Here's a SMiLE Rearrangement Ive been working on. Feedback appreciated.

[Mujan, 8@$+@Rc| of a Blue Wizard]

When it comes to SMiLE, the only two things we can be 100% certain of are Prayer serving as an intro to the album

I'm not even convinced of that. Siegel describes a piece that must have been Our Prayer being played last when BW demos the smile acetates for him. And vosse also describes a piece very similar to op as closing out the album after surfs up. Granted, neither of the are a smoking gun, but the point is I don't think any part of smile is 100% certain not even our prayer as intro. I struggle to hear it as a good precursor to heroes which is the accepted first main track of most smile mixes. I do think our prayer moves exceptionally well into GV which makes me wonder if GV was to be the first track of the album after Prayer IF that was to be the intro. Definitely feel GV is smile through and through. I think the lyrics throw people. Each to their own.

Well, you've pretty much proved my point then. Nothing about SMiLE is completely certain, there's no one definitive cut. I get that many of you disagree with me on GV, but as you say, to each their own. If I couldn't convince you guys to see with me eye to eye on that, I hope perhaps I was able to get you to consider other possiblities regarding this music. Like, a two suite album is probably more realistic than a three suite, CIFOTM doesn't have to be just an intro to Surf's Up, H&V doesn't all have to be crammed together at the beginning of the album and wear out its welcome as an 8 minute mess, the tracks we typically consider "elements" sound just as good if not better when they're split up as opposed to be their own suite...etc, etc.

[Mikie]

 But I don't think there's any reason to think it [Good Vibrations] would not have been on Smile.  Why have the title plastered across the cover artwork if it wasn't going to be on there?  The cover doesn't say "Barnyard, Barnyard, Barnyard!"  For better or worse GV's inclusion definitely seems part of Brian's plan.

Right!

[Mikie]

As for the album cover, personally I always took it as a play on words (it's advertising the good "vibrations" or songs within the album, not necessarily GV itself) and a reminder to buyers that this isn't the 'fun in the sun' beach boys of 63. They made the far-out, psychedelic symphony, GV. And there's more of that to come within the album.

Again. While eating dinner with Frank Holmes in San Francisco in 2004, he told me that Good Vibrations was going to be on the Smile album. No speculation! Frank said he was at at least one of the Good Vibrations sessions and taking drives up and down the street with Brian smoking a J in a convertible. I believe Frank. The reason for the title "Good Vibrations" being included on the front cover was to help promote the album!

But you can do whatever you want - it's a free country. My only question is why you would "cut" such a great song like "Good Vibrations".  To me, to say something like you had to "cut" Good Vibrations is like saying, "Well, I had to cut Colin Kaepernick from the 49ers or cut Russell Wilson from Seattle or Peyton Manning from Denver" with no good reason for it. Song went to #1 and it gets "cut"? Naaaaahh.

Here's the one I've listened to lately. It's got Good effing Vibrations on it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_569114557&feature=iv&src_vid=Sj49oNbCFXQ&v=8-zve4GqQhg

[Mujan, 8@$+@Rc| of a Blue Wizard]

As for the album cover, personally I always took it as a play on words (it's advertising the good "vibrations" or songs within the album, not necessarily GV itself) and a reminder to buyers that this isn't the 'fun in the sun' beach boys of 63. They made the far-out, psychedelic symphony, GV. And there's more of that to come within the album.

Again. While eating dinner with Frank Holmes in San Francisco in 2004, he told me that Good Vibrations was going to be on the Smile album. No speculation! Frank said he was at at least one of the Good Vibrations sessions and taking drives up and down the street with Brian smoking a J in a convertible. I believe Frank. The reason for the title "Good Vibrations" being included on the front cover was to help promote the album!

But you can do whatever you want - it's a free country. My only question is why you would "cut" such a great song like "Good Vibrations".  To me, to say something like you had to "cut" Good Vibrations is like saying, "Well, I had to cut Colin Kaepernick from the 49ers or cut Russell Wilson from Seattle or Peyton Manning from Denver" with no good reason for it. Song went to #1 and it gets "cut"? Naaaaahh.

Here's the one I've listened to lately. It's got Good effing Vibrations on it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_569114557&feature=iv&src_vid=Sj49oNbCFXQ&v=8-zve4GqQhg

I really don't see why you have to be so disrespectful about it. It's a goshdarn SMiLE mix, there are no rules. I chose to do something different. I'm not asking you to consider mine the one true version of the album, but maybe if you could stand to not listen to GV for a mere 48 minutes you could give it a shot and tell me if there's anything you do like about it. Y'know, be a respectful adult, not a whiny brat complaining about something as silly as this.

