"Do You Like Worms?" is a song by American rock band the Beach Boys from their unfinished album Smile. Written by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks, the song is about the recolonization of the American continent and contains references to the Sandwich Islands and "Bicycle Rider Back" playing cards. None of the lyrics appear to mention worms; asked about the title, Parks said he could not remember where it came from, although in a Reddit AMA, Wilson stated that Parks had come up with it.
Smile artist Frank Holmes' "Do You Like Worms" illustration
Smile (The Beach Boys album)
Smile is an unfinished album by the American rock band the Beach Boys that was intended to follow their 1966 album Pet Sounds. It was to be an LP of twelve tracks assembled from modular fragments, the same editing process used for their "Good Vibrations" single. Instead, after a year of recording, the album was shelved and the group released a downscaled version, Smiley Smile, in September 1967. Over the next four decades, few of the original Smile tracks were officially released, and the project came to be regarded as the most legendary unreleased album in popular music history.
Wilson producing a Pet Sounds recording session in early 1966
According to Van Dyke Parks, Smile was partly intended to reclaim popular music from the influence of British acts like the Beatles (pictured in 1964).
Wilson stated that his understanding of ego and humor drew on the writings of Arthur Koestler (pictured)
Parks compared Wilson's orchestrations to those by the early 20th-century composer Percy Grainger.