Question about Heroes and Villains Single

[Jcc]

Forgive me if this question has been answered elsewhere, but if SMiLE had been released on schedule, would the Heroes and Villains 45 single have been the same single as was released in July 1967, or would it have been the Heroes and Villains taken directly off the SMiLE album (as per the version in the Smile Sessions box)?  I know that sometimes the single can vary greatly from the album track, so I was wondering if anyone had heard anything about potential plans to change the song for a single release.

[Iron Horse-Apples]

What the H&V single would have been is the $100,000 question.  After the initial burst of creativity in the latter half of '66, during which Brian recorded the lions share of the Smile tracks, he then turned his attention pretty much exclusively to H&V. It went through quite a few versions (some of which are missing from the vault) before we reached the Smiley version.

This subject is a book in itself.

[Micha]

Nobody really knows, but had a SMiLE album been finished, H&V probably would have been released some time before the album, and likely would have been just as on the album. As it didn't happen, it is an academic question. The TSS version was of course constructed following the SMiLE 2004 version and doesn't give any clue how a SMiLE 1967 version would have been structured. The "Alternate version" is the closest contender for that.

[?]

Given that by the time the song was reworked into the 45 version we know today Smile was already dead, I can confidently say that had the album been released on schedule it would have been a different version.  The alternate Cantina version would be the best guess, since that would be the most recent version as of January '67 that we know of.  But that's just a guess based on very limited evidence.  As to whether the single and album versions would have been the same, no one can really know.  Truthfully, even if you managed to travel back in time and ask Brian you would only know what his intentions for the song were at the exact moment you asked.  The next day or the day before you might get a completely different answer.

[ash]

If released in early december 1966 then quite possibly Verse1/verse2/I'm in great shape/my children were raised/unknown/barnyard - possibly.
One of the acetates recently auctioned has a different Great Shape cut into a different My Children - why is this not on the new box ? -  key piece of Heroes possibly in a private collection aaaarrrggghhh.
During December (probably) BW changes his mind - part3 chimes is incorporated rest is a mystery but he works on this during and up to end of december.Vocal sessions continue and a key String dominated session Dec 13th or 22nd (?) is completely missing.
First week jan (3rd) - loads of bits see Comp reel smile sessions box - very little info on order/sequence but too much content ? Presumably a similar structure to early december with different sections linked more tightly by bridge to indians/soul made beautiful etc. Is this Vosse's version (see below) ?
Late Jan/Early feb - the cantina version
feb 15th onwards a few days - add Prelude to fade/poss Bicycle rider version/some or none of the rest of cantina ?  - is this the long 5/6 minute version ?
feb 20th ish - the Heroes and Villains Gee/do do do heroes and villains sections version - or is this the long 5/6 minute version ?
a couple of days later revised to add Heroes and villains part 4 - or is this the 5/6 minute version ?
feb 27th onwards (i'm doing this from memory) - bicycle rider/fade re-record/part 2 (aka fire intro)/verse re-record (he's desperate now) probably no vocals laid down.
work stops march 2 or 3
vegatables becomes the projected single
June 1967 the smile smile version (didn't Alan Boyd say he found a slightly longer version of this ?) - is this the long version played to a journalist.

One of the Vosse Posse, possibly Vosse (see what i did there) said at one stage Brian had part 1 and part 2 for a single all ready to go but he hadnt edited all the pieces together but they knew what it was to consist of (ref. Fusion article?).
All this leaves out the May 1966 recording wiped by Brian. Thanks Brian.
Some say You Are My Sunshine was involved somewhere. I think Al Kooper said he heard a version which seemed to consist of interpolations of You Are My Sunshine. The riff for You Are My Sunshine is similar to the Bicycle Rider riff and i tend to believe (others will disagree) that that is the source for the idea that you are my sunshine was part of Heroes, That and/or using the False Barnyard fade with the Sunshine lyrics.

