Echo in the Canyon (2018) - full transcript

A look at the roots of the historic music scene in L.A.'s Laurel Canyon featuring the music of iconic groups such as The Byrds, The Beach Boys, Buffalo Springfield, and The Mamas and the Papas.

Too many variations of shit.

- That's a Fender amp.

- Mm hmm.

I wouldn't recognize that one,

Bassbreaker 45.

I have

a good question for you, though.

In the 80s it was...

we said "Rickenbacher".

- You guys all say Rickenbacker.

- "Rickenbacker"

- It's "backer".

- Yeah.

We already had a small debate earlier.

We were from the South.

- It's "backer", yeah.

- I think so.

There's no "bachers." No.

Is that one yours, Jakob?

No, we used this one

on the record, though.

- This is Andy's.

- Yeah, that's Andy's.

- Want to have a look?

- Bring it over here.

This was the folk rock special.

All you had to do

is move your little finger.

You can't afford the rest.

♪ Oh, what will you give me? ♪

♪ Say the sad bells of Rhymney ♪

♪ Is there hope for the future? ♪

♪ Say the brown bells of Merther ♪

♪ Who made the mine open? ♪

♪ Say the black bells of Rhonda ♪

♪ Ah... Ah... ♪

♪ Ah... Ah... ♪

♪ Oh, the summer time is coming ♪

♪ And the leaves are sweetly turning ♪

They gave it the name Laurel Canyon

because it was the locus

for all these musicians.

It's where a lot of musicians lived.

But they came to L.A. from everywhere.

They came from England

and from all overAmerica.

And probably because

of the record companies in L.A.

They had to come to L.A.

and this was the one place

that you could live

and it was the antithesis

of this sort of plastic, straight world

that you saw on television.

To be that close

to the Sunset Strip

and yet you had a feel

that you were in the country

and, you know,

and totally different feel. It's beautiful.

♪ There you stood on ♪

♪ The edge of your feather ♪

♪ Expecting to fly ♪

I think I might

have been the first one to move there.

I was living in one place, some...

some place way up the canyon.

There was

a lot of camaraderie in the bands.

We got to know Brian Wilson

and The Beach Boys

and, of course, The Mamas & Papas

when they came along.

I'd known John and Michelle

from New York

and Mama Cass was great,

a great social hostess.

Laurel Canyon

was always like a hangout for,

ah, bohemians and actors.

It was full of charming little houses

and it was a very joyful time.

I loved it, because

I've always loved eccentricity.

I mean I'm attracted to eccentrics

and they were there.

And they were all there.

Everyone was writing

and writing together.

And you'd go over to someone's house

and you always brought your guitar

and you'd sit around

and you'd start playing,

and pretty soon you were writing a hit.

People would not even call.

They'd just knock on the door and go

"Listen, hey, listen to this!"

That's an incredible environment

for a musician to be in

because it's incredibly healthy

and incredibly forward-looking

and incredibly creative

and that's how I was feeling.

There was so much

great music floating around

that you got little snippets of it and they...

they just filtered through you, you know?

Good evening.

The great Los Angeles songwriter

Warren Zevon

once said that...

I miss him every day.

He said if Roger McGuinn had

just played the opening notes

to The Byrds' debut album

and dropped dead,

he would have still exercised

the most pronounced influence

over the folk rock movement in 25 years.

And he was right.

Because in 1965 when

those songs went on the radio,

it was the first time a song

of poetic depth and grace

had become a hit song

and it inspired a whole generation

of writers to write differently

and to come to California,

which gave birth

to the Laurel Canyon scene.

So, the fiftieth anniversary

of that moment was this summer.

So Jakob and I decided,

'cause nobody else was doing anything,

that we would make a record

of those songwriters.

So now we're doing a show

and you're all a part of it.

And thanks for coming

and enjoy the show!

You guys ready to go to the 60s?

This is so great

because the music that

came out of the Laurel Canyon scene

in the 60s

was not only inspiring

to other bands at that time,

but it also became inspiring

to my generation

of musicians and songwriters.

And tonight is an opportunity,

like folk music,

to pass it on to a new generation

and keep the echoes

of that music growing.

♪ Oh, the summer time is coming ♪

♪ And the leaves are sweetly turning ♪

♪ And the wild mountain thyme ♪

♪ Blooms across the purple heather ♪

♪ Will you go... ♪

- Can we start over?

- I think I know it. We ready?

I was gonna for a harmony but then I...

What is the refrain, though?

Is it... just "will you go"?

I like the way you're doing it.

I just go "Will you go, will you go?"

Sorry.

Well, we can do it again.

I think the refrain just comes around again.

We just... these just kind of repeat.

Oh, we never... what is all this?

I never saw any of this!

♪ Oh, the summer time is coming... ♪

Why did we start all this?

Well, we'd seen this movie "Model Shop".

It reminded us

of a lot of music from the 60s

so we decided to go back

and record some of the songs

from the mid-60s

and we got more and more curious

on what brought everybody here.

Who came out here first?

Was it people from

the east coast coming out here?

Or was it people here

that started it just independently?

Beach Boys were already here.

I think The Byrds came out first

and everybody else followed.

And how did The Byrds come to be?

It started so innocently.

♪ Oh yeah I'll tell you somethin' ♪

♪ I think you'll understand ♪

The Beatles came out.

And I heard this on the radio...

And I said wow, you know,

they're using folk music chord changes,

all these passing chords.

So, it gave me an idea

of taking an old folk song

and suping it up with a Beatle beat.

And I took it down to the village

and played it at the Café Playhouse.

And they didn't like it.

They didn't like the rock 'n' roll

and folk music combined.

They thought it was kind of a bad idea.

You know, the coolest thing

about Roger, and I...

it was like the first day I met him,

he came into the Playhouse Café

with a Gibson 12-string,

and he plays

"I Wanna Hold Your Hand".

Hmm.

And I went "I Wanna Hold Your Hand"

as a one guitar folk thing?

And it was really a remarkable, ballsy thing.

- And he did take abuse for it.

- Yeah.

I know a lot of people

were going what's he doing?

So I went out to L.A.

and I got gig at the Troubadour

opening up for Hoyt Axton

doing the same thing.

And they didn't like it there, either.

And that's when

I got together with Gene Clark

and David Crosby

and we got The Byrds together.

There was a lot of funny shit

that happened.

Ah,

we were rehearsing

in an old recording studio

down on Third Avenue,

ah, World Pacific I think it was called.