[SMiLE Brian]

You can't please everybody (or yourself) with a smile mix. I liked you did something different with your mix.

[Mujan, 8@$+@Rc| of a Blue Wizard]

You can't please everybody (or yourself) with a smile mix. I liked you did something different with your mix.

Thank you. I got bored with the plethora of mixes that are more or less the exact same thing since '04. I noticed that anytime I tried to intro someone to SMiLE they lost interest between the overlong versions of H&V, all the fragmentary songs in the beginning, the disconcerting shift in tone between Surfs Up's somber poetry and Vega-Tables' upbeat humor, and GV usually comes off as an anticlimactic, unrelated to anything else finale.

I tried to remedy these issues by mixing up the track order, cutting the fragments in favor of beefing up the main tracks with outtakes from the sessions, and cutting GV in favor for songs they would fit thematically. Personally, I think Surfs Up works much better as a finale.

[Summertime Blooz]

Thanks for sharing, Mujan! I bet you had a blast making this Smile mix. I think a case can be made for Good Vibrations fitting in thematically with Smile. Consider this: Smile might have been envisioned not only as a journey across the American frontier, from Plymouth Rock to the Sandwich Isles, but a journey through time as well. A nation growing from a child to adulthood. In that context, the #1 hit Good Vibrations may have represented the youth culture "now" of the journey's end that began so long ago. If you are willing to buy into this line of thought, it makes for a perfect song to follow Surf's Up, a song about ringing out the old guard. The classical "man and baton" makes way for  a new kind of music, and, more broadly, a new outspoken wave of social conscience. The ever-popular December '66 tracklist submitted to Capitol has GV following Surf's Up, and I feel that the album was planned that way. In my mind the two songs belonged together. So, while GV may not seem on the surface to mesh with the rest of Smile lyrically, I guess I'm with those who have posted here that they really can't imagine Smile without GV being a part of it. Coming soon, another Smile mix:

Till then, keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.

[buddhahat]

As for the album cover, personally I always took it as a play on words (it's advertising the good "vibrations" or songs within the album, not necessarily GV itself) and a reminder to buyers that this isn't the 'fun in the sun' beach boys of 63. They made the far-out, psychedelic symphony, GV. And there's more of that to come within the album.

Again. While eating dinner with Frank Holmes in San Francisco in 2004, he told me that Good Vibrations was going to be on the Smile album. No speculation! Frank said he was at at least one of the Good Vibrations sessions and taking drives up and down the street with Brian smoking a J in a convertible. I believe Frank. The reason for the title "Good Vibrations" being included on the front cover was to help promote the album!

But you can do whatever you want - it's a free country. My only question is why you would "cut" such a great song like "Good Vibrations".  To me, to say something like you had to "cut" Good Vibrations is like saying, "Well, I had to cut Colin Kaepernick from the 49ers or cut Russell Wilson from Seattle or Peyton Manning from Denver" with no good reason for it. Song went to #1 and it gets "cut"? Naaaaahh.

Here's the one I've listened to lately. It's got Good effing Vibrations on it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_569114557&feature=iv&src_vid=Sj49oNbCFXQ&v=8-zve4GqQhg

I really don't see why you have to be so disrespectful about it. It's a goshdarn SMiLE mix, there are no rules. I chose to do something different. I'm not asking you to consider mine the one true version of the album, but maybe if you could stand to not listen to GV for a mere 48 minutes you could give it a shot and tell me if there's anything you do like about it. Y'know, be a respectful adult, not a whiny brat complaining about something as silly as this.

I think because you stated with so much certainty that GV wasn't meant for smile you are getting these reactions. His anecdote about frank Holmes is interesting and good evidence (along with the front cover text) that GV was intended for the album. Much that I try to leap to Mikie's defense as little as possible, I don't think it's  fair to call him a whiny brat for pushing his point.

I'd be interested to check out your mix though. Will listen when I get a chance.

[soniclovenoize]

Just for the record I was surprised Gould Salutations wasn't here, I didn't care either way.  It's your mix, you can do what you want!

[The Demon]

Hey, Mujan--I got to listen to side two (I chose that first because it had a lot of my favorite pieces).  Your mix has a wonderful flow.  The segues between tracks like "Wonderful," "Child," and "Look" were inventive without being cumbersome or too busy.  I think you found a great balance between having a straight, 12(ish)-track mix, akin to what probably would have been released in 67; and those kitchen sink mixes, which can be pretty inventive even though they do go overboard.  Mixes like this certainly show that cohesion and concision were what Smile needed.