Confused ?
Where did the Durrie Parks acetates find a home ? there were a couple of new bits on those apparently/allegedly.
Where and what is the 5/6 minute version ?
Was there one or more of them ?
Can i get a copy ?
Does anyone have The Magnificent Ambersons directors cut ?
Who killed the Kennedys given that it wasn't you and me or Lee ?
I need a glass of water man

[hypehat]

Apparently, the Part One/Part Two edit on TSS is mostly accurate, in some sense - Pt One is a test edit in March 1967 that Brian nixed for some reason, whilst part two is based off of deciphering of the numerous comments and tape markings by Alan & Mark (that said, I think the last minute or so would not have been released in 1967, just as a gut feeling). That's the only existing alternate conception for a single that exists in fully mixed reality.

However, the demo also shows the earliest known conception of H&V, he says 'this is our new single', and all that. I do like my edit of the three parts, for purely 'what if', reasons.

In short, it's either the Pt. 1/Pt. 2 or the demo sequence, or you're speculating with little basis in fact - an early version of H&V incorporated YAMS, but I think he wiped the tape. Vosse's 6 minute version could be part one/two.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

Forgive me if this question has been answered elsewhere, but if SMiLE had been released on schedule, would the Heroes and Villains 45 single have been the same single as was released in July 1967, or would it have been the Heroes and Villains taken directly off the SMiLE album (as per the version in the Smile Sessions box)? 

If Smile had been released on schedule, it wouldn't have sounded like either. The Smile Sessions unfortunately in this case relies on BWPS which mostly used the Smiley version, probably because they wanted to play the hit song at the live shows.

[Bicyclerider]

On schedule means January although originally Capitol wanted it in December.  In January we have the "demo" version from Novmber and the acetate with Great Shape edited in after verse1/2.  But since the early December track list has Great Shape as a separate track, this version had been rejected over a month before the Smile release date.  This late December/early Jan version is the most elusive version - he recorded the chimes section, tried editing Bicycle Rider from Worms into the song, tried different "tags to part one" that were variations on "eat a lot sleep a lot", recorded a version of Dada in a short section that may have been intended for Heroes.  How this was going to fit together is unknown and indeed Brian may not have figured it out yet so the next completed edit of the song we have is cantina in February, a month after the planned release date of the album.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Nobody knows... nobody knows... nobody knows... nobody knows... nobody knows... nobody knows... nobody knows...

[Iron Horse-Apples]

If released in early december 1966 then quite possibly Verse1/verse2/I'm in great shape/my children were raised/unknown/barnyard - possibly.
One of the acetates recently auctioned has a different Great Shape cut into a different My Children - why is this not on the new box ? -  key piece of Heroes possibly in a private collection aaaarrrggghhh.
During December (probably) BW changes his mind - part3 chimes is incorporated rest is a mystery but he works on this during and up to end of december.Vocal sessions continue and a key String dominated session Dec 13th or 22nd (?) is completely missing.
First week jan (3rd) - loads of bits see Comp reel smile sessions box - very little info on order/sequence but too much content ? Presumably a similar structure to early december with different sections linked more tightly by bridge to indians/soul made beautiful etc. Is this Vosse's version (see below) ?
Late Jan/Early feb - the cantina version
feb 15th onwards a few days - add Prelude to fade/poss Bicycle rider version/some or none of the rest of cantina ?  - is this the long 5/6 minute version ?
feb 20th ish - the Heroes and Villains Gee/do do do heroes and villains sections version - or is this the long 5/6 minute version ?
a couple of days later revised to add Heroes and villains part 4 - or is this the 5/6 minute version ?
feb 27th onwards (i'm doing this from memory) - bicycle rider/fade re-record/part 2 (aka fire intro)/verse re-record (he's desperate now) probably no vocals laid down.
work stops march 2 or 3
vegatables becomes the projected single
June 1967 the smile smile version (didn't Alan Boyd say he found a slightly longer version of this ?) - is this the long version played to a journalist.