Used to be a jazz studio.

After they were through

using the studio at night,

we would go in there and rehearse.

And it did The Byrds

a great deal of good because

we would have to listen to it back.

If you hear how awful you are

then you work harder!

Mm hmm.

And so, that's exactly what we did.

And then, after we started

getting good with it, ah,

Dylan showed up.

You have to be more specific.

No, I'm kidding!

You mean there's more than one?

Yeah!

- Bob showed up.

- Okay.

And he, 'cause he had heard

we were doing "Tambourine Man".

He listened to us play it electric

and he you can hear

the gears turning, you know.

He knew he wanted to do that immediately.

With The Byrds the real

accomplishment is the melding

of, you know, folk music and rock 'n' roll

and I mean all the bands you think of that

as that California sound.

Really none of them

sound exactly like The Byrds.

♪ The reasons why ♪

That 12-string riff

is pretty spectacular.

That's a pretty big moment in rock music.

That's really, you know,

two things clashing together

in a huge wave.

And it would create

a whole genre of music quickly.

I loved the sound that McGuinn got out

of the 12-string and I thought

that the way he placed that,

and Crosby's rhythm,

you know, underpinning it,

they were the powerful band

that we all wanted to be!

I liked The Byrds a lot

and I liked their kind of philosophy,

the musical philosophy,

really, of, you know, folk rock.

Folk rock to me was...

it was the songwriting, too.

- Yeah, it was good.

- It was beautiful.

♪ Oh, what will you give me?

♪ Sang the sad bells of Rhymney ♪

Folk music is just

an older form of songwriting.

You learn a song from somebody,

maybe it was your uncle

or somebody who learned it from

a knife sharpener

who traveled through the South

sharpening knives and scissors

who also played banjo and fiddle.

When The Byrds came out,

there were people who disapproved

of doing those folk songs with a band.

But it was very infectious.

That's a big step forward

from "Love Me Do"

to any of those things.

And we started to take

rock 'n' roll seriously,

'cause, yeah, no one

took it seriously before that.

We were putting good poetry on the radio,

AM radio, pop radio.

It was the first time.

There wasn't any of that before.

It was June, Moon, Spoon.

♪ Baby I love you Ooh, ooh ♪

Wasn't "Dance beneath the diamond sky

with one hand waving free."

It changed everything for everybody.

Yeah.

Fiona, are you here?

I actually met Fiona

when she was 17.

She'll probably

be embarrassed if I say that.

Too late now!

Ready?

Let's do a Byrds song.

♪ Oh, every time I see you smile ♪

♪ Now, come to me now, don't be long ♪

♪ Let me tell you

how my heart goes wild ♪

♪ Please let me love you

and it won't be wrong ♪

♪ Every time you're in my arms ♪

♪ Come to me, don't be long ♪

♪ You know that

I will never do you harm ♪

♪ Please let me love you

and it won't be wrong ♪

♪ Let me love you

and then you'll see ♪

♪ Now, come to me, now, come to me ♪

♪ Let me show you once

and we'll be free ♪

♪ Please let me love you

and it won't be wrong ♪

The Beatles came to America

and they asked them

who's your favorite band?

And they said The Byrds!

And we were just blown away.

We kind of dressed like 'em.

In fact, we bought these suits

that had black velvet collars.

And we used to wear them

to Ciro's every night

while we were doing our gig.

That worked for about a week.

We'd hang them up in the dressing room

and put back our

t-shirts and jeans and go home.

Well, one night we got to Ciro's

and the suits were gone.

And I told this to John Lennon.

He said, "I wished they'd stolen our suits."

♪ Every time I see you smile ♪

♪ Come to me, don't be long ♪

♪ Let me tell you

how my heart goes wild ♪

♪ Please let me love you

and it won't be wrong ♪

We were invited to go to England

and we were really jazzed because

this is where

The Beatles and The Stones were.

Then we got there and we

discovered we'd been billed

as America's answer to The Beatles.

And it was a little tough to live up to.

And they came to see us

one night at the Blaises Club

and Chris was so nervous

he broke a bass string.

And nobody ever

breaks a bass string, but he did.

Then we went upstairs after the show

and John and George came up

and John said "Great show!" you know.

They loved us.

They were really nice to us.

When we came over there finally,

they were extremely cool.

Who is the young man

with the lengthy haircut

to your right rear?

Who is it?

That's Dave

from The Byrds, a mate of ours.

And then the next night

we went to the Scotch at St. James

and Paul McCartney,

this is his private club.

And we had a couple of drinks,

and he took me for a ride

in his Aston Martin DB5 around London.

And then we hung out at The Stones' house

and they showed us how they rolled joints.

And they had a butler that rolled joints

and put them on the stairs

for them in the morning

like the morning coffee!

Yeah.

The Byrds were great.

They just became our friends.

I mean when we came to L.A.,

they came and hung out with us, you know.

That 12-string sound was great

and the voices were great.

So we loved The Byrds.

They introduced us

to a hallucinogenic situation.

Hmm.

And, ah, we had a really good time.

The Beatles

actually started the folk rock

in California.

It was... and it probably

was the California guys

trying to grab hold of that sound.

It's all full of strange coincidences.

John Hall of the Rickenbacker company

flying to New York

because he'd heard

The Beatles played Rickenbacker

and going up to the suite

with the second

Rickenbacker 12-string ever made,

giving it to George.

He brought it for John

because he's the one

that played the Rickenbacker.

But George had the flu,

the other three had gone out

for a photo session,

and George nabbed the 12-string.

Mm hmm.

That changed pop music, you know,

rock music I guess you would call it.

We should have the nerve

to call it rock music,

I mean it was rock 'n' roll music.

Everything was influencing everything.

With this huge witches brew of, you know,

and things would pop out.

I mean and transatlantic, too,

'cause we were all listening

to each other's records, you know.

And The Beatles were

doing their cop on The Byrds

with one song and then

they were doing The Beach Boys

with "Girl", you know.

♪ I wish they all could be California girls ♪

I was a sucker for Brian's work right away.

I was very close friends

with Felix Pappalardi

and he was the guy

who pointed out to me

the Bach-like qualities.

And he said listen to this chord sequence.

They're using like Bach

chordal movements in there.

I mean that was really important.

♪ Yeah, but I couldn't wait

to get back in the States ♪

♪ Back to the cutest girls in the world ♪

♪ I wish they all could be California girls ♪

Well, they were the other band

that we admired.

