so long ago that every year your family would rent a house from June to Labor Day summer in Monterey. But it's not like a. Like a big, you know, Gatsby estate type thing or anything. It's probably just a little clapboard shack and people were hanging there. None of us wore no clothes in Monterey. Our feet were bare, our shorts were all we'd ever wear. And I would jump for joy that you were there. It's beautiful.

[Host 1]

Yeah, it's certainly sweet.

[Host 2]

What. And certainly take you to the movie show. Watching arm in arm. Used to hope the film would work its charm. You know, what's going on there. That's a feeling we've all had.

[Host 1]

Jessica. Walter is such a babe.

[Host 2]

Oh, yeah. Dime, you gotta see that movie. Cause Bob, I mean, Bob mentions it in Murder Most Val, and it's such. The vibe of that movie is so weird. And Clint looks fantastic. She looks fantastic. Some of the footage of Monterey and Big Sur looks fantastic. It's such a delight.

[Host 1]

What's that other. I watched this other movie, the Sandpiper. Have you seen that with Richard Burton and. And Elizabeth Taylor and it's. They. I think it. I think that it's.

[Van Dyke Parks]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

It takes place in Big Sur. Action.

[Van Dyke Parks]

Oh, wow.

[Host 2]

The film explores the relationship between a repressed religious school headmaster and a free spirited California artist in the years. Bridging the beatnik and hippie movements.

[Host 1]

Exactly. Yeah. She's like a beatnik painter sculptor lady with like, who's like a single mom and he's like, yeah. This kind of honest but repressed. Yeah. Religious school teacher. And then they. They have an affair.

[Host 2]

Wow. Yeah. Look at this. One of the very few major studio pictures ever filmed in Big Sur. Stories specifically set there. Film includes many locations of Big Sur landmarks including Pfeifer Beach Point, Lobos State Reserve, Bixby Creek Bridge, Nepenthe Gallery and Nepenthe.

[Host 1]

Yeah, yeah. It's great.

[Host 2]

All right, I'll put this on the list. This looks great.

[Host 1]

Speaking of summer in Monterey, San Francisco, speaking of rich people changing the landscape of a place. But I'll say that last time I was in San Francisco, I could be wrong. But I feel like it's kind of not. It's bouncing back or like.

[Host 2]

You didn't seem to have such a bad time.

[Host 1]

No, no, I had a great time. But I also feel like the. Even from the time before then, I think the clutches of the tech money of it all maybe seem to be loosening just in terms of vibe in the city. Am I crazy?

[Host 2]

I'd say that's true to an extent. The vibe thing is. I mean the whole AI thing is very much here. I think part of it is that they've sort of of migrated out of the areas that normal people hang out and want to be in. A lot of the AI shit is in this new development area on the east side of the city called Mission Bay, where the baseball stadium is and the basketball stadium is and it's all these glassy high rise towers. SOMA's got a lot of this also. And generally if you just kind of steer clear of those areas, you're going to have an okay time steering clear.

[Host 1]

Of a bad neighborhood. It's like, you don't want to go over there. Everybody.

[Host 2]

But he's just, well, yeah, I mean, think about like, imagine going to like Century City in Los Angeles to hang out on a Friday night, right? Or like walking up and down. Imagine this is even more appropriate. Imagine walking up and down like Abbot.

[Host 1]

Kenny these days or these days, like going to Culver City to hang out. Honestly, exactly. Why would I do that?

[Host 2]

There are just places in the city that, you know, that type of person goes there and I'm gonna stay away. Cause me and my type of people go other places and that's okay.

[Host 1]

Let them. I mean, it's a shame that they've done that to Culver City, what they've done. But if you want to have this sweet green ghetto, let it be this separate place, right?

[Host 2]

Keep them over there and let them just kind of stay in their own little universe.

[Host 1]

The saving grace of that dynamic for normal people is just that the fickleness of such people of the tech world, they don't enjoy a place for what it is, they just want to turn it into what they want it to be for their own convenience for as long as they're there. And once there's a reason to be somewhere else, they're just going to leave and they're not going to miss it.