One of the Vosse Posse, possibly Vosse (see what i did there) said at one stage Brian had part 1 and part 2 for a single all ready to go but he hadnt edited all the pieces together but they knew what it was to consist of (ref. Fusion article?).
All this leaves out the May 1966 recording wiped by Brian. Thanks Brian.
Some say You Are My Sunshine was involved somewhere. I think Al Kooper said he heard a version which seemed to consist of interpolations of You Are My Sunshine. The riff for You Are My Sunshine is similar to the Bicycle Rider riff and i tend to believe (others will disagree) that that is the source for the idea that you are my sunshine was part of Heroes, That and/or using the False Barnyard fade with the Sunshine lyrics.

Best answer.

[Gertie J.]

Nobody knows... nobody knows... nobody knows... nobody knows... nobody knows... nobody knows... nobody knows...

word.

[Iron Horse-Apples]

Nobody knows... nobody knows... nobody knows... nobody knows... nobody knows... nobody knows... nobody knows...

word.

[Gertie J.]

nice cap bruce. mike's present?

[ash]

Thanks Stephen.
I haven't been on the board so much recently but my current big question re. Heroes is what happened to those Durrie Parks acetates that were sold a few months back. The Heroes/Great Shape acetate could be what we need to reconstruct the first Smile era Heroes single at least as a partial vocal version. That's pretty significant to my mind. I'd pay the price of the entire boxset to hear that. More in fact. Those appear to be some of the dinner party acetates as referenced in Jules Siegels article.
Were they bought by the band/Brian ?
The key to working out the (rough) content of various versions of Heroes is using the session listings and noting what was recorded at each session which is mostly (but not completely) possible. There are flurries of work and then gaps followed by new part 2's etc. The only constant is verse 1 and verse 2 and My Children were raised.
How to get from verse 2 to Great Shape using the pieces we have is tricky.
For the Cantina Brian used the accapella verse. To match his piano demo we need to hard cut Bridge to indians/the dum dum echo part or similar but there's no proof these were written or recorded in the right time period. Was he just gonna fade the verse 2 flutter tone ?
Other problems for us reconstruction-wise are:-
1/ that missing string session from December 19th (?). This might have tied up the Chimes/ da da section which looks like (?) being the mid-late december conception.
How in Brian's name do we get from Heroes in c sharp to chimes which is in E ? IIRC the string session is the first use of the master number 57020. That could be important. Was it a new piece/an overdub/a re-record /a cancelled session ?
2/ we have to be brutal (as i believe Brian was) in removing sections. There are so many beautiful pieces that we want as many as possible in our mixes but i think BW had much more of a "junk it" attitude - look at the sections of Good Vibrations he didn't use or re-recorded.
3/The Heroes comp reel of Jan 3rd - do we know for sure this was all recorded on that date or is it a comp made on that date from the previous week or two ?
He seems to have recorded 3 versions of the rising Ah (bridge to indians) all ending differently. surely he wasn't going to include them all in one version ?
4/ which version was to include the bar room brawl ?

I've got to stop there. I can feel my Smile OCD returning.

"I can nearly reach it "
"Let it go Indy"

[bonnevillemariner]

I love Smile OCD threads.  I just wish there were a glossary somewhere for a lot of the terms y'all use, just to help those of us who are not yet OCT.  False barnyard?  Flutter tone?  What are these?

[Jukka]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dMF0N48SaA

Brian mentions the famous flutter tone right there. The whole thing is essential listening for any aspiring Smile-archeologists. The closest we'll get to H&V Rosetta stone?

[JohnMill]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dMF0N48SaA

Brian mentions the famous flutter tone right there. The whole thing is essential listening for any aspiring Smile-archeologists. The closest we'll get to H&V Rosetta stone?