They were it.

Everybody else... and they were

as establishment as they could be,

but they were good.

They had good songs 'cause of Brian

and they had really interesting harmonies,

completely different than anybody else.

So, we liked them a lot.

May I have,

I'm sure most everybody knows

but for anybody who might not,

may be introduce you by name?

- Al Jardine.

- Thank you, Al.

- Dennis Wilson.

- Thank you.

- Brian Wilson.

- Carl Wilson.

Mike Love.

Who determines

what will be done next?

Well, I guess I do. I don't know.

I write the songs and produce them,

so I have a lot to say about it.

I can't see something in Mozart

that's better than Brian Wilson.

I think you could make that case.

Those guys would have loved him.

Hmm.

He's really just too good.

He's

Yeah.

He's not a guy that comes

down the pike in many lifetimes.

That's pretty special stuff.

♪ In this world I lock out ♪

♪ All my worries and my fears ♪

♪ In my room ♪

♪ In my room ♪

♪ I do my dreaming ♪

♪ And my scheming ♪

♪ Lie awake and pray ♪

♪ Do my crying

And my sighing ♪

♪ Laugh at yesterday ♪

♪ Now it's dark and I'm alone ♪

♪ But I won't be afraid ♪

♪ In my room ♪

♪ In my room ♪

♪ In my room ♪

♪ In my room ♪

♪ In my room ♪

"In My Room", oh my God, you know.

Who has not, you know,

sought solace of your... the privacy

and the solace of your own room,

your own space.

It can be said in a million ways,

but I mean just that...

that song was so beautiful.

Beach Boys was a primary thing

when Cream was kind of

philosophically driven by it,

by the idea that we could

somehow do something like that.

Or be inspired by that,

Pet Sounds, you know.

They lived right down

the street from us, Brian and Marilyn.

And one day I went over there

and the whole living room

was full of sand.

And there was nothing in the living room

but a Steinway and a piano bench

and just all sand.

And I looked at her

and I said what is going on?

She said I know it's crazy

but he's writing some great songs.

Mm hmm.

And he was writing Pet Sounds!

I won that record

on the radio, ah, on a call-in!

Like I was standing by the phone

and some trivia question was asked.

I called right away and answered it

and I won a record!

And it was Pet Sounds.

It took me a few spins to understand, like,

what's going on here.

But I just fell in love with that record.

It's different.

You know, it's off in a corner by itself.

Nobody else did that successfully,

not to the level they did

'cause they didn't have a writer like Brian.

I was just kind of maybe too young

to really appreciate

how incredibly sophisticated the music was.

I just saw five guys wearing

the same shirt holding one surfboard

and I thought it was lame.

Hmm.

But all that changed

when I heard Pet Sounds.

That's said to be responsible

for Sgt. Pepper,

you know, totally.

Imagine a band influencing The Beatles.

♪ I keep looking for a place to fit in ♪

♪ Where I can speak my mind ♪

♪ And I've been trying hard

to find the people ♪

♪ That I won't leave behind ♪

♪ They say I got brains ♪

♪ But they ain't doing me no good ♪

♪ I wish they could ♪

♪ And each time things

start to happen again ♪

♪ I think I got something good

goin' for myself ♪

♪ But what goes wrong ♪

♪ Now, sometimes I feel very sad ♪

♪ Sometimes I feel very sad ♪

Do you want to sit at the piano?

Does the song sound familiar to you?

- Do you need me at the piano?

- Yeah, come on.

We're working on a couple of your songs.

We're working on

"Just Wasn't Made For These Times".

What key is your original key?

Do you remember?

My original... B-flat.

We're in E-flat.

E-flat, oh, you got the wrong key!

We'll get capos.

Yeah, play it in E-flat

or E or wherever you do.

Okay, cool.

Well, Bach

influenced "California Girls",

the duh, duh-duh, duh-duh,

that kind of a beat, shuffle rhythm.

Chuck Berry and the Four Freshmen

taught me harmony

and Chuck Berry taught me

rock 'n' roll melodies.

Well, I learned violin arrangement

from George Martin.

I learned how to make...

write out, you know,

violin for violin players.

I wrote manuscript for them,

and they played it...

if they played it wrong

I can walk out and go

"You got it wrong, buddy.

You gotta do this right",

you know, and they'd

fix their instruments and they'd do it.

Hmm.

Well, The Beatles were probably

my favorite group, you know.

I really liked them a lot.

With Rubber Soul,

one of my buddies brought it over

and played it for me.

I said I can't believe this album! You know?

He kept playing it and playing it

and I said wow!

I couldn't believe it.

That made me write

the Pet Sounds album.

♪ Now, sometimes I feel very sad ♪

♪ Now, sometimes I feel very sad ♪

♪ And I guess I just

wasn't made for these times ♪

♪ While I'm far away from you my baby ♪

♪ I know it's hard for you my baby ♪

♪ Because it's hard for me my baby ♪

♪ And the darkest hour

is just before dawn ♪

♪ Each night

before you go to bed my baby ♪

♪ Whisper a little

prayer for me my baby ♪

♪ Because it's hard for me my baby ♪

♪ And the darkest hour

is just before dawn ♪

We had the radio on

and The Byrds came on.

I mean it was The Byrds.

We were sure of it

because we knew them.

We knew them personally

and we were friends with them.

So we said God,

if The Byrds can have a hit,

anybody can have a hit!

Hmm.

So, we've got to get back to L.A.

But we were staying at the Albert Hotel.

That's where all the musicians

kind of stayed

when they went into town.

And since John and I had gotten married,

I wanted to go back home.

And he said we can't go back home.

We can't.

The music business is here in New York.

That's when he woke me up

in the middle of the night

and he said I'm writing a song.

Listen to this.

And he played:

♪ All the leaves are brown ♪

♪ And the sky is gray ♪

♪ I've been for a walk... ♪

♪ On a winter's day ♪

♪ I'd be safe and warm ♪

♪ If I was in L.A. ♪

♪ California dreamin' ♪

♪ On such a winter's day... ♪

Has it been a while

since you've been in this room?

I was just saying that

this is where we first sang

for Lou Adler, in this studio.

In this room, too?

We recorded in 3, but this is where we,

just where we're standing right now,

we sang practically

the first album for Lou.

And what were some of the songs you sang

in the audition that you had?

"California Dreamin'",

"Monday Monday",

"Go Where You Wanna Go."

- You had some good ones, then.

- You know.

- Wow.