And I agree that the 2 sides work better than 3 suites.  While I love each suite, I always feel like the album should end around "Surf's Up."  Not that "Surf's Up" should be the final track, just that that is a satisfying length for an album.  Enough to dig into, but not so much that it loses all sense of structure.

[Mikie]

I think because you stated with so much certainty that GV wasn't meant for smile you are getting these reactions. His anecdote about Frank Holmes is interesting and good evidence (along with the front cover text) that GV was intended for the album. Much that I try to leap to Mikie's defense as little as possible, I don't think it's fair to call him a whiny brat for pushing his point.

Exactly, Buddhahat.  Thanks for that. 

[Mitchell]

How many non-album singles did the Beach Boys have by the end of '66? (rerecordings don't count). I guess there was a recent example with Little Girl I Once Knew...

[18thofMay]

Look, Listen, Vibrate , SMiLE......

A SMiLE mix without Good Vibrations on it is not a SMiLE mix, its is just a mix of songs from around the SMiLE period.

[The Demon]

Look, Listen, Vibrate , SMiLE......

A SMiLE mix without Good Vibrations on it is not a SMiLE mix, its is just a mix of songs from around the SMiLE period.

And one without "Look"?

[Mujan, 8@$+@Rc| of a Blue Wizard]

Thanks for sharing, Mujan! I bet you had a blast making this Smile mix. I think a case can be made for Good Vibrations fitting in thematically with Smile. Consider this: Smile might have been envisioned not only as a journey across the American frontier, from Plymouth Rock to the Sandwich Isles, but a journey through time as well. A nation growing from a child to adulthood. In that context, the #1 hit Good Vibrations may have represented the youth culture "now" of the journey's end that began so long ago. If you are willing to buy into this line of thought, it makes for a perfect song to follow Surf's Up, a song about ringing out the old guard. The classical "man and baton" makes way for  a new kind of music, and, more broadly, a new outspoken wave of social conscience. The ever-popular December '66 tracklist submitted to Capitol has GV following Surf's Up, and I feel that the album was planned that way. In my mind the two songs belonged together. So, while GV may not seem on the surface to mesh with the rest of Smile lyrically, I guess I'm with those who have posted here that they really can't imagine Smile without GV being a part of it. Coming soon, another Smile mix:

Till then, keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.

I appreciate your different take on GV and its place in the SMiLE Era. But I disagee. Good luck on your new SMiLE mix.

[Mujan, 8@$+@Rc| of a Blue Wizard]

Look, Listen, Vibrate , SMiLE......

A SMiLE mix without Good Vibrations on it is not a SMiLE mix, its is just a mix of songs from around the SMiLE period.

Look, I'm sorry I committed the great, unspeakable attrocity of leaving GV out. But how about we drop the hyperbole, eh? It's one song from an era that produced dozens. So all-encompassing is the SMiLE era that songs before and after it get thrown in as well.

[Mujan, 8@$+@Rc| of a Blue Wizard]

I think because you stated with so much certainty that GV wasn't meant for smile you are getting these reactions. His anecdote about Frank Holmes is interesting and good evidence (along with the front cover text) that GV was intended for the album. Much that I try to leap to Mikie's defense as little as possible, I don't think it's fair to call him a whiny brat for pushing his point.

Exactly, Buddhahat.  Thanks for that. 

Yes, and thank you for turning a simple difference of opinion into a stupid contest. If I say you win, will you feel better?

[Mujan, 8@$+@Rc| of a Blue Wizard]

Just for the record I was surprised Gould Salutations wasn't here, I didn't care either way.  It's your mix, you can do what you want!

I appreciate your maturity and open mindedness about it.

[Mujan, 8@$+@Rc| of a Blue Wizard]

As for the album cover, personally I always took it as a play on words (it's advertising the good "vibrations" or songs within the album, not necessarily GV itself) and a reminder to buyers that this isn't the 'fun in the sun' beach boys of 63. They made the far-out, psychedelic symphony, GV. And there's more of that to come within the album.

Again. While eating dinner with Frank Holmes in San Francisco in 2004, he told me that Good Vibrations was going to be on the Smile album. No speculation! Frank said he was at at least one of the Good Vibrations sessions and taking drives up and down the street with Brian smoking a J in a convertible. I believe Frank. The reason for the title "Good Vibrations" being included on the front cover was to help promote the album!