Unless this video surfaces (assuming they are not one in the same):

75 (signifying Reel #75)

1. hands to face CR angle
can't see hands pan to hands in dark
child Is the Father of man

2. Heroes & Villains plays
Vandyke Parks has been working on lyrics
sings open country song

Sunshine

[guitarfool2002]

Forgive me if this question has been answered elsewhere, but if SMiLE had been released on schedule, would the Heroes and Villains 45 single have been the same single as was released in July 1967, or would it have been the Heroes and Villains taken directly off the SMiLE album (as per the version in the Smile Sessions box)?  I know that sometimes the single can vary greatly from the album track, so I was wondering if anyone had heard anything about potential plans to change the song for a single release.

Getting back to this original question, I think I have something of an answer if not tantalizing clues which hint at a timeline. Once again, it may be restating information that others have already listed, but this has some actual dates to consider the "when" aspect of how the Heroes single progressed in mid-1967 leading up to the early July '67 pre-release to radio stations of what we now call the "Smiley version".

This is a thread where I clipped/pasted and posted some entries from a radio station's surveys sent out in 1967, a series of clippings that were referenced in LLVS by someone who remembered reading them. These were the message board and Facebook posts of their day...you just had to wait a week to get the hottest news versus seconds...

This is the post with the full collection and discussions:
http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,10389.msg189393.html#msg189393

And here are the most relevant clippings with dates:









Here is a timeline for what the original poster was asking:
Mid-March 67...The Heroes single is finished and awaiting release. This is most likely the "Cantina" mixdown which was first on the Smiley 2-fer.

April 21...The single is being held up by the Capitol lawsuit and won't be released until it's settled

April 28, one week later...Brian scraps the single apparently unhappy with the sound. "Vegetables" is now planned as a single in its place

No word until August 4...the single is set for a July 28 UK release.

In between May and August's issues, of course the "Smiley" single was released and played on US radio as early as the second week of July 67.

So those are the published accounts of how and when the Heroes single developed in mid-67.

[Jcc]

Thanks for all the responses!

How about this theory:

The original Heroes and Villains "single" to be released in the Spring of 1967 was what we know of as the "Cantina Alternate" version which was on the 2001 Smiley Smile/Wild Honey two-fer.  But Brian doesn't like it.  Maybe it's too long, not punchy enough, it doesn't sound like a worthy follow-up to Good Vibrations, his astrologer doesn't like it, who knows?

So he re-does the single, is reasonably satisfied with it, but it's the Smiley version that was eventually released in July.  Still not perfect, but the "third way" is the SMiLE version, which doesn't exist because the album was never finished.   So, in a perfect world, that version becomes the single, in a world that also sees an April or May 1967 release date of SMiLE.

[Cam Mott]

I bet that early March H&V was something like the cantina mix with cantina and the fade replaced and maybe some other replacement bits from the later half of February on the A side with a sort of album comp-ish Part 2 B side.

[ash]

Has there ever been any indication as to when mixing/editing sessions took place or did they always happen at the end of a recording session ?
Cam's idea (part 1 anyway !) holds some water and i suspect that gee up to part 4 replaced Cantina. However is there any evidence that any vocal sessions took place after these. The work that followed was Bicycle Rider/Smiley Heroes chorus, False Barnyard re-record,verse re-record, part 2 intro (aka Fire intro) and of these only False Barnyard had any kind of vocal work - Carl's simultaneous do do do's while smoking. Or am i wrong ?
Maybe it was at this point (March 2/3) that Brian finally gave up and decided to take a break from the 6 month bummer of Heroes or used parts he had previously rejected to form what is referred to as the completed single in various press articles that also reference the lawsuit. Maybe the band even lied that it was finished to use the long promised single as a bargaining chip. Capitol must've been beyond desperate for the new single by then.
BTW i have never found a good way to get to the part2/aka Fire intro. I have an idea what could follow but how do you get to the F major unless it is the intro to part 2 ie. the beginning of side B ?
I have the same problem with all the other Fire intro style variations such as Chimes intro which is in E and labelled part 3.
I still can't decide if Brian was desperately pulling bits from other songs to try and find the right bit to go after verse 1 and verse 2 (the only constants) or if indeed he was planning a sort of album comp-ish part2 B side. I do find the latter unlikely in all honesty but "nobody knows" or at least "they" are not talking.
Maybe he chiselled and chiselled until the nose came off and the entire sculpture was ruined or in pieces he felt he couldn't retrieve ?
When the next block of stone was delivered to his home studio he decided to just sculpt a balloon rather than a detailed representation of Planet Earth.
or something like that....