- We had some material.

And he said, with his hat

pulled down over his nose like this,

you know, "Why don't you

guys come back tomorrow.

We'll talk about this tomorrow."

"Okay."

And when we came back,

the contracts were

all over the floor at Studio 3

and they were handing out pens like here!

Sign this! Sign this! Sign this!

Well, then the audition went well, obviously.

It did!

I think the first studio I recorded in,

that's all the equipment they had,

just this little slab here.

The piano was in the middle.

Hal Blaine and his drums were there.

John Phillips and his 12-string, P. F. Sloan,

maybe Glen Campbell,

Billy Strange, one of those guitar players...

- All in here.

- would be in a line.

We were at the end of a take

and Denny Doherty...

it was pretty wild through the night.

It got wilder and wilder.

A lot of Crown Royal bags

laying everything.

And Denny had fallen asleep on the piano.

And John said

"Denny, get up. I need a note."

And we couldn't raise Denny.

So, we put... got a microphone

and pulled it over here.

Hmm.

And put it over Denny like that.

And John leaned down

and sang the note to him.

Denny sang the note,

he got the note he wanted,

he went right back to sleep.

But it's a fantastic room. I mean it's...

This room looks

exactly the same I would think, no?

The room looks exactly the same.

The speakers are a little different.

But the room looks

and feels exactly the same.

♪ Bah-da bah-da-da-da ♪

♪ Bah-da bah-da-da-da ♪

♪ Monday, Monday ♪

♪ It was all I hoped it would be ♪

♪ Oh Monday mornin', Monday mornin' ♪

♪ Couldn't guarantee ♪

♪ That Monday evenin'

you would still be here with me ♪

♪ Monday, Monday ♪

♪ Can't trust that day ♪

♪ Monday, Monday ♪

♪ Sometimes it just turns out that way ♪

♪ Oh Monday mornin'

you gave me no warnin' ♪

♪ Of what was to be ♪

♪ Oh Monday, Monday

how could you leave ♪

♪ and not take me ♪

♪ Every other day ♪

♪ Of the week is fine, yeah ♪

♪ But whenever Monday comes ♪

♪ But whenever Monday comes ♪

♪ You can find me cryin' all of the time ♪

It was all very, very romantic.

We were living in the Virgin Islands

on the beach in tents.

And it's just inevitable, it's gonna happen,

the dynamics in a group

when there are men and women.

You see something in a band member,

their talent and their sexiness,

and there's a spark.

I know that it happened

in the The Mamas & the Papas.

I've seen it happen in almost

any group that I can think of

that have men and women in them.

Jefferson Airplane,

Fleetwood Mac.

We were so confined

to the four of us living together all the time.

We were always together.

And when we were rehearsing,

Denny and I under the table

were playing footsie.

And Denny was also a big flirt.

He just wanted to take it

to the maximum, you know.

He had a great sense of humor,

that little look in his eye, you know.

He was just so hot.

♪ Boys and girls ♪

♪ You know they're birds of a feather ♪

♪ Like two sides of a coin ♪

♪ They are foreverjoined ♪

On the cover of our first album

I'm lying back in Denny's arms.

This is before we got caught.

Really, the first night that we were together

we had all been sitting

at the table and John and Cass,

we looked over and they were asleep.

And that's when Denny just got up

and he walked over to the sliding glass door

and off we went.

I was raised in a very free atmosphere.

To me, having an affair was not as serious

as it was to the rest of them.

I had had an affair before Denny

when John and I had first gotten married.

So, it was something that John

had already experienced with me,

and that's when he wrote

"Go Where You Wanna Go".

John was really crushed and upset about it

and so the lyric of

"go where you want to go,

do what you want to do,

with whoever you want to do it with" bitch!

So, I mean, I was busy.

I was a very busy girl.

And I was having a lot of fun!

I'm glad you said that and not me!

♪ And you gotta go where you want to go ♪

♪ Do what you want to do ♪

♪ With whoever you want to do it with ♪

♪ Go where you want to go ♪

♪ Do what you want to do ♪

♪ You don't understand ♪

♪ That a girl like me ♪

♪ Can love just one man ♪

♪ Three thousand miles ♪

♪ That's how far you'll go ♪

♪ And you said to me ♪

♪ Please ♪

♪ Don't follow ♪

♪ You gotta go where you want to go ♪

♪ Do what you want to do ♪

♪ With whoever you want to do it with ♪

♪ Go where you want to go ♪

♪ Do what you want to do ♪

♪ With whoever you want to do it ♪

♪ You don't understand ♪

♪ That a girl like me can love ♪

♪ Just one man ♪

♪ You've been gone a week ♪

♪ And I tried so hard ♪

♪ Not to be the cryin' kind ♪

♪ Not to be the girl ♪

♪ You left behind ♪

♪ Go where you want to go ♪

♪ Do what you want to do ♪

♪ With whoever you want to do it ♪

♪ Go where you want to go ♪

♪ Do what you want to do ♪

Oh, that is so touching!

- Oh good, you like it.

- I love it!

- Oh, cool.

- I love it.

I forgot what a great song that was!

Yeah, right?

♪ One, two, three ♪

♪ You're going to lose that girl ♪

The 60s, right, it was really blessed.

I mean all that stuff showed up at once.

Must have been meant that way.

But it was a nice circle of really good artists,

well meaning artists, thinking about

how can I make a record

as good as that one?

Music happens

at a particular moment in time

and it changes everything going forward.

♪ You're going to lose that girl ♪

I had ended up

with an acetate of Pet Sounds

and I was going to England

to visit my friend Andrew Oldham,

who is a producer of The Rolling Stones.

And Paul McCartney came by

and I played them Pet Sounds

and they were listening

to everything that Brian was doing

and thinking about how

they could use certain things

that he was doing on Pet Sounds.

Out of that comes Sgt. Pepper.

There was a lot

of stuff going on.

All those records you bought,

those vinyl... we bought,

you weren't even born...

were just the best.

'Cause everyone was at it.

I have two favorite records,

as a lot of people do,

and one of them is Pet Sounds

and the other is Sgt. Pepper.

You can listen to the records

and you can see the cross-pollinization.

It was a magical thing.

Any time something good happens,

it's gonna show up other places.

It's gonna be mirrored back.

Well, that was just like cross-pollinization.

I mean The Beatles also

grew up listening to skiffle music.

George admits "The Bells of Rhymney"

and "If I Needed Someone" are very similar.