But you can do whatever you want - it's a free country. My only question is why you would "cut" such a great song like "Good Vibrations".  To me, to say something like you had to "cut" Good Vibrations is like saying, "Well, I had to cut Colin Kaepernick from the 49ers or cut Russell Wilson from Seattle or Peyton Manning from Denver" with no good reason for it. Song went to #1 and it gets "cut"? Naaaaahh.

Here's the one I've listened to lately. It's got Good effing Vibrations on it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_569114557&feature=iv&src_vid=Sj49oNbCFXQ&v=8-zve4GqQhg

I really don't see why you have to be so disrespectful about it. It's a goshdarn SMiLE mix, there are no rules. I chose to do something different. I'm not asking you to consider mine the one true version of the album, but maybe if you could stand to not listen to GV for a mere 48 minutes you could give it a shot and tell me if there's anything you do like about it. Y'know, be a respectful adult, not a whiny brat complaining about something as silly as this.

I think because you stated with so much certainty that GV wasn't meant for smile you are getting these reactions. His anecdote about frank Holmes is interesting and good evidence (along with the front cover text) that GV was intended for the album. Much that I try to leap to Mikie's defense as little as possible, I don't think it's  fair to call him a whiny brat for pushing his point.

I'd be interested to check out your mix though. Will listen when I get a chance.

He's not a whiny brat for pushing his point. He's just very closed-minded and ornery about different interpretations of the album. As I've conceded, there's a valid case for GV being on SMiLE. But, again, there's valid reasons to keep it off as well. But to say a SMiLE mix with GV is the only acceptable way, and my work isn't worth listening to because of that is pretty childish. At the end of the day, nobody can be absolutely certain what SMiLE would've been. I'm sick of all the virtually identical Tracklistings since '04 because "that's the way Brian did it." Yes, and that setlist was great. Doesn't mean there aren't other ways to sequence a mix.

I'm not adamant that GV isn't a SMiLE song per se. Just that it doesn't fit on my mix, and I try to leave it off my mixes as an example that the album can and does work without it.

[Mujan, 8@$+@Rc| of a Blue Wizard]

Hey, Mujan--I got to listen to side two (I chose that first because it had a lot of my favorite pieces).  Your mix has a wonderful flow.  The segues between tracks like "Wonderful," "Child," and "Look" were inventive without being cumbersome or too busy.  I think you found a great balance between having a straight, 12(ish)-track mix, akin to what probably would have been released in 67; and those kitchen sink mixes, which can be pretty inventive even though they do go overboard.  Mixes like this certainly show that cohesion and concision were what Smile needed.

And I agree that the 2 sides work better than 3 suites.  While I love each suite, I always feel like the album should end around "Surf's Up."  Not that "Surf's Up" should be the final track, just that that is a satisfying length for an album.  Enough to dig into, but not so much that it loses all sense of structure.

I really appreciate that. That's what I was going for. Trying to bridge the idea of a simple 12 track album as VDP said it'd be, and an album length GV with modular editing and cohesive flow. So, rather than throwing every last modular feel together in the arbitrary 3 suites, I tried beefing up the core tracks and fitting them together by what sounds good together not "well, everyone else puts Vega-Tables right after Surf's Up...so I will too!"

I'm happy with the results, even if I committed the great sin of leaving GV off.

[leggo of my ego]

I never include GV in any of my SMiLE mixes. It was released way back in '66, with a b-side of a Pet Sounds rerelease, more or less exactly as Brian intended, and it doesn't fit, musically or thematically, into SMiLE at all.

When Brian Wilson finished SMiLE in 2004 - and he told us he FINISHED it - he closed the album with "Good Vibrations".

Indeed, Good Vibrations is the Light at the end of the tunnel.

I do like the treatment at the end of Wind Chimes except the fade is too jarring. Needs to be spaced apart a few more secs. Good Job

[Mujan, 8@$+@Rc| of a Blue Wizard]

Thanks for sharing, Mujan! I bet you had a blast making this Smile mix. I think a case can be made for Good Vibrations fitting in thematically with Smile. Consider this: Smile might have been envisioned not only as a journey across the American frontier, from Plymouth Rock to the Sandwich Isles, but a journey through time as well. A nation growing from a child to adulthood. In that context, the #1 hit Good Vibrations may have represented the youth culture "now" of the journey's end that began so long ago. If you are willing to buy into this line of thought, it makes for a perfect song to follow Surf's Up, a song about ringing out the old guard. The classical "man and baton" makes way for  a new kind of music, and, more broadly, a new outspoken wave of social conscience. The ever-popular December '66 tracklist submitted to Capitol has GV following Surf's Up, and I feel that the album was planned that way. In my mind the two songs belonged together. So, while GV may not seem on the surface to mesh with the rest of Smile lyrically, I guess I'm with those who have posted here that they really can't imagine Smile without GV being a part of it. Coming soon, another Smile mix:

Till then, keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.

