Song Cycle (album) - Background

Background

In Los Angeles during the mid-1960s, Van Dyke Parks became known as an in-demand session pianist, working with such artists as The Byrds, Tim Buckley, and Paul Revere & the Raiders. At the same time, he had been unsatisfied with contemporary pop music and its increasing submissiveness to the British invasion, going so far as to say, "apart from Pet Sounds I didn't find anything striking coming out of the United States."

Wanting to give "an American experience which would be uniquely disassociable from the Beatles/British pop viewpoint," he was involved with numerous works that would indulge his interest in Depression-era American pop and folk music, such as producing Harper's Bizarre's debut album Anything Goes; releasing his own singles "Come To The Sunshine", "Number Nine", "Colours"; and most notably providing lyrical content to The Beach Boys' ill-fated Smile album.

Immediately following his collaborative efforts on the aborted Smile album, Parks was signed as a recording artist by Warner Bros. Records. The resulting album was backed by producer Lenny Waronker, who placed Parks' musical freedom over budgetary constraints (being one of the most expensive albums ever produced up to this time). The album made early use of an eight-track professional reel-to-reel recorder at a time when most studios were still limited to four-track machines. Parks has added that the bulk of the album was done "before Sgt. Pepper reared its ugly head", and that Randy Newman had written "Vine St." especially for him.