I think he sent Roger a little card about it

that he still has, you know.

Someone would have

written most of a song, say,

you know, Paul or John, and they play it

and when it felt good okay, that's how we do it.

We would just jam. We were buskers.

The riff was...

♪ Oh, what will you give me? ♪

♪ Say the sad bells of Rhomey ♪

Anyway, so George liked that riff and he wrote:

♪ If I needed someone to love ♪

based on that.

He made a tape of it

and gave it to Derek Taylor in London.

Derek came over to my house,

he said George wants you to know

that he wrote this song based

on your riff in "Bells of Rhymney".

When you hear beautiful music

it gets inside you

and sometimes you want

to do a little something like that

maybe, but your way.

Or wow, he did that

so maybe I could maybe...

and it's an open-ended thing.

But that's fair, right? That's... that's fair.

But, you know, outright theft

isn't that good but you...

But in that sense

I thought it was really nice.

You have the heavy...

you're a little bit on the heavier side.

You got the Pet Sounds

and the Sgt. Pepper's over there...

I have some very good shit over here, yeah!

I'll stick with this.

Yeah. And these records come

all of a sudden like an avalanche.

Mm hmm.

And there's nothing like them before.

It used to be that

every time any of these came out

it was like this giant event

and people would talk about it

and gather together

and put on a record in their room

and listen to the record.

- It's so cool.

- For days.

For days!

And they'd be deciphering,

you know, why is he wearing this cape,

poncho, from the Renaissance Fair.

Yeah, one of my favorite things

about all these bands

is that they're, in a sense,

they're sort of super groups,

you know.

They have multiple lead singers.

They have multiple songwriters.

But I think the beauty of all this

is how they came together

and brought the best of

that they had for something.

Yeah! I mean just listen

to Buffalo Springfield

- and all those bands.

- Yeah.

You just get something

completely remarkable and unique

- when it's...

- Oh, yeah...

A combination,

a collaborative, that you can't...

you just can't do, with all your own DNA.

You just can't.

Gentlemen! Gentlemen!

Nice to see you all!

Welcome.

Would you be kind enough

to act as spokesman,

introduce yourself, and then

let us know who else is involved.

Ah, my name is Neil Young.

All right, Neil. How do you do?

I'm the lead guitar player.

How do you do?

This is Richie Furay.

Hello, Richie! Nice to see you

- This is Steve Stills.

- Hello, Steve. Nice to see you.

How does three Canadians

and a couple of other fellows

all fall into together?

How did that happen?

Well, we, ah,

Bruce and I came to Los Angeles

in an old hearse to try to,

you know, make stars, you know.

We're gonna be stars.

So, ah, we were just about to leave

and I saw him in a van

going the other way on Sunset

and he stopped and he...

and we stopped and we all stopped

and then we started.

♪ There's something happening here ♪

♪ What it is ain't exactly clear ♪

♪ There's a man with a gun over there ♪

♪ Telling me I got to beware ♪

♪ I think it's time we stop,

children, what's that sound ♪

♪ Everybody look what's going down ♪

♪ Oh, hello Mr. Soul,

I dropped by to pick up a reason ♪

♪ For the thought that I caught ♪

♪ That my head

is the event of the season ♪

♪ I'll cop out to the change ♪

♪ But a stranger is putting the tease on ♪

We were in Fort William, Ontario,

and the owner of the club

said these guys that we,

you know, employ regularly

are gonna come in

and do a set in between

you guys and the main act.

It was Neil with a little trio

called The Squires.

And he was doing exactly

what I wanted to do,

which was to play folk songs

on electric guitar.

And we hung out together for a week.

We talked and dreamt and fantasized

about what we wanted to do.

And we were inseparable.

Buffalo Springfield,

you know, that was a big one.

I saw them back in '67 or '68.

They came to Gainesville

and played with The Beach Boys.

You know, I never got over it!

It was a really

mind-blowing show, you know.

It was like that's as good

as it's supposed to be, you know.

It was maybe better.

Buffalo Springfield had like, you know,

just like legions of the girls that,

you know, I wanted,

you know, were like just looking that way.

And I thought, you know, this is...

this must be a pretty good band.

- We went to L.A. with Cream.

- Yeah.

And I hadn't been there

more than about an hour

and there was a knock at the door

and then Stephen Stills

was there with a guitar, you know.

He just came in.

I took his guitar out of the case and said

"I hear you like this".

- He played you "Bluebird"?

- He played "Bluebird".

They'd end with this really long

"Bluebird", like, you know,

trading guitars for...

'til it just got really intense.

It was great.

The Byrds picked up the Buffalo Springfield

for an opening act

and it lasted until

David Crosby saw us for the first time

and he says "Get them out of there.

They're too good."

I remember thinking

when we did it this is a bad idea.

'Cause they're -

they're really amazingly good.

And we had hits, you know,

so we could follow them,

but they were awfully goddamn good.

What was good about it

is that we had a wealth of material.

What was bad about it, it was

in really divergent directions.

The first song we had, "Clancy",

with the Buffalo Springfield,

we did the first take

and the voice comes back

from the booth and said,

"It's too long. Play it faster."

Mm hmm.

And that's when Neil and I

looked at each other and said

oh my God, we've gotta

learn how to do this ourselves.

There's Neil and I'm listening

to something that he's doing.

And that's the old original console.

This was only 8-track.

That's why it's an old Altec console

with like big knobs.

And right after that,

I think we got an MCI or something

and went to 16, which to me

was all we ever needed.

But this is like after we obviously had learned

to make them ourselves. I see, no...

That's probably the engineer

that was hired for the session.

He's gotta sit down now?

Just go sit down there.

♪ Where are we going love? ♪

♪ What are you feelin'? ♪

♪ Now that I've caught my love ♪

♪ My head is reelin' ♪

♪ With the questions of a thousand dreams ♪

♪ What she's doing

what she's seen ♪

♪ Now, come on lover talk to me ♪

Should we talk about "Questions"?

Well, to start with I had this what...

you know those magical days

where a lot of stuff happens?

I met Judy Collins

and Eric Clapton on the same night.

I went to the Whisky to see Eric.

And so I'm flirting with Judy,

trying to listen to Eric,

who's blowing my mind,

and so I'm overwhelmed.

And then later on, Crosby had

brought Eric to my little house

in Laurel Canyon.

And the changes to "Questions" were derived

from a song of Judy's called

"Since You've Asked".

And I just took

this first three chords

and changed the cadence and everything.

