Van Dyke Parks' Song Cycle

(Paperback)

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Description

Posing more riddles than the average sphinx, with its decipherable answers pointing somewhere dark, Song Cycle was anything but passive. I had already witnessed hippie bands playing with their backs to the hall, so the thought of late 60s musicians being interested in their audience struck me as a concept bordering on revolutionary.

The debut album from songwriter and pianist Van Dyke Parks, Song Cycle first appeared in 1968 on Warner Brothers Records. Its twelve songs led listeners through Joycean wordplay and sound collages to reveal messages of dissent and personal loss, at odds with Parks' buoyant, riotously eclectic music. Monumentally ambitious and equally expensive, Song Cycle resembled a film - possibly Citizen Kane - more than the pop music of its day; like Kane, Parks' masterwork was adored by critics yet all but ignored by paying customers. In his efforts to plumb the mysteries of this quixotic record and its subsequent fate, Richard Henderson interviews several of the key figures involved with Song Cycle, notably Parks himself and producer Lenny Waronker.

Reviews

Perhaps now is the best time, if you have not already gone for Van Dyke Parks' solo opus, to fully delve into 'Song Cycle' the album... and the book. * The New York Examiner *
A work of quality, and its fascinating story, as presented here, is well worth reading. * The Wire *
Like The Rest Is Noise author Alex Ross' ability to make dense topics accessible, Richard Henderson excels at embracing the technical innards of music in a universally fascinating manner. * Crawdaddy! *
Song Cycle is an animated mash-up of parlor pop, calypso folk, movie scores, and anything else that struck Parkss fancy, and Richard Henderson admits its manic nature makes the collection a hard sell for the uninitiated. But he makes a persuasive case, not only detailing Song Cycles creation (it was rumored to be the most expensive pop album of its timewhich made it the biggest commercial failure of its time) but arguing for it as an unheralded artifact of the psychedelic era. -- Stephen M. Deusner * Pitchfork *

Author Bio

Richard Henderson is a writer, music editor and occasional music supervisor for feature films. Born in Detroit, he leads a nomadic existence in California. His film credits include Brno, Borat, Into The Wild and The Life Aquatic; his writing has appeared in The Wire, Billboard, The Beat and Murder Dog.