[Host 2]

Exactly, exactly. And you know, you saw that at the beginning of the pandemic, certainly when all these jobs went remote and many of these people went to fucking Austin and Las Vegas and Denver or Whatever. No shade on any of those cities. But, you know, they're not San Francisco. But, like, these. These people are not sort of part of the urban fabric, part of the history of the, you know, the city here in the way that, you know, Jerry, let's say, might be patron saint of my neighborhood in the Excelsior. Yeah. San Francisco.

[Host 1]

The San Francisco time to giddy up.

[Host 2]

Do a diddy up. I think it's such a. That's such a sunny down, snuff type, you know, callback to me. I love that.

[Host 1]

I think we can also use this opportunity to point out, like, what do we think of Brian and his presence, his voice in all of this? It is kind of enlightening to watch him with Van Dyke. You see briefly, them singing together. If it wasn't in that documentary, it was maybe in the other one. Is it in I Just Wasn't Made for these Times?

[Host 2]

It's in I Just Wasn't. Yeah. I think they do Orange Grade Art in I Just Wasn't Made for these Times.

[Host 1]

Yeah. Or Van Dyke is, like, very kind of placidly playing the piano. And Brian looks very focused singing that song, like, Staring Straight Ahead.

[Host 2]

And I mean, the quip about this album, you know, why Brian got brought in to it in the first place. If anyone knows anything about this album, it's because Brian is supposed to have asked Van Dyke on his first day in the studio, like, why do you have me here? Why am I singing these songs? And Van Dyke replies, because I can't stand the sound of my own voice. Voice. And Brian says, oh, that makes perfect sense. And then they go on to make the record. I think these songs. I mean, I guess you heard several of these songs sung by Van Dyke at the concert last year. I don't see why he couldn't have sung these songs. I love Van Dyke's voice. I guess I understand him being sensitive about it or not thinking that it's right for this material. I think that it would have sounded great coming from him. It sounds great coming from Brian, too, though. He's got a very different. Like, he's not doing great singing in many cases, you know, but the fact that it's Brian Wilson doing the singing, like, that's. That's the important element. Not, like how it necessarily sounds.

[Host 1]

Yeah. I mean, I wonder if when he said that he was. Oh, it's because I don't like my own voice. I think maybe it's. It's partly that, but I would guess it's also just like, in front Of Brian, he probably wasn't. Maybe. Maybe wasn't inclined to say, like. Well, it's because you're thematically correct for this material. So I want to use you for this because, like, that's. You know, there's. Why maybe he wouldn't want to just, like, tell Brian that he's just kind of demurring on the subject.

[Host 2]

I think that could be true. But I also think that, you know, I think you could have a little column. A little column B there type of thing.

[Host 1]

Yeah, it's probably both. Anyway, this song's ridiculous. And it's probably the San Francisco, the goofiest one.

[Host 2]

Oh, it's so much fun.

[Host 1]

San Francisco, Brian.

[Host 2]

I mean, and that's the great thing about this album. You could hear he's just, like, having a ball singing this stuff. I think that him having had all this, you know, all these lyrics written for him and then not having to have, you know, any of the Eugene Landy of it all or the Mike Love or whatever, like, he can just kind of come in and sing these songs. He does the vocal arrangements, too. It should be noted that that's him. That's all him doing the singing, like, all the harmonies and stuff in the background. That's. That is a major contribution here, and I think that sounds fantastic. But beyond that, he can just kind of sing these silly lyrics and not think too hard about what they might mean.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Host 2]

Time to giddy up Du wa ditty up. I love that. It's also giddy up down to San Francisco, which implies that this song is set north of San Francisco. You know, typically, you think of California as, you know, basically the state that exists between Los Angeles and San Francisco. But there's a hell of a lot more to this, you know, this territory beyond those two cities and that small slice of land there. Up and down the 1 1. So wherever this song is set thematically, emotionally, it's. It's somewhere north. I think it's maybe ostensibly supposed to be set, like, during the Gold Rush. Right. You know, how am I missing those days of yore? El Dorado Miss those frisky women Raw rye whiskey with each kissing. I can't even say these lyrics are so hard to get through the tongue twisting. For this desperado was gold in the dust. Like many a man in God I do trust gave up on El Dorado. You go back down to San Francisco. There's one more little nugget of history here in this song. San Francisco towards the end Hope there you'll find love is not for sale. Out at the end of the trail.