And then it evolved into the song.

And I think I was playing it for him

as I was trying to write it,

and it later ended up

on a Buffalo Springfield album.

I haven't listened to that stuff

for a long time,

you know, the west coast music,

at all and so...

The original version you...

No, I haven't heard

the original version of "Questions"

for a long, long, long time.

And it really took me back.

♪ What was it made you run ♪

♪ Tryin' to get around

The questions... ♪

It took me back to

a song that I had done, too,

around the same time.

Ah, a little later, actually,

called "Let It Rain".

And it was one of the first songs I'd ever written.

And it... and there, you know,

there's that kind of...

I was influenced by it, I think.

Yeah, I thought that we talked

about having, hopefully,

you play on that song with Stephen...

Yeah.

I wondered if that was gonna be...

it's not gonna bother you

that there's the...

there's a similar feel or...

Well I didn't... I must have copped it

and not even known, you know.

We can edit that part right out.

Well, no, no! I think, no,

that's very important for people to know.

Well Stephen owes you one.

♪ Come on lover, talk to me ♪

Sorry I got lost.

Whatever happened

in the solo section was great.

- Cool.

- With you and Eric together.

Yeah. When Eric's playing

in the top of the second solo,

you know, he's playing in the higher register

and I think anything in the lower register

would be cool as a complement.

♪ Where are we going love? ♪

Eric was very meticulous

about reminding me back then,

he said

You know, when you're doing this on stage,

you must take turns.

Much like schoolyard, you know.

Gentlemanly.

I had got an invite

to go and watch

Buffalo Springfield rehearsing

in a house in Laurel Canyon.

I had met this girl called

Mary Hughes who was

the kind of beauty queen

of the Strip at that time.

Jeff Beck was dating her

and Keith Moon was dating her

and I somehow managed

to get into the equation.

And I'm with this beautiful girl

and there's joints being passed around

and they start to play.

And they played at a level where

it wasn't too loud for everybody

and they were rehearsing a set,

I think, to play for a show.

And then there's a knock at the door.

And someone goes to answer

and there's an immediate vibe

in the room of that

something's wrong, you know.

And they open the door

and there's a policeman standing there.

And there's a squad car in the background.

And he says,

"You'll have to keep it down.

We've had some complaints about the noise.

What's that?"

And next thing you know,

they're in the room.

And I had nothing...

I had just put down a joint.

I had nothing in my hands,

but, ah, I was handcuffed to somebody.

So, we were all taken to L.A. County Jail.

Meanwhile, it was like where's...

what happened to Stephen?

Stephen, when he realized

who was at the front door...

Yeah!

Jumped out the bathroom window

and ran off.

There's a party that

we heard about, too, your...

was it your house

that had a party in the Canyon?

Is that the same party you mentioned?

What? Disastrous.

What I heard was

you were there, Eric was there,

Neil was there, and so were the police.

- I'd say yeah!

- That sound right?

Neil and I were sitting

in a bedroom in the back

and we here this.

And I said go check that.

I'm gonna go next door and call lawyers!

And I book it out the back.

So, of course, that blew up

into ruining my reputation.

Oh, he was the guy that booked, you know.

And, ah, and I went next door and...

totally reprehensible.

I should have manned up and... and it wasn't.

I've never lived that down

and felt awful about it ever since.

Neil got really aggressive

and was out the door

and he was gonna go

chase the police away.

'Cause he's Canadian and I guess

in Canada you can do that...

It was really exciting

to get to Los Angeles

coming from Gainesville, Florida.

And in my mind,

it was the weather and the girls

and the surfing and the cars

and it was a young mentality.

This is kind of where people

that really were big dreamers

went to because

that's kind of allowed here.

There are people that believe that

it might be possible to do

something that's not ordinary.

The first thing I remember

going down Sunset Boulevard

looking out the car at the all

the record companies, you know.

In those days it was MGM,

you know, Capitol, you know,

all these labels that aren't there anymore.

It was true. I got out there

and man, these recording studios

are all spotless and engineers

are really remarkably good.

This is where Phil Spector

and Brian Wilson were working.

People started showing up here

trying to work with the engineers

they worked with

and the studios that they worked in

to make things sound... fat.

In America it's very, very different.

Abbey Road was

the only place that, basically,

we ever recorded, right.

There it was almost like,

ah, almost like the BBC.

All the engineers had

these white overalls on.

And, you know, if you wanted

to bring the bass up

you had to go to the producer

who then went to the engineer

who then brought the bass up.

You were secondary somehow

to these people in white coats

that were really making the music.

They had all these

like professors guys.

You know, scientists upstairs.

We were in the studio.

It's like an old 40s movie.

Oh, what's that you want?

You want to play?

Mm, let me see what I can do.

Very different here.

Very much looser, much better.

"Good Vibrations"

was recorded in four studios,

four different studios.

Well, each studio is different, you know?

Like you can't...

not any one studio's the same.

Western was good for the,

ah, instrumentation,

like the bass, the drums, guitars.

Sunset Sound, I liked their tech piano.

I used that on the bridge

to "Good Vibrations."

Gold Star was good for just the echo.

The echo of Gold Star was good.

And RCA Victor,

that's where we did the vocal.

There were so many studios.

They had that great

RCA studio on Sunset and Ivar.

It was a fantastic place.

Columbia Studios.

And Western, you know,

United Western at times it was called.

It's still there.

Have you...

have you recorded here?

No, I've never been here.

Yeah, this is where

Brian Wilson, Mamas & the Papas,

and Buffalo Springfield recorded.

Yeah?

As well as you can see

the evolution of Don Was.

Yeah, there he is!

And let's go back further.

And there's some more of him over there.

Yeah, you can here see this...

There's some more him down there -

...before he really figured it out.

What about these guys?

Mm, not really familiar.

- That's okay.

- It's okay.

- This is all right here, huh?

- Yeah. It's cool.

Yeah, I want to record

a song by The Association.

Yeah!

They're not really marked

who's doing what,

but that doesn't really matter.

♪ You ask me if there'll come a time ♪

♪ When I'll grow tired of you ♪

♪ Never my love ♪

♪ Never my love ♪

Let's do it.

