Do You Like Worms?

Album: Smile (1966)
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Songfacts®:

  • This song, also known as "Roll Plymouth Rock," "Do You Dig Worms?" or simply "Worms," is a mostly uncompleted Beach Boys song originally composed and intended for the ill-fated SMiLE project. The original raw recording (as heard in the Beach Boys compilation box set Good Vibrations: Thirty Years of The Beach Boys) was a mix of the lead vocals and instrumental track (recorded October 18, 1967) and the background vocals (recorded the following December of that year). The 2004 arrangement adds new lyrics written by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks. >>
    Suggestion credit:
    Niall - Dublin, Ireland
  • Van Dyke Parks came up with the curious song name. Brian Wilson commented that he "thought it was a strange strange title."

Comments: 1

  • Sean from Chicago, IlActually, the lyrics on the 2004 version are not new. There's a well-known story told by both Van Dyke Parks and Darian Sahanaja about how Brian Wilson contacted Van Dyke Parks before finishing Smile and asking him about the lyrics to "Do You Like Worms." There are two different versions of the story. One version says that Parks sent Wilson a faxed copy of the lyrics (most likely from a lyrics sheet from '66) but one of the words came out illegible. Wilson called Parks to ask what the word was, and Parks said he remembered it was "Indians." The other story is that Brian actually remembered all the lyrics but called Parks because he had trouble remembering one word.
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