[Host 1]

Right. He does say end of the trail.

[Host 2]

End of the Trail, of course, is the name of the sculpture of the Native American on the horse that is so instrumental to the image of the Surf's up album and had initially been exhibited here in Francisco in the first place at the, I think, the Pan Pacific World's Fair, that bronze statue. So I guarantee you Van Dyke is aware of all of that shit when he's writing it into this song. San Francisco, you got to really have the right brain synapses firing. But fortunately I do in this case. Yeah. Hold Back Time.

[Host 1]

This is like, yeah, I guess the most explicit, implicit kind of mission statement or emotional cornerstone of the. Of the album. In some ways, it's about the. The idea of being of romantic love as like a refuge from the. The passage of time. There's a pretty touching and kind of sad aspect, part of the. The documentary, the dirt obsession of music, with Van Dyke saying that he's had several best friends who died. And so he doesn't want that. He says, I don't really want, like, have many best. I don't want to have any best friend anymore because I have this habit of. Or it's happened to me that I've had. They'll die, Die. Oh, God.

[Host 2]

Broke my heart a little bit.

[Host 1]

This. This song is, I think about. Is sort of about that. About, like the. The thing that keeps you coming back to a best friend or a romance. Because, you know, maybe that. That just keeps happening, but you. There's the wish that it could be fended off that a relationship is that which is like an agreement to hold. Yeah. Hold Back Time. Something like that.

[Host 2]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's. This is, I think, one of the more explicitly nostalgic songs on the record. And I think it just. Again, sort of. This is one of those ones that doesn't really seem to take place specifically in California, but it's more about the emotional texture of the album. You know, kind of lines up with songs like Summer in Monterey or Sailor Way. With that old country hymn spinning round in her brain she kept her fancy for play More than for fortune and fame now when we feel every wheel spin and steal on that track train of some sort we shake the dust off the sack in our old house by the track Hold Back Time.

[Host 1]

Yeah, it's also. It's not a very sad sounding song, I should say. It just has this. It's not like a ballad, as, you know, the way I described it might make it sound More like that. But it's just kind of like. It's a little bit like a. It has almost like a Mexican song, like feeling Cantina.

[Host 2]

It's a little El Paso to this song.

[Host 1]

Yeah, you know, that thing. And I think a lot of Mexican folk type musics that are like, you know, about. Yeah. Nostalgia or like the. But without sounding like morose.

[Host 2]

Yeah, it's sort of a sad song, but played, you know, almost happy. I think it sort of is explicitly about a lot of the, you know, thematic meaning of this album. This, you know, this lost paradise, this past, you know, Eden that maybe never existed or only ever existed in the memories of people being sort of washed away on the surface of the earth by progression, by capital, by development. You get these. These lines about our old house by the track, you know, this shitty old house that now a railroad has been laid down by it. We're trying to hold back time, don't talk about tomorrow. But the world outside can't help but intrude upon our little slice of paradise, our little slice of heaven. And so it's just kind of the reality that we're gonna have to reckon with. It's a moment of quiet, resigned complacency, I guess, in the midst of this ever complexifying, diversifying, ugly, getting uglier world that we happen to exist in these days.

[Host 1]

Yeah, maybe I overemphasize the romance aspect of it, but not in a broader sense. It's like.

[Host 2]

I think there is a romance, but I think it's maybe more romance between the speaker and their past and where they exist. Exactly. As opposed to another individual.

[Host 1]

It's like that Disney cartoon, the. The Little House. Do you know that one? Like the one where it's like. It's like a little house that it. Get it. It gets all built up around. Like there's like these big mansions built, like Victorian mansions built around it and then like a big city built around it. And then eventually it's like condemned. And then they. You think that the house is going to be demolished, but then they just move the house to the countryside at the end.

[Host 2]

Now, I'm seeing this now, but yes, that's exactly what it is. Except you can't just move the house to the countryside.

[Host 1]

Yeah, yeah.

[Host 2]

Well, a song that is a little bit more about Sweetie baby, Love, Lost love, My Janine. How about that?