♪ Well, you ask me if there'll come a time ♪

♪ When I'll grow tired of you ♪

♪ Never my love ♪

♪ Never my love ♪

♪ You wonder if this heart of mine ♪

♪ Will lose its desire for you ♪

♪ Never my love ♪

♪ Never my love ♪

♪ Now, how can you think love will end ♪

♪ When I've asked you

to spend your whole life ♪

♪ With me ♪

♪ Buh-buh buh, Buh-buh ♪

♪ Buh-buh-buh ♪

♪ Never my love ♪

♪ Never my love ♪

♪ What makes you think love will end ♪

♪ When I've asked you

to spend your whole life ♪

♪ With me ♪

♪ With me ♪

♪ Buh-buh, buh-buh, Buh-buh ♪

♪ Buh-buh, buh-buh ♪

♪ Never my love ♪

♪ Never my love ♪

I was driving down Sunset

and I turned on

one of those roads

that leads up into the hills

and I stopped at this place

that overlooks the whole city.

It was fantastic.

I suddenly felt exhilarated there.

I was really moved

by the geometry of the place,

its harmony.

It's a fabulous city.

To think some people

claim it's an ugly city

when it's really pure poetry,

it just kills me.

I wanted to build something right then,

create something.

I used to love L.A.

when I was first there in the early 60s.

You can drive around and smell

the orange blossoms, you know.

It was really cool.

We moved into Laurel Canyon

and we just loved the scene there.

And a lot of people,

a lot of folk singers would come around

and play and we'd,

you know, get high and stuff.

It was fan... a fun time.

Just driving up those canyons

and people pointing out houses

of famous people that lived there,

Houdini and Tom Mix and Zappa

and, you know, it was a fabulous time.

♪ I need somebody groovy ♪

♪ Someone who's able to move me, yeah ♪

Any time you

drove by the Canyon Store

you saw some pop hero.

There's David Crosby, you know!

There were people

from everywhere in Laurel Canyon.

In '66 it was teeming.

And you might see anybody.

Like I one time saw

Crosby blow through there

and scoop up these two girls.

And he was wearing a cape, by the way.

Disappeared, you know, into the night!

Frank Zappa lived across the street.

And he once stood in the middle of the street

reading me the lyrics of

"Who Are The Brain Police",

like Alan Ginsberg. It was...

And I kept going whoa! Whoa! Whoa!

And then I heard Frank Zappa

do an orchestration

on a track without the yelling over it.

And it was... it was otherworldly.

It was really... really incredible.

There's not the kind of scene

there is in New York

and the east coast cities

where there's a club you go to.

We would go over to people's houses

and yak it up for hours and hours!

And play music, you know.

All kinds of music all the time.

I wrote a song

with Brian Wilson one time.

Brian came over to my house.

I said wow.

He had never come over before.

And he came up and he said,

"You got any speed?"

And I said, "I think so."

I went to the medicine cabinet

and I gave him two Biphetamine 20s.

He... he wanted two.

And this is about,

mm, 4:00 in the afternoon.

We started playing a song.

It was like a...

Okay, we're playing that

and we're playing that and playing that.

And it finally gets dark and I go to bed.

And, you know, seven,

eight hours later I got up

and Brian is still at the piano going...

- Still playing the same figure?

- Yeah, same song, yeah!

- Really fast.

- It's only got one verse.

And they finally released it,

called it "Ding Dang".

And whenever I see Brian

these days he points at me

and goes "Ding dang!"

There's a lot of strange stuff happening here.

George and I just drove up

to wherever Micky Dolenz lived

and Stephen Stills was there

and several other people.

And they were all

being hippies in the nude.

And when they saw

it was George and I driving

they all run in and got dressed!

And we were going

well, that's not very hippie.

You just felt like

you could do anything, you know.

You just felt like

there was nothing stopping you,

is the way that...

and Hollywood was right there

and the music industry, or a good part of it.

And Sunset Boulevard, you know.

It just... it reeked of what happened in the 40s

with the movie stars and that lifestyle.

And, in a sense,

we emulated it in a different way.

There's a certain thing

about freedom of spirit,

a certain thing about lack of rules,

lack of previous stuff holding you in place.

Certain people wound up,

you know, in certain places

and chemistries happened

and they inspired other

chemistries around them.

I kind of compare it with

Vienna at the turn of the century

when all those architects

and painters and furniture builders

would drink massive amounts of coffee,

and what are you doing

and what are you working on now?

Paris in the 30s with Gertrude Stein and all,

you know, all those artists coming together.

But I think this era, in time,

is gonna be treated exactly the same way

in a couple of hundred years by the historians.

The power of music is undeniable.

I truly believe it can change the world.

I do.

Small ways, but...

I'm not letting this go!

♪ I think I'm goin' back ♪

♪ To the things I learned so well ♪

♪ In my youth ♪

♪ I think I'm returning to ♪

♪ Those days when I was young enough ♪

♪ To know the truth ♪

♪ Now there are no games ♪

♪ To only pass the time ♪

♪ No more electric trains ♪

♪ No more trees to climb ♪

♪ But thinking young and growing older ♪

♪ Is no sin ♪

♪ And I can play the game of life to win ♪

♪ I can recall the time ♪

♪ When I wasn't afraid

to reach out to a friend ♪

♪ Now I think I've got ♪

♪ A lot more than just my toys to lend ♪

♪ Now there's more to do ♪

♪ Than watch my sailboat glide ♪

♪ And every day can be ♪

♪ A magic carpet ride ♪

♪ A little bit of courage ♪

♪ Is all we lack ♪

♪ So catch me if you can ♪

♪ I'm goin' back ♪

♪ La la la

la-la la la la, la-la la la ♪

♪ La la la, la-la la la la,

la-la la la ♪

♪ La la la, la-la la la la,

la-la la la ♪

You know, the politics in bands

it gets pretty heavy sometimes,

especially when one guy's

getting more songs on the record

than somebody else.

And David had written

this song about a ménage à trios.

♪ What can we do

now that we both love you ♪

♪ I love you too ♪

♪ And I don't really see ♪

♪ Why can't we go on as three ♪

I didn't think it was appropriate

for what we were doing,

but he thought it was

cool and hip and everything.

And we decided

to do a Goffin and King song

called "Going Back"

and he was just up in arms about that.

It just wasn't, you know,

something that they thought

was in good taste, you know.

It was risqué,

it was out on the edge, you know.

To me it's not out on the edge at all.

It's just a love song.

It has happened.

I mean otherwise the French

wouldn't have a name for it!

It wasn't so much

David writing the song.

It was the realization that

he actually lived it, many times.

That was what pissed me off.

He knows it was a naughty song to write.

You gotta remember, Crosby was like Brando.

