Smile Box set: Ghost melodies, clues, hints, and new mysteries

[anazgnos]

And speaking of Darian and his access...didn't he say that the melody for "Song for Children" came from a clarinet line he heard bleed through someone's headphones on the original session tapes??? Whatever happened to that, and how did it elude the box? Can anybody hear it???

Given the space crunch, "Holidays: isolated headphone clarinet bleed" might not have been a top priority for general consumption, despite the historical interest.

And it seems like the DYLW melody-reconstruction process of 2003 might not have gone any further than going by what Brian sang upon being played the track. .  The fact that he did come up with a previously undocumented lead line was probably as far as they felt they needed to go.   Now if they'd made a point of playing him this fragment too, he might have gone "oh yeah!" or he might have just been all like "whatevs, Darian".

I love musing over the idea of hidden intention behind these little fragments.  "Surf's Up 1967" is the same way - "what does this key change mean?!?"

[37!ws]

And speaking of Darian and his access...didn't he say that the melody for "Song for Children" came from a clarinet line he heard bleed through someone's headphones on the original session tapes??? Whatever happened to that, and how did it elude the box? Can anybody hear it???

Given the space crunch, "Holidays: isolated headphone clarinet bleed" might not have been a top priority for general consumption, despite the historical interest.

I didn't mean that granular, but...is there any spot in the sessions where if you listen carefully can you actually HEAR the bleed???

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

Didn't Darian have full access to the Smile tapes in the vault?? Certainly if it was "officially" believed to be THE melody, it would have been properly adapted in BWPS.

Only what had been gone through at the time, in the ongoing process of cataloging and identifying the tapes.

[mammy blue]

I didn't mean that granular, but...is there any spot in the sessions where if you listen carefully can you actually HEAR the bleed???

I tried to listen for it during the Look sessions, but I couldn't hear it. Anyone else?

[buddhahat]

And speaking of Darian and his access...didn't he say that the melody for "Song for Children" came from a clarinet line he heard bleed through someone's headphones on the original session tapes??? Whatever happened to that, and how did it elude the box? Can anybody hear it???

Yeah I was hoping to hear this as well. Has anyone other than Darian confirmed that this exists?

[Iron Horse-Apples]

Why are we all so sure that scrap of paper contained the final draft of the lyrics? The music seemed to change daily, why not the lyrics? Listen to some early Pet Sounds drafts. Words were excised/added as the songs progressed.

This isn't great, (so no rude comments please) but off the top of my head, what about.....

Once upon the sandwich isle across the sea
And then the social structure streamed upon Hawaii

No idea about verse one though. If you add anything past ocean liner you lose the second line rhyme.

I'm really happy that this box-set has thrown up more puzzles and questions, rather than being the final word.

[37!ws]

Seems that all evidence we actually have shows that lyrics actually didn't change much at all, except "Good Vibrations."

- All Smile versions of "Wonderful" had the same lyrics.
- The "Heroes And Villains" lyrics pretty much stayed the same, except "for" was sung as "as" in the demo.
- "Vegetables" except the "cornucopia" verse was dropped after the demo

[Chocolate Shake Man]

Yeah, but this lyric sheet already had a word (at least a word) missing. So this lyric sheet was hardly the ten commandments.

[Iron Horse-Apples]

Seems that all evidence we actually have shows that lyrics actually didn't change much at all, except "Good Vibrations."

- All Smile versions of "Wonderful" had the same lyrics.
- The "Heroes And Villains" lyrics pretty much stayed the same, except "for" was sung as "as" in the demo.
- "Vegetables" except the "cornucopia" verse was dropped after the demo

But as less than half the album had completed vocals, that's not saying much.

So to go through your list,

Only one SMiLE version of Wonderful had complete vocals

Heroes still wasn't finished.

And VegaTables, as you rightly point out, had lyrical changes.

So I would say there is no evidence that lyrics didn't change much

IMO

[Boiled Egg]

Before we get wobbly about this -- what's chapter and verse on the DYLW lyrics? What do we have, from when?

[Iron Horse-Apples]

A lyric sheet in Van Dyke's handwriting, given to Frank Holmes for reference during his illustrations.

[Boiled Egg]

Anyone got a copy or a transcript?

[runnersdialzero]

I don't think something heard through headphone bleed on a multitrack is able to be mixed into a song without ridiculous amounts of hiss etc. coming into the picture. Like, a legit ridiculous amount, not just "o no wat happen" hiss.

[CenturyDeprived]

Amazing.

[runnersdialzero]

On Disc 2, for "Heroes and Villains: Whistling Bridge", at 0:27-0:29, when Brian says "Carol, I think you and [unintelligible]" should go home", it sounds very nearly just like his much older self talking... I've never heard "young" brian sound anything like older Brian before until this moment.

Really weird. Maybe he was just really tired at the end of a grueling session or something.

That might be because Dennis says it

[mammy blue]

Yeah, it's Denny talking to Carol and Scott.

[Micha]

On Disc 2, for "Heroes and Villains: Whistling Bridge", at 0:27-0:29, when Brian says "Carol, I think you and [unintelligible]" should go home", it sounds very nearly just like his much older self talking... I've never heard "young" brian sound anything like older Brian before until this moment.

Really weird. Maybe he was just really tired at the end of a grueling session or something.

That might be because Dennis says it

Yeah, that's Dennis, I think. But at some spot on the V-T sessions Brian complains about am out of tune piano, and his speech there is slurred like it often is these days...

[Micha]

Why are we all so sure that scrap of paper contained the final draft of the lyrics?

I don't think it was, because DYLW got scrapped altogether, so there is no "final draft". Even BWPS doesn't use all of those lyrics, leaving out the "Having returned to the East or West indies" bit.

[CenturyDeprived]

Why are we all so sure that scrap of paper contained the final draft of the lyrics?

I don't think it was, because DYLW got scrapped altogether, so there is no "final draft". Even BWPS doesn't use all of those lyrics, leaving out the "Having returned to the East or West indies" bit.

Agreed.

[homeontherange]

I've never heard "young" brian sound anything like older Brian before until this moment.

Have you never heard Da Da?

[Bicyclerider]

Another mystery solved by the box set:  where the "linett tape" version of cool cool water (on Vigotone) came from - the one with three rounds of "cool, so cool, coolin' me" etc.  When only one round appeared on the GV box set I wondered if Mark had just looped it three times to create a "song" back in 88 - but now we know there were three rounds recorded, with the piano child bridge inbetween the second and the third.  so Mark just chopped out the bridge, and voila - the booted Cool Cool Water that we've come to know and love!

[puni puni]

Have you never heard Da Da?

why does everyone forget that the wah wah hoo wah was slowed down?

[runnersdialzero]

Have you never heard Da Da?

why does everyone forget that the wah wah hoo wah was slowed down?

Where was this said?

[puni puni]

they say it everywhere man just listen to it

[runnersdialzero]

they say it everywhere man just listen to it

Doesn't sound slowed down to me, d00d.