[Host 1]

Yeah, this one's kind of My Janine. Is there like a twist or like an angle to this besides just kind of a straightforward love song?

[Host 2]

I think there's a couple Fun lines here. This song seems to be explicitly set at least part of it outside of California. In North Carolina, you know, they mentioned the Appalachians clime C L I M E. And these lines about, remember when life was North Carolina? 2 bits for Cokes and jokes at the. Dinah. Time was a magazine. That's a great line. Time was a magazine.

[Host 1]

Time is a magazine. That's right.

[Host 2]

But Time was a magazine as well. Yeah, I think this is just sort of a nice little, A nice little number. It's like that. What was that song on Tokyo Rose where he kept just doing the dick joke stuff. Stuff.

[Host 1]

The missionary position.

[Host 2]

Missionary position, yeah. This is kind, you know, it's not quite as ribbled as that song, but it's sort of serving the same purpose. We're just gonna, you know, take a few minutes to make a nice little song.

[Host 1]

Well, the next one's your favorite, I think, Right, Right.

[Host 2]

Oh, yeah. I mean it's. I think this is a great, you know, one of the great songs that either one of them ever created. And certainly, you know, one of the high points on this album, them movies is magic. Is magic.

[Host 1]

Yeah. It's a little bit like, like Porgy and Bess or something like.

[Host 2]

That's right.

[Host 1]

I loves you, Porgy type of thing. But I, I. Yeah, I mean it song's pretty self explanatory. It's just about movies is magic. Real life is tragic. It's like. What's that, that Woody movie, the Purple Rose of Cairo. Have you that one? It's like the Mia Farrow character is like, it takes place in the 20s, I think, and she's like. Lives in this like shitty little town and she just keeps going to the movies and escaping into the, the fantasy of the movies. And then the movie, the characters from the movie come out of the movie.

[Host 2]

But then it sounds a little bit like Rifkin's Festival.

[Host 1]

You know, many things are like Rifkin's Festival once you, once you've seen it, like guy who's only ever seen Rifkin Festival, it's like I'm getting Rifkin vibes from this movie.

[Host 2]

Yeah, you know, we love the movies here, folks. I think that's well established.

[Host 1]

This movie is. This movie. This song is a little bit like Rifkin's Festival. You know, you're seeing movies everywhere. You're guided by the movies.

[Host 2]

That's right. I think, I mean it. Part of the whole legacy of California, certainly of Southern California, California is the, you know, the industry. Movies, the movies industry. And I Think in the same way that Orange Great Art went to long distance and selling the place. And the myth of California, obviously the movies maybe more explicitly does that. Like that's. You know, they're literally putting that myth up there on the screen for you to witness. And then, of course, all the fabulous wealth and fame and celebrity that goes along with it. You know, that's. That's its own myth in, you know, just as. Just as powerful. And Van Dyck, you know, he. Remember he. Before he even came to California, wasn't he, like, a child actor? Didn't we read that? Isn't that, like, part of his.

[Host 1]

His history?

[Host 2]

Like, he was in, like, vaudeville plays or something like that?

[Host 1]

Something like that. I mean, his family has always had a connection to the movies.

[Host 2]

He's a performer. He's the consummate, like, song and dance man. In the same way that Bob Dylan, or in similar way to, you know, to Bob Dylan, you know, just someone who he's born to be up on stage, you know, maybe. Maybe Van Dyke's sort of behind the curtain, or maybe he's in the orchestra pit, but he's there performing for the people. And so you can't help but love the movies as, you know, as someone like that, the same way that we do. And it's got just some fantastic sweeping orchestration here. Sounds like, you know, beautiful, beautiful golden age studio system type music in the background. And like, I don't really know what he's saying on top of this, but it just. It sounds so good to me.

[Host 1]

Yeah. What. What is there to say beyond movies is magic.

[Host 2]

Movies is magic. Real life is tragic.

[Host 1]

And it's just got great melodies in it, too. This whole record has just so many great little memorable melodies and sort of melodies within melodies like these little. It's. Yeah, as I said at the beginning, we were talking about, like, streamlined Van Dyke music where it's. It's very effectively showcasing the, like, a variety of musical techniques and approaches, but without feeling like a Rubik's Cube, as it sometimes does. And he seems to be really proud of this album.