He had no boundaries.

Carole and Gerry

had moved from New York to L.A.

and they had starting writing songs that...

not the kind of girl band stuff

they'd been doing.

But more of like a hipper style.

And David was...

he was, um, insufferable.

He was tough to live with.

He didn't get his cool song on

and we did this kind of

really commercial song instead.

So, he was angry with that.

The breaking point

really was when Chris Hillman

got mad at David

and said we gotta get rid of him.

The fun thing is that

everybody thinks that

that's why they

threw me out of The Byrds.

Ladies and gentlemen,

They threw me out of The Byrds

'cause I was an asshole.

He was saying things like

you guys are not

good enough musicians

to be playing with me.

I went oh, really?

- That's not cool, you know!

- Yeah.

So, we didn't like that attitude very much.

You know, I say

it's because I was an asshole.

It wasn't that simple, of course.

If you give kids millions of dollars, you know,

they'll screw up.

We held it together for a pretty long time.

Bands tend to devolve.

They evolve up the point where they're exciting

and they're new and they're good,

and then after that they

work their way slowly downhill

until it's turn on the smoke machine

and play your hits.

And that's not good enough for me.

It's just not.

I've done it.

You know, 'cause it was

the path of least resistance

and it made me lots of money

and all that good stuff.

It's not good enough.

♪ Now there's more to do ♪

♪ Than watch my sailboat glide ♪

♪ And every day can be ♪

♪ A magic carpet ride ♪

♪ A little bit of courage ♪

♪ Is all we lack ♪

♪ So catch me if you can ♪

♪ I'm goin' back ♪

♪ La la la, la-la la la la,

la-la la la La la la, la-la ♪

♪ La la la, la-la ♪

I feel like

we hear these songs,

we grew up with these songs,

and then we take them for granted

and I feel like there's

this thing happening tonight

and in your hands,

and in this band's hands,

where you're kind of

bringing them back to life

and reminding us of the brilliance.

Can you talk a little about that?

It really started with, ah, seeing this film,

which was "Model Shop".

And it was a movie

in '67 done by Jacques Demy.

That movie looked like

the sound of The Beach Boys

and The Mamas & Papas.

And so, it sent us on

an exploration back to that time

and to look at the records

that, you know, made, ah,

made that age of innocence

of southern California writing

from '65 to '67, you know, come alive.

Most of the groups

that we're talking about,

that we've picked from,

I think they were...

those are the ones that are the premier

southern California rock bands

from that year at that time.

Something happened

there that engendered

a whole lot of music, a whole lot of

new ways of approaching the music possible.

Whatever it was, it was a good thing.

I don't think you have

to put too much effort into it, really.

I think they're classics.

They're timeless.

And a good song will sound

as good then as it'll sound today.

You don't have to do much.

We didn't reinvent them at all.

We actually stayed

pretty true to what they sounded like.

And oddly enough,

that sound is pretty relevant.

It's pretty current right now.

I think, you know,

people have been trying

to put salt on its tail for a long time,

trying to figure out why it happened there

and how it happened there.

And I... you can guess

and you can point out certain factors

that you think would

have been influencing it.

But I don't know if we'll ever get it named.

It did happen.

And it still is a place

where people come to make music.

Maybe it started with

this optimism of The Beatles

to Ed Sullivan was the beginning of '64,

so that is the perfect kickoff

where there's this fad, right?

People want to be their own Beatles.

And then so that lasts for two,

two and a half years.

Well, it probably changed a lot when

everybody started writing

more complex, longer songs,

which is kind of up until

Pet Sounds and Expecting to Fly.

Songs were three and a half minutes

and they could do...

they realized they could do a lot more.

Don't you feel like some of these songs

structurally, like word-wise and sound-wise,

they're almost like more related to dreams?

Because they feel like

music before was more written

for like the conscious mind

and this seems to be like more

coming in touch with the subconscious,

which is on the way to psychedelia probably,

just that in-between?

Well I think we talked about

"Expecting To Fly"

and maybe that's the end of it?

You know?

I'm not sure I would be the one

to say why it's the end of it,

but that's very different than

everything else we listened to

and I wouldn't say more ambitious,

but it seemed like something

cracked open maybe right then.

That era begins with

this collective idea of these

musicians and this

creative force coming together

to make something bigger.

And then the era ends

when it becomes more

about the individual,

yeah, searching their

own life and their own path

and, ah, yeah, you get

all these groups breaking up.

When you have strong minded people

and they're having these

visions of a new type of art

and they start to compromise,

then it just doesn't last maybe.

What do you remember about

"Expecting To Fly"?

'Cause we recorded that for the record.

What do you remember

about recording that song?

Actually, I wasn't allowed on those sessions.

You're not on that at all?

No, that's when Neil

had decided to take flight.

- That song was a warning.

- Was it?

- Yes, I'm leaving.

- Really?

And I'm going to wait until it's absolutely

critically important

to the survival of the band,

like the night before Johnny Carson

booked the first rock band.

Neil quit the day before

we we're getting on the plane.

♪ There you stood on the edge of your feather ♪

♪ Expecting to fly ♪

♪ While I laughed

and I wondered whether ♪

♪ I could wave goodbye ♪

♪ Knowin' that you'd gone ♪

♪ By the summer it was healing ♪

♪ And we had said goodbye ♪

♪ All the years we'd spent with feeling ♪

♪ Ended with a cry ♪

♪ Babe ♪

♪ Ended with a cry ♪

♪ Babe ♪

♪ Ended with a cry ♪

♪ I tried so hard to stand as I stumbled ♪

♪ And fell to the ground ♪

♪ So hard to laugh ♪

♪ As I fumbled ♪

♪ And reached for the love I found ♪

♪ Knowin' it was gone ♪

♪ If I never lived without you ♪

♪ Now you know I'd die ♪

♪ If I never said I loved you ♪

♪ Well now you know I'd try ♪

♪ Babe ♪

♪ Now you know I'd try ♪

♪ Babe ♪

♪ Now you know I'd try ♪

♪ Babe ♪

♪ Now you know I'd try ♪

♪ I don't know ♪

♪ What's going on here ♪

♪ And I don't know ♪

♪ How it's supposed to be ♪

♪ Oh, I don't have ♪

♪ The vaguest notion ♪

♪ Whose it is ♪

♪ Or what it's all for ♪

♪ I don't know ♪

♪ And I'm not cryin' ♪

♪ Laughin' mostly ♪

♪ As you can see ♪