page_title: Heroes and Villains
section_title: Live performances
hierarchical_section_title: Heroes and Villains / Variations / Live performances
caption_attribution_description: English: The Beach Boys Smile
context_page_description: "Heroes and Villains" is a song written and produced by Brian Wilson with words by Van Dyke Parks, recorded by the American rock band the Beach Boys. Envisioned as a three-minute music comedy, it was the follow-up single to the group's "Good Vibrations" and intended as the centerpiece to the unfinished album Smile. After the album was shelved, the song was rearranged and issued as a single in July 1967 with "You're Welcome" as the B-side. It charted at number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100. Two months later, it was placed as the opening track to the studio album Smiley Smile.
  Parks said that he modeled the lyrics after "El Paso" and denied a popular theory claiming that "Heroes and Villains" was a song about the Vietnam War. Though the lyrics are distinctly Western with some allusions to the Indian massacres, then-wife Marilyn Wilson said that Brian meant the "heroes" and "villains" to represent those in his life.
  Like "Good Vibrations", "Heroes and Villains" was produced using the same unorthodox method of recording a surplus of interchangeable musical sections at multiple Hollywood recording studios.
context_section_description: In late 1967 during sessions for the unreleased live album Lei'd in Hawaii, the Beach Boys recorded a stripped down live-in-the-studio version of "Heroes and Villains". Later, Mike Love and Brian Wilson would overdub this version with a self-deprecating monologue satirizing the song, with Love calling "Heroes and Villains" a "nuclear disaster" and that "being basically masochists, [The Beach Boys] kind of enjoyed having this record bomb." Love also assures the listener that "it's all in fun," despite it harshly criticizing Wilson's musical ability and commercial shortcomings; the recording ends with Love thanking the listener for coming to the Beach Boys' stage performance and throwing objects at the group. Although the track was meant to be taken lightheartedly, it can be interpreted as a reflection of Wilson's extremely low self-confidence as a musician at the time.
  The Beach Boys have released four different live versions of the song: on The Beach Boys in Concert; on Good Timin': Live at Knebworth, England 1980, as part of a medley with "Cotton Fields"; on the Endless Harmony Soundtrack, and also on the Beach Boys Concert/Live in London twofer, as a bonus track. It is also on Al Jardine's Live in Las Vegas album. While Brian Wilson was absent from the touring section of the group, Jardine sang lead on this song. "Heroes and Villains" was included in the Beach Boys' 50th Anniversary Reunion Tour in 2012 with Wilson on lead, and was cited as one of the concert highlights.
caption: The group performing "Heroes and Villains" in 2012 during the 50th Reunion Tour
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