[Host 2]

Yeah, he says in that documentary that some of my best work is on this album, you know, even if some people don't quite recognize it yet. And I absolutely agree with him. I think this is like such a, you know, for any number of reasons, many of which we've explicated here, you know, the personal relevance to both of us that this album has, but even just, you know, a piece of recorded music that you might be listening to in Alaska or something. I think it's just. It's undeniable to me, you know, what this record is like in many ways. You remember what California Adventure used to be?

[Host 1]

Yes, exactly.

[Host 2]

Before they put all of the Toy Story and the Marvel bullshit in there and it was just a theme park.

[Host 1]

The constant based on California.

[Host 2]

It was California. Exactly. There was the Hollywood land. There was the like river rapid, like kind of redwood land. There was the Venice Beach. Exactly. This is that. And this is that album. And this is the Hollywoodland level of this album.

[Host 1]

Yeah, exactly. It's superstar limo.

[Host 2]

Right.

[Host 1]

Which we've touched on in the past. But yeah, let's.

[Host 2]

Yeah, we should probably steer away from that.

[Host 1]

We've already talked about this many a time.

[Host 2]

You don't want to get me started on Roger Rabbit again and have to cut out 10 minutes of.

[Host 1]

Yeah, on the previous episode, I did cut out a section where you talked about a really horrible and tragic event where a child was maimed on the Roger Rabbit riot. Anyway, this town goes down Toontown. Goes down at sunset.

[Host 2]

That's right. Goes down at sunset.

[Host 1]

What's this one?

[Host 2]

You know, it's just kind of. I think it's the end of the album here. Basically we've got, you know, an instrumental here following up at the. At the very end. But it's kind of like our episode. That's it. Show's over, folks. Time to go home. Time to get in bed. Time to do it all over again in the morning. This town goes down at sunset when the hills start turning red the streets roll up at 8 o', clock, everybody goes off to bed. That's beautiful.

[Host 1]

I love that it's that simple. It's just like. It's just saying, as a matter of fact, this is not a place that is up all night. This is not a big city. This is just a town. And everyone gets sleepy and then they go to sleep.

[Host 2]

That's right.

[Host 1]

That's an. That's a relic of the past.

[Host 2]

I mean, in many places it is. I do feel a little bit like this in here in San Francisco. This is not. I mean, with a few, you know, exceptions, this is not much of a late night type town. Certainly compared to your Los Angeles.

[Host 1]

I don't know. Los Angeles sometimes doesn't feel like the most late night.

[Van Dyke Parks]

Just.

[Host 2]

I mean, you look at set times at shows, you know, like we're typically done, you know, show is over, everyone's out the door. Encore's finished by like 10pm yeah, that's.

[Host 1]

That's true.

[Host 2]

I feel like like, bands don't even go on until 10 in Los Angeles in many cases.

[Host 1]

Yeah, that's. That's true.

[Host 2]

But, you know, I think this song is not necessarily about either one of those places, but about, you know, the imagined little. Little village here that we might have painted for us on the COVID of this album. It's just. It's a beautiful little slice of. Slice of California paradise that isn't going to be with you for very long, but it is. It was there at one point, and you dream about it coming back one day. This town that goes down at sunset.

[Host 1]

And speaking of sleepy, the final track here is called Lullaby, which is a perfect transition and closing note.

[Host 2]

This is George Gershwin, this song. This is not an original composition. And we are literally going to have Brian Wilson reimagines gershwin coming in 2010.

[Host 1]

That says all you need to know about Brian Wilson as a composer. That. That. I wouldn't be surprised if this piece by Gershwin was Brian.

[Host 2]

This one is Van Dyke doing the orchestration here, because I think Brian mostly would have been singing these songs. But there's also. I mean, we're not gonna talk about it necessarily, but there's a couple outtakes, including Rhapsody in Blue.

[Host 1]

Oh, really?

