Cool, Cool Water
"Cool, Cool Water" (also known as "I Love To Say Da-Da" and "In Blue Hawaii") is a song written through several incarnations by Brian Wilson, Van Dyke Parks, and Mike Love for the American rock band The Beach Boys.
Premise
The song originated from the 1966/67 Smile sessions, and was, for the most part, the last song recorded for the ill-fated album. The nearly complete version, which at that point in time was intended as an instrumental link track, was titled as "I Love To Say Da-Da". The track featured a wordless lead from Mike Love and accompanying back-up vocals from Bruce Johnston. No one is certain, however, if the song was to be included on the proposed album. It was later released on the Smile portion of Good Vibrations: Thirty Years of The Beach Boys, a boxed set which included much of the unreleased Smile material. Some of the song's sessions would also appear on Smile bootlegs.
When the Smile project collapsed, the Beach Boys continued working on it up until mid-1967 during the Wild Honey sessions with the track renamed as "Cool, Cool Water". The 1967 recording did not make it to the final track listing and was shelved. Three years later, the group released a modified version of "Cool, Cool Water" on their 1970 album Sunflower, featuring new lyrics by Mike Love and a much different arrangement. This is the most familiar version of the song released by the Beach Boys. It was also released as an edited single, with the B-side of the single being "Forever". The single never charted in the U.S. or in the U.K. The single edit was released in 2007, on the group's The Warmth of the Sun compilation.
By the time Brian Wilson returned to the Smile project for his 2004 completed version of the album, he enlisted lyricist Parks to complete the song he would now call "In Blue Hawaii", bringing it back to its original arrangement but incorporating into the song the "Water Chant" (which itself may or may not have been the part of "The Elements Suite" representing water), and performed it as part of the entire album in concert and on his eventual solo release.
"Cool, Cool Water"
Performers
References
- ^ Badman, Keith. The Beach Boys. The Definitive Diary of America's Greatest Band: On Stage and in the Studio Backbeat Books, San Francisco, California, 2004. ISBN 0-87930-818-4 p. 289
See also