I believe I owe you a better answer. Your reply was well thought out and deserves a similarly weighted response. I don't believe GV fits. It's about the good vibrations felt with a loved one. SMiLE is the bad vibrations felt when looking at society. From the exciting (yet deadly) wild west, to the western expansion that burned down the church of the American Indian. All for some fertile farmlands to grow...dare I say it...Vega-Tables. It ends with us coming back to the present wild west...reflecting on the fact that, for better or worse, this land we've given our kids is built on horrors and misgivings. Yet the music goes on, in a celebratory, almost matter-of-factly way. What you make of that knowledge is your concern.

And Side Two moves us to the present with a new narrator looking back with less scope chronologicaly, but greater focus on the details of one or two individuals. There's also less scope but greater detail spatially, as this narrator tells of the details around his home and the nearby ocean, not the Americas. From nostalgic memories of wind chimes to the idea that your childhood raises your adulthood, to a girl who lost her innocence to a "nonbeliever" and subsequent soul search (Look) then back to water, in which burns are soothed, from which life begain. Our narrator is back to the present, this time nostalgic for the outdoors. A quick prayer for inspiration and our narrators back to  the present  expunging his own revelations on life in Surfs Up.

I guess you could say the Beach Boys released an EP along with the album with alt. GV takes on one side and Brian's original idea for "The Elements" on the other, as a third suite in the sixties. But that means only the last minute of Fire as we know it today, a flighty piano theme (not Wind Chimes), water sounds from nature spliced together (Not In Blue Hawaii) and god only knows for the Earth element (certainly not Vega-Tables.)

But as far as the album goes, it's all the vibrations (good and bad) that Brian feels looking back on society both at large and in depth, not love for a woman...that's not the theme of these two suites. There's allusions to it, you could argue that Side One's narrator is looking back on society because he blames it for his wife's death. While Side Two's narrator looks back to the past to escape society and then remembers something bad happened to a young woman he knew (perhaps loved?) and comes to the ultimate realization that the only thing pure in life is the innocence of children. But how easily, devastating, it is when it's taken away and it will determine how you become a man. There's no room for GV on either side, musically or thematically it doesn't fit anywhere.

The "Third Suite" could be the EP, and serve as a bridge or unifying theme of love and the eternal, universal elements. Some things cross over generations...

[Mujan, 8@$+@Rc| of a Blue Wizard]

I never include GV in any of my SMiLE mixes. It was released way back in '66, with a b-side of a Pet Sounds rerelease, more or less exactly as Brian intended, and it doesn't fit, musically or thematically, into SMiLE at all.

When Brian Wilson finished SMiLE in 2004 - and he told us he FINISHED it - he closed the album with "Good Vibrations".

Indeed, Good Vibrations is the Light at the end of the tunnel.

I do like the treatment at the end of Wind Chimes except the fade is too jarring. Needs to be spaced apart a few more secs. Good Job

^Ah, now this is what I like to see. Constructive critisism. Thank you for that suggestion.

[18thofMay]

Re: Here's a SMiLE Rearrangement Ive been working on. Feedback appreciated.

My feedback is that it is ridiculous not to have Good Vibrations on any SMiLE mix as previously stated.

[Mujan, 8@$+@Rc| of a Blue Wizard]

Re: Here's a SMiLE Rearrangement Ive been working on. Feedback appreciated.

My feedback is that it is ridiculous not to have Good Vibrations on any SMiLE mix as previously stated.

Well, I disagree. Care to convince me otherwise? Or just the usual lackluster "look listen vibrate smile!" schtick? I get that it's a good song and has been included on many (but not all) versions of SMiLE. But...there are other ways to do SMiLE. I wanted to focus on the core tracks of the era, not something that had already been released on its own terms, apart from the SMiLE music proper, without Van Dyke's involvement and without any thematic or musical ties to either side.

No one here is saying GV isn't a good song. But it's better as a standalone single, in my opinion. Not as a tacked-on selling point to an already tight album that flows musically and thematically without it.