[Host 2]

Yeah. Which is the next song after this on the Spotify streaming run list. We don't need to get into that necessarily. But, yes, Brian's fascination with obsession with Gershwin and this type of music I think has been documented for many times. I think they mentioned that a little bit in I Just Wasn't Made for these Times. Wendy and Carny at one point are like, every single morning we woke up to Be My Baby. And then other than that, it was just Rhapsody and Blue at all times. Like their childhood. Yeah, it was just Rhapsody and Blue and Be My Baby playing endlessly in the Wilson household, which is on the nose and maybe a little maddening, but beautiful at the same time. Same time. So, yeah, it's a. It's a very elegant way to close this song cycle. This. And, boy, this is. This is a song cycle, I'll tell you.

[Host 1]

Yeah, this last piece is. Yeah, it's classic instrumental Van Dyke beauty. And, yeah, the. The fact that it's a Van Dyke ex. Gershwin ex Brian is just. Yeah. A pleasant foretaste of. Of what we're gonna get a whole.

[Host 2]

Record of with all the homies.

[Host 1]

Yeah. Gershwin, Van Dyke Parks, Brian Wilson.

[Host 2]

You mentioned Porgy and Bess earlier already, you know. Yeah, that's true.

[Host 1]

That's true.

[Host 2]

It's all the. It's all. It's all coming together. It's all one big beautiful landscape painting of California.

[Host 1]

A California adventure.

[Host 2]

That's right. Gee, man, they should have just had this shit playing over this. The loudspeaker in California adventure.

[Host 1]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they. They definitely had some of it or some of the things that this is based on. I mean, for sure.

[Host 2]

I don't think they even have any of that stuff anymore. Right. Isn't it all like bugs, life and like.

[Host 1]

It's not all that marvel and shit? No, I mean, they. They actually did. There's a Carthay circle theater there that I don't think was original or maybe it was. I don't know. Some of it's still there. It's still like California. Y. But it's.

[Host 2]

There's a whole car. They built a whole Cars land.

[Host 1]

Yeah, yeah.

[Host 2]

Cars doesn't place in California. That's like Utah.

[Host 1]

Yeah, well, it sort of does, right? It's sort of just like America. Like, it's like Route 66. Anyway, we don't need to end it on that note. Although that brings Randy back into the picture.

[Host 2]

It sure does.

[Host 1]

It's all. It's all connected. Yeah.

[Host 2]

Three stars for orange crate.

[Host 1]

Life is a highway.

[Host 2]

Beautiful record from two beautiful men who it. And it's beautiful to see them working together at this moment in time. They're going to come back together again in not too long, you know, another decade down the line to really reclaim the smile legacy explicitly. But this is a delicious, you know, sort of appetizer along the way.

[Host 1]

Three stars. Yeah.

[Host 2]

Jokerman.

[Randy Newman]

I came.

[Singer/Performer]

West unto Hollywood.

[Interviewer]

Do you have a lot of friends?

[Randy Newman]

No, I stay at home. I don't like to go out because people push me around. They actually jostle me. They jockey for position. I like to stay in. Yeah, well, just generally. Well, nope. I get along at a market. I like that. I go for vegetables and I. Early in the morning sometimes where there are a lot of trucks and so forth. I can make it in a queue system. But it is just generally safer to stay.

[Interviewer]

Why don't you move to a less crowded.

[Randy Newman]

I knew you would say that to me. I knew you said that on. On camera. Did you say, get out of here? I love you.

[Host 1]

Get out of here?

[Interviewer]

I didn't say get out of here. I said, you know, this.

[Host 1]

This place is crowded.

[Randy Newman]

He wants me to leave. You know, he said, it's crowded here. I came here in 1955. I'm a contender. I know, it's awful. Thanks a lot. Thank you, Randy. Thank you.

[Interviewer]

Thank you.

[Randy Newman]

I think we've done enough damage here.

[Interviewer]

Do you remember the time you were kidnapped and, like, ended up in some bushes with a needle in your arm and I had to come there?

[Randy Newman]

You know, I'm sorry that we have to go now, but Mr. Newman needs his medication.

[Interviewer]

Remember that, giant.

[Randy Newman]

And this has been a really great moment for us all, and it's a really an honorable family, and I want to live with a man who has schizophrenic thing, Ladies and gentlemen.