[Bill Tobelman]

Think Andrew's correct with his "nobody knows" analysis.

[Summertime Blooz]

Think Andrew's correct with his "nobody knows" analysis.

Well of course, ultimately, he's correct, but what's the fun of just saying "nobody knows"?

[Cam Mott]

Has there ever been any indication as to when mixing/editing sessions took place or did they always happen at the end of a recording session ?
Cam's idea (part 1 anyway !) holds some water and i suspect that gee up to part 4 replaced Cantina. However is there any evidence that any vocal sessions took place after these. The work that followed was Bicycle Rider/Smiley Heroes chorus, False Barnyard re-record,verse re-record, part 2 intro (aka Fire intro) and of these only False Barnyard had any kind of vocal work - Carl's simultaneous do do do's while smoking. Or am i wrong ?
Maybe it was at this point (March 2/3) that Brian finally gave up and decided to take a break from the 6 month bummer of Heroes or used parts he had previously rejected to form what is referred to as the completed single in various press articles that also reference the lawsuit. Maybe the band even lied that it was finished to use the long promised single as a bargaining chip. Capitol must've been beyond desperate for the new single by then.
BTW i have never found a good way to get to the part2/aka Fire intro. I have an idea what could follow but how do you get to the F major unless it is the intro to part 2 ie. the beginning of side B ?
I have the same problem with all the other Fire intro style variations such as Chimes intro which is in E and labelled part 3.
I still can't decide if Brian was desperately pulling bits from other songs to try and find the right bit to go after verse 1 and verse 2 (the only constants) or if indeed he was planning a sort of album comp-ish part2 B side. I do find the latter unlikely in all honesty but "nobody knows" or at least "they" are not talking.
Maybe he chiselled and chiselled until the nose came off and the entire sculpture was ruined or in pieces he felt he couldn't retrieve ?
When the next block of stone was delivered to his home studio he decided to just sculpt a balloon rather than a detailed representation of Planet Earth.
or something like that....

My interpretation doesn't get much traction yet. To me it looks like Brian had two different masters, one for each side, for the two sides of the H&V single going as of Jan 5. They have separate master numbers to differentiate between them. The master number for Part/Side 2 of the H&V recordings are quotes from other songs from the SMiLE album. Some of them are the last recordings for the March single. There are articles like the one GF posted and testimony from Britz that there was a finished two sided H&V single.

To me the interpretation that Brian was confused and not able to pull it together is a myth. He had no more trouble pulling H&V together than he did GV. I say don't get confused by the label "part 2". Follow the two post-December master numbers because there are "part 2s" for side 1 and there are "part 2s" which is side 2 and the master number tells which is which. IMO and nobody knows.

[ash]

Think Andrew's correct with his "nobody knows" analysis.

Well of course, ultimately, he's correct, but what's the fun of just saying "nobody knows"?

i just tried saying "nobody knows" a couple of times and it wasn't any fun at all. While the electrician re-wires my house tomorrow i'm going to listen to all the Heroes sections on the box set, sit down at the piano and speculate furiously. Now that's fun fun fun.
Unless the electrician goofs and tries to put a part where it shouldn't go and zaps my power. I wouldn't want to start thinking i started that fire somehow mystically so I've asked him to split the house into 2 parts. Part one will be virtually all the rooms on it's own board. Part 2 will be for the studio but i haven't decided what other sections of the house to put on that part of the board yet.  It could just be a stand alone board or consist of various parts from the rest